Why Teachers Need Metacognition Training?

The goal of this paper is to explore the cognitive and metacognitive skills of teachers engaged in cognitive training. One of the best-known stand-alone cognitive programs is "Instrumental Enrichment." (IE) developed by Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, and Miller. Similar to other cognitive programs, the main emphasis on IE research has always been on the change that occurs in students' performance. Little is known of teachers' acquisition of IE problem-solving skills and even less of their metacognitive performance associated with this acquisition. In the present study, 28 teachers were pre-and post-tested before and after 90 hours of I E training. The tests included items similar but not identical to those used during the I E training. The analysis of pre-test problem solving demonstrated that a relatively large number of teachers experienced difficulty in solving at least some of the IE tasks. The even greater difficulty was observed in the teachers' articulation of their problem-solving strategies in a written form. The comparison of pre-and post-test results indicates statistically significant improvement not only in the teachers' cognitive problem solving but also in their metacognitive skills. These changes, however, did not reach the level of a complete cognitive or metacognitive mastery. The possible reasons for differences in the two sub-groups of teachers are discussed.