The abrupt implementation of Distance Learning Modality brought a lot of concerns from the parents. The DLM forces the parents to become and act like the school teachers of their children. The main issue in this implementation is in situation where some parents are not capable of teaching the lessons of their children. How is it possible for the parents who cannot read and write to teach their child? How is it possible for the parents whose highest educational attainment is elementary and whose children are in high school? How about the parents who need to work for them to eat in one day? How can they manage their time to help their children? These are all concerns of parents regarding how the education can still be effective and efficient despite of all these gaps and issues.

All of the concerns of the parents can be solved through development of youths’ metacognition. Metacognition is about thinking about thinking. Yes, you read it right! It involves self-regulation and self-reflection of strengths, weaknesses and the type of strategies that can be used by the youth and their parents in doing their tasks. This means that the youth are developing ways to effectively and efficiently perform their tasks and learn their lessons. This would also mean that they are trying to acquire skills and competencies independently without the help of their parents.

Metacognition involves the knowledge, experiences and strategies of youth in acquiring skills. Metacognitive knowledge is an awareness of personal knowledge and competencies. Youth who are aware of their knowledge are able to provide and evaluate the things they had to do to adjust to the current task and lesson. It will also guide the youth in assessing their needs for support and guidance from their parents. This awareness allows the youth to become self-sufficient or dependent depending on the level of knowledge they have about the lesson.

Metacognitive experience is an awareness of one’s prior experience regarding the current knowledge. This is a process of relating experience to the new set of information or data. Awareness to their personal experience allows the youth to provide concrete examples of how the information can be learned or how the data can be stored in their memory. Metacognitive experience also allows the youth to have a more meaningful experience about the current lesson and topic. These will also allow the youth to easily store and retrieve information.

Moreover, metacognitive strategy is an awareness of the possible strategies that can be used to perform the task or store information. It also allows the youth to assess whether the strategy is effective in performing the task and acquiring new data and information. This will allow the learner to efficiently use their time to do and learn new things.

The metacognitive process can help the parent in dealing with some issues of distance learning. Metacognition development of youth may lead to learners’ independent learning. This means youth will be able to learn independently without the help of their parents. Youth are also not bound to do tasks and lessons reliant on the time given by their parents. Thus metacognitive process can lead to youth independency and development.

Paterno T. Padua, Jr.
Project Development Officer I