Information Technology Reference
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1996; Lajoie, 1993, 2000; Lajoie & Azevedo, 2006; Pea, 1985; Perkins, 1985) serve
as the foundational basis for the metaphor of computers as MetaCognitive tools. The
definition subsumes the characteristics of a computer as a cognitive tool, in that the
tool can (a) assist learners in accomplishing cognitive tasks by supporting cognitive
processes, (b) share the cognitive load by supporting lower-level cognitive skills so
that learners may focus on higher-level thinking skills, (c) allow learners to engage
in cognitive activities that would be out of their reach otherwise because there may
be no opportunities for participating in such tasks (e.g., electronic troubleshooting,
medical diagnosis; see Lajoie & Azevedo, 2006), and (d) allow learners to generate
and test hypotheses in the context of problem solving.
As such, a metacognitive tool is any computer environment, which in addition
to adhering to Lajoie's (1993) definition of cognitive tool, also has the following
additional characteristics:
(a) it
requires students to make instructional decisions regarding instructional
goals
(e.g., setting learning goals, sequencing instruction, seeking, collecting,
organizing, and coordinating instructional resources, deciding which embedded
and contextual tools to use and when to use them in order to support their learn-
ing goals, deciding which representations of information to use, attend to, and
perhaps modify in order to meet instructional goals);
(b) it is
embedded in a particular learning context
which may require students to
make decisions regarding the context in ways that support and may lead to suc-
cessful learning (e.g., how much support is needed from contextual resources,
what types of contextual resources may facilitate learning, locating contextual
resources, when to seek contextual resources, determining the utility and value
of contextual resources);
(c) it
models, prompts, and supports learners' self-regulatory processes (to some
degree)
which may include cognitive (e.g., activating prior knowledge, plan-
ning, creating subgoals, learning strategies), metacognitive (e.g., feeling of
knowing[FOK], judgment of learning [JOL], evaluate emerging understand-
ing), motivational (e.g., self-efficacy, task value, interest, effort), affective
(e.g., frustration, confusion, boredoom), or behavior (e.g., engaging in help-
seeking behavioral, modifying learning conditions, handling task difficulties
and demands);
(d) it
models, prompts, and supports learners (to some degree) to engage or par-
ticipate
(alone, with a peer, or within a group) in using task-, domain-, or
activity-specific learning skills (e.g., skills necessary to engage in online inquiry
and collaborative inquiry), which also are necessary for successful learning;
(e) it
resides in a specific learning context
where peers, tutors, humans, or artifi-
cial agents may play some role in supporting students' learning by serving as
external regulating agents;
(f) it is
any environment where the learner deploys key metacognitive and self-
regulatory processes prior to, during, and following learning
. As such, this
involves capturing, modeling, and making inferences based on the temporal
