School-Based Game Circling Curriculum For Metacognition Development In Chinese Preschoolers:A Quasi-Experiment Study

Metacognitive activities are higher-level cognitive activities that take their own cognitive activities as the object of consciousness,as well as it is a reflection process of one’s own cognitive activities,and it plays an important dominant role(e.g.monitoring,correction,evaluation)in individual daily life and learning activities.Metacognition is one of the key abilities of students to adapt to the future society and an extremely important predictor of academic performance.Therefore,the development of metacognitive abilities in kindergarten is crucial.However,teachers in kindergartens pay less attention to children’s metacognition and neglect the cultivation and development of children’s metacognition ability,which largely restricts the development of children’s metacognition.At the same time,the relevant research content in China is not rich enough,and there is a lack of empirical research,which cannot provide a reference for the metacognitive teaching of front-line preschool teachers.In order to develop a practical curriculum for improving children’s metacognitive ability,this study designed a “Circling Curriculum for Metacognition Training”(CCMT)based on the teaching model of "Anji Play",which advocates to stimulate children’s active reflection on their own cognitive activities through observation,sharing and interpretation.The curriculum for improving children’s metacognitive ability organically combines children’s autonomous game circle and teachers’ metacognitive guidance circle.With a 12 week intervention to test the impact of the curriculum on children’s metacognition.This study adopts a quasi-experimental design,taking two Upper classes of children in a kindergarten in Hangzhou as the research objects.For the experimental group,the intervention project of CCMT was implemented on the basis of routine teaching,and the control group only received routine teaching without other intervention.The results indicated that:(1)The Circling Curriculum for Metacognition Training promotes the development of young children’s metacognitive abilities.There are significant differences between the experimental class and the control class in the metacognitive knowledge;in on-line metacognition,there are significant differences in the dimensions of planning and monitoring,and the experimental class is lower than the control class in the debugging dimension;in off-line metacognition,there are significant differences in off-line metacognition total score and evaluation dimension.(2)After three months of intervention,the children in the experimental class were able to use metacognitive knowledge flexibly in a variety of situations,their planning ability was enhanced,they were able to formulate reasonable plans and follow them;their awareness of monitoring was enhanced,and the problem-solving process was more effective;they learned more new problems solution strategy.(3)The reflective dialogue between teachers and children,the observation records of teachers and the “play story” in "Anji Play" are effective ways to promote the metacognitive ability of 5-6-year-old children.Through the reflection and summary of this practical research,the following educational suggestions are put forward:(1)Promote metacognitive development in games;(2)Metacognitive interventions should be flexible and targeted;(3)Combination of visual recording and peer discussion;(4)Improve teachers’ metacognitive ability and reflection level.