Metacognizant: Developing higher-order thinking skills

Metacognizant is an application integrated into the middle school classroom, designed to foster metacognitive awareness and positive identity development in a conscious manner. Research suggests that by deliberately exposing students to higher-order thinking strategies, we can begin to close the achievement gap in education. Taking advantage of the affordances of technology for efficiency and personalization, Metacognizant engages students in tailored, bite-size tasks (or ‘cogs’) inspired by best practices for teaching and learning. Cogs are structured around concrete artifacts of student learning (including video clips, photos, written work, and class discussions) to help students access these very abstract skills.