Intelligent novice

Delayed Feedback To Enhance Student Metacognition: Creating Intelligent Novices
According to the research paper called Fostering the Intelligent Novice: Learning From Errors With Metacognitive Tutoring by LearnLab:"…immediate feedback can negatively impact learning in two ways:""First, it could obscure important task cues — that is, learners may come to depend on feedback to assess progress on tasks instead of cues inherent in the natural task environment (metacognitive monitoring).""Second, feedback could prevent important secondary skills from being exercised. Implicit in the guidance hypothesis is the idea that immediate feedback may promote the development of generative skills. Generative skills are skill components that are involved in selecting and implementing problem solving operators in specific task contexts.""However, evaluative skills — skills called for in evaluating the effect of applying problem solving operators, correcting errors, and monitoring one’s own cognitive process — may go unpracticed (metacognitive evaluation)."So, what do we mean by “intelligent novices”? In short, intelligent novices are capable of detecting and correcting their errors. Let’s take a look again at our metacognitive components:

Metacognitive knowledge means knowledge about oneself and how cognition works;

Metacognitive regulation means regulation of one’s cognition in order to control their learning;

Metacognitive experiences means knowledge of when one’s own thinking works or doesn’t work

Again, we can see how intelligent novices satisfy all three metacognitive components:

The intelligent novice knows how cognition works (well enough) in order to detect and correct errors;

They can regulate their cognition and take some time to reflect in order to allow themselves the time required to ask themselves questions such as “Have I done everything right?”;

And they know whether their thinking works or doesn’t work i.e. applying the same way of thinking to an error would produce the same error.

Further, metacognitive regulation can be broken down into three components:

Planning → “Where and how do I find information for my homework?”

Monitoring → “How efficiently am I finding information” or “How well am I understanding this information?”

Evaluating → “What is the quality of my final product? And how efficiently did I produce it (in comparison to other students)?”

If we apply these to the intelligent novice we get:

Planning → “Where and how do I find information to seek and correct my potential errors?”

Monitoring → “How confident am I about my task-performance?” and “How many errors have I already made?”

Evaluating → “What is the quality of my final product?”"Simply said: When in doubt, choose delayed feedback."