As a developmental psychologist, Flavell’s interest lay with the all-encompassing nature of metacognition. He started with the notion of metamemory, defined as the “monitoring and knowledge of (memory) storage and retrieval operations” (Flavell, 1971, p. 277). As an umbrella term, bridging over cognitive and affective processes, the notion Flavell developed of metacognition then evolved to include: (i) Knowledge of something, (ii) Experience that develops in the process of knowing about something, and (iii) Actions that encompass knowing about best learning modes and strategies (Flavell, 1979). Let’s see all three illustrated: Imagine guiding your students over a class on pronouns. It may contain a definition, some examples, and practice tasks; these would be the “Knowledge” part. As an informed teacher, you know that practice needs to be interwoven with “aha moments” for students to notice that they are indeed learning about something. This usually takes the form of constructive, corrective feedback. This is the “Experience” part. At the end of the session of pronouns, you know that experiences differ between students so you create moments of reflection, like the thinking habits of TPS (think-pair-share) or “Before I thought that, now I know that…” when students realize that there are actionable steps in the form of strategies and routines that work best for them at different moments. This is the “Actions” part.  

From then on, related concepts emerged, such as metacognitive awareness that became the key to understanding how one self-regulates one’s learning, as it involves cognitive monitoring. Perhaps it helps to think of it as a play; it is only when one’s knowledge gets center-stage that action unfolds, and one can get a seat at the back to enjoy the experience.

In 1981, Flavell developed a model of metacognitive knowledge (about a task, a person, or a strategy) and metacognitive experiences (relative to the same roll)—which are two interrelated constructs that develop together—based upon cognitive strategies and cognitive goals employed when we plan, monitor, and evaluate. For instance, in relation to metacognitive knowledge, a student may know lots about “making an introduction,” as in what to say and do when making an introduction—that is declarative knowledge. They may also know each step of the process of making introductions—that is procedural knowledge. Indeed. both types of knowledge–declarative and procedural–are important to reach the goal of making introductions. But their confidence may falter when they have to make introductions in a formal setting as opposed to their [familiar] informal, classroom setting—that is conditional knowledge, dependent upon skills, actions, and strategies to be applied in different contexts and for different reasons and that may demand a set of particulars (like procedures) to be successful, i.e., the goal has changed.