Metacognition: Strategies for 'Fourthought.'

The brain's architecture serves as the basic model for theorizing about how the brain works. Current brain research confirms earlier suspicions that thoughtfulness has a great deal more complexity than the simplistic left/right distinctions of earlier research. This paper draws on the work of Carl Jung to propose the brain-psyche model as an interpretive tool to improve instruction. Curriculum goals based on this model (which delineates the intuitive-thinking, intuitive-feeling, sensing-thinking, and sensing-feeling learning styles) are provided. These include understanding critical thinking, hypothesizing, and concept development; and synthesis creativity, valuing, problem solving, and aesthetic judgment. The paper also presents some metacognitive principles for learning, including: (1) the brain is a quadrilateral performer and effective learning occurs when the student is challenged to respond on all levels; (2) learning involves the entire psyche, of which the body is a part; (3) learning content that has "meaning" requires the learner's verbalization; (4) learning academic content requires that the brain be simultaneously relaxed yet alert; (5) learning for recall requires patterning; (6) learning requires conscious self-management; (7) learning requires dealing with resistance; (8) learning is its own reward; (9) learning begins with the recognition of affect; (10) metacognitive capacity begins with self-knowing; and (11) learning is for the sake of self-discovery. (Contains 27 references.) (WJC)