Muse, I did check my latest edition of AHD and was gloriously gratified in not finding metacognition listed even now.

One problem with education that the pedagogues point out is teachers tend to question at Bloom's lower levels.

Regurgitation of facts. Musical level one puzzle: Name the letters found in scales. Answer: a, b, c, d, e, f, g (We won't get into sharps, flats, and, heaven forbid, "h's" since that would open a can o'worms). Said student at this level has no comprehension; said student is simply regurgitating a through g.

Level two puzzle: Identify the circled pitches on this treble staff. Answer: Said student names the circled pitches.

Level three puzzle: Identify the series of pitches that move in a scale pattern on the staff. Answer: said student perhaps draws a line around the scale patterns and, being a good student, includes no repeated tone or skips.

Level four puzzle: Analyze the similarities between the melody in Example A and the one in Example B. Answer: Student notes that both examples repeat a given phrase four times.

Level five puzzle: The student is instructed to create a melody in which repeated tones are followed by ascending or descending scale patterns. Answer: Student creates the overture to "William Tell." (I'm exaggerating.)

Level six puzzle: Student is instructed to listen to a short piece of music and to evaluate whether the work was too repetitive in use of scale patterns or effective. Student makes the judgments and includes numerous examples to back up the argument.

Metacognitive theory (and I'm not a specialist...just a student myself here) would suggest that at every level, the student is taught how to examine his/her own thinking so that new questions and curiosity about the subject matter are created, efficiency and retrieval are improved, doubts may be recorded and expressed, and an exchange of ideas with other learners will be increased.

In numerous studies, it has been suggested that productive thinkers have a "habit of mind" of examining how they have come to believe what they believe and how, when they are incorrect in their thinking, they are not defeated, but energized to work out their problems. Failures are short-lived and often point the way toward new successes. Metacognitive theory encourages educators to teach their students to examine more closely how they reach conclusions, to analyze their conclusions, to correct mistakes, to ask more questions, to avoid jumping to conclusions, and to enjoy the liberty of changing their minds when the evidence points them in new directions.

This is the subject in a nutshell.

Best regards,
A resident nut, Wordwind