Abstract:
The main claim of the paper is that metacognition plays a major role in teachers’ work. The theoretical background of the analyses is the one embracing a cognitive view in instructional psychology. The starting point is the specificity of social changes that happens between the last two centuries, called information revolution. Two qualitatively different outcomes of this revolution in various aspects of life, including education, are discussed and illustrated by N. Postman’s statement ,,each technology is at the same time a burden and a blessing”. Following analyses are concentrated on chosen effects of the scientific and technologic development, and especially on the phenomenon of information overproduction. Next cognitive barriers in information processing, resulting from the functional properties of attention and memory, are presented. Problems in constructing own knowledge, a necessary condition of effective behavior regulation, are stressed. This regulation concems every phase of human functioning, from orientation through planning and realizing action, to the assessment of its results. The main conculsion is that teacher’s metacognitive competences are nowdays an especially important element of his/her work. While technology oHers an unlimited access to information, only by a hard effort of the mind it is possible to transform information into knowledge, being an important element of individual’a experience. Teacher’s role is then to help students in planning and realizing their cognitive activity, which must include the selection of information, the connection of data from various sources and their integration with prior knowledge.
