The Most Useful Question in Learning May Be: “How Do You Know?”

A child says:

“I understand.”

Maybe they do.

Maybe the page simply looks familiar.

Learning improves when students gain tools to check the difference.

Thinking About Thinking

This is part of metacognition: thinking about and managing one's own learning.

The Education Endowment Foundation describes effective metacognitive learning as involving skills such as planning, monitoring and evaluating.

Those words sound academic.

In a classroom they can be very simple.

Before a task:

• “What is the goal?”
• “What strategy might work?”

During the task:

• “Is this approach working?”
• “Where am I stuck?”

Afterwards:

• “How could I check my answer?”
• “What would I do differently next time?”

Thinking Aloud in Class

Teachers can model this by thinking aloud.

Instead of simply solving a problem, the teacher says:

“I know I need to find X, but this information is distracting. I'm going to underline the two facts I actually need.”

Students hear the thinking that experts usually perform silently.

Questions to Ask at Home

Parents can do something similar without turning homework into another lesson.

Ask:

• “How do you know?”
• “What have you already tried?”
• “Where could you check?”

The goal is not to withhold help when a child truly needs it.

It is to avoid doing all the thinking on their behalf.

Independence does not begin when adults disappear.

It begins when children gradually acquire the questions adults used to ask for them.

Sources & further reading

• Education Endowment Foundation — Metacognition and Self-Regulation
• Harvard Center on the Developing Child — Building the Core Skills Youth Need for Life