What are the Implications for Instructional Design?

The discussion of the elements of metacognition and metacognitive strategy transfer begs the question "What are the implications for instructional design?" For the instructional designer the issue is "not leaving the learner adrift in a sea of content without the tools to be successful" (Schwier in Anglin, 1995, p. 123). The following suggestions derived from the foregoing discussion offer designers practical ways to maximize metacognitive strategy transfer and thus equip learners with the appropriate navigational tools to reach shore.

• To minimize cognitive load and counter the argument that "Metacognition is open to the objection that thinking about thinking is a disruptive process because of excess cognitive load." (Nisbet in Maclure & Davies, 1991, p184), designers should ensure that embedded strategies can be readily accommodated. If not, detached content-dependent strategies may be used and should be automatized before applying in context.
  
• Metamemory strategy design should explicitly guide young or novice learners with deficient metamemory skills. Embedded content-dependent strategies incorporating manipulation of lesson content and structure are more effective than just knowing about strategies. Examples include chapter summaries, overviews, sequence and relationship cues, and study questions.
  
• Metamemory strategy instruction should focus on person variables and perceived self-efficacy to foster the desire to invoke strategies independently.
  
• Older and expert learners with more sophisticated metacomprehension skills benefit from integrative strategies employing implicit content manipulations. Design might include a rationale for use and indicate other potential applications. Embedded content-independent strategies that could be used include generative summaries and questions and generic self-monitoring checklists.
  
• Designers interested in promoting far transfer should use detached content-independent strategies. Design should emphasize independent strategies without reference to specific tasks. Reciprocal teaching, paraphrasing, and analyzing ideas are useful. However, if strategies must be embedded designers should identify the strategies that can serve as models for use in other contexts.
  
• To encourage high-road transfer, defined by Perkins and Salomon (Costa, Bellanca, & Fogarty, 1992) as the effortful, deliberate search, selection, and application of a principle, designers need to help students build or activate a schema in order to integrate new with existing knowledge. Embedded prompts requiring students to predict events may be used; alternately detached strategies may focus on establishing relationships.
  
• To promote self-sufficiency, designers must inform learners about why, when, and how to use strategies. Metamemory skills are most likely to be maintained and transferred when learners are knowledgeable about their value and potential for use. The goal for the designer is to encourage independent activation of strategies.
  
• Metacomprehension strategies are improved when supported by guidelines indicating what is to be comprehended and how to assess comprehension. Designers must always beware of the cognitive load placed on learners. If it cannot be minimized, detach the teaching.
  
• External prompts such as analogies and generation of hypotheses serve to promote self-regulation and help learners monitor methods and depth of processing. The designer must help learners acquire not only skills but also autonomous control of skills such that few, if any, external prompts are needed. To wean students from external cues designers can help learners identify appropriate activities and invoke relevant metacomprehension strategies.
  
• Design should encourage social interaction. Procedures such as reciprocal teaching may promote self-regulation through natural dialogue employing embedded summaries, questioning, or predicting.
  
• Detached content-independent strategies may be adapted to support local content and still teach highly transferable strategies.

Examples of instructional methods supporting metacognitive strategy transfer were given in the above implications for design. The scope of this paper did not permit a more exhaustive look at this area. Osman and Hannafin (1992) offer further examples and numerous others were encountered in the course of research. Two books, practical in nature, for designers, educators, and learners are:

• Becoming a Master Student (Ellis, 1991).
• Self-Talk for Teachers and Students (Manning and Payne, 1996).

In summary, it's clear that for effective transfer metacognitive strategies must be taught. Instructional designers need to be cognizant of what is being transferred, in what way, to what extent, and most of all, how to effect all of the above. It's time to let go of the notion that transfer is a side-effect of teaching, what Perkins and Salomon refer to as the Little Bo Peep model (Costa, Bellanca, & Fogarty, 1992).

David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon (Costa, Bellanca, & Fogarty, 1992, p. 208)