**4. Institutional metacognition: methodology for the development of a cycle of continuous improvement**

One of the most appropriate forms of school management is from the view of the continuous improvement cycle, as a logical structure of management. In fact, many school programs, projects, and policies are found designed under this work structure, within which the educational improvement plans [51]) and institutional education projects [52]) stand out. Thus, it is proposed that the institutional metacognition must be applied in the way it is related with the management structures, adding the metacognitive component to each step of the improvement cycle: determination of the current situation, determination of the desired situation, design and implementation of the action plan, monitoring and evaluation [53].

It is important to emphasize that this idea of change based on the learning of the educational organization and its teams is not limited to a specific group of people, but affects the institution in general, through a metacognitive training that allows access to a higher level of awareness that occurs in the institution. As [47] points out, it is necessary to know the school culture in order to be able to then transform it, and this shared knowledge is a good starting point for a global change in the institution. The approach is to promote new ways to be a school; to understand it as an organization that learns and implies new forms of management and school cultures that place its managers, teachers, and students as authentic protagonists of

Therefore, according to [48], the schools present the need to learn; therefore, it is convenient to analyze the obstacles that exist to be able to produce the said learning. This author emphasizes (op. cit) that an educational institution closed to learning, hermetic, comfortably settled in routines will inevitably repeat the mistakes of the past so that it will neither learn

To improve the processes of an institution, the development of the critical and transformative rationality over the traditional emphasis of the mere technical and practical role is vital [49]. In this way, institutional metacognition emerges as a tool that allows educational improvement, from the generation of a cooperative and trusting work climate, and through the conscious dialog, inquiry processes emerge about the most pertinent initiatives linking the different actors of the educational community. The reflection on the practice, thus, seeks to promote self-transformation through substantive changes in one's own practice, based on the ques-

For [48], schools are institutions that tend toward routine, for which the institutional metacognition sets up, then, an inquiry method that seeks to break with the ways of doing and thinking of the school. It is positioned in a reflective transformative approach that questions those traditional practices that are reproduced in an uncritical form. The emphasis here is on

In this way, the IM encourages and maintains the change of the educational institution, serving as its base the strengthening of the democratic processes and the participatory management. For the educational managers, the support provided by the IM is relevant, due to the fact that the changes can be organized in cycles of improvement, which, being complemented by the participatory and reflective instances of this methodology, grants its greater meaning

**4. Institutional metacognition: methodology for the development of a** 

One of the most appropriate forms of school management is from the view of the continuous improvement cycle, as a logical structure of management. In fact, many school programs, projects, and policies are found designed under this work structure, within which

tioning of everyday personal conceptions and discourse [50].

and relevance to the management.

**cycle of continuous improvement**

the importance of knowledge management in educational establishments.

institutional making.

10 Open and Equal Access for Learning in School Management

nor change.

These steps, more than a linear sequence, correspond to a spiral of improvement in the management [54]. What characterizes this process is that at the end of each step of the improvement cycle the construction of meaning and analysis must imply a joint view between all of the community actors, so that a conclusion can be drawn up at the institutional level, having as its backbone the common convergences and perspectives of each aspect, but not discarding the dissent.

The first step, called determination of current situation (see **Figure 1**), seeks to detect, analyze and problematize the main improvement needs of the institution. In essence, the central problems must be defined, identifying their causes and consequences for the community, with an emphasis on the impact on learning [54]. It is also relevant to ask if these situations are of recent origin or have crawled on for a certain amount of time, whether they affect all or part of the school community, whether they are permanent in time or arise during particular moments, and if there have been previous attempts to solve it, both in the organization itself and in others with similar characteristics [55].

**Figure 1.** Institutional metacognition in a continuous improvement cycle (own elaboration).

So, the institutional metacognition can be used as a methodological perspective in the process of analysis of the problems and improvement needs of the school community, with the objective of generating a process of institutional self-knowledge. For this, the traditional forms of information gathering, like the data analysis, professional reports, interviews, survey, etc., must be accompanied by moments of group reflection. Additionally, to favor the quality of the reflection, it is important that a large level of participation and collaboration of all the actors exists during the information gathering.

On the second way, the more general, the same techniques for the previous steps can be used to favor the reflection of the implementation of the plan, contrasting the situation before, during and after the plan and, especially, determining consensual adjustment measures. Also, meetings can be held to exchange professional experiences regarding the process, in order to promote the exchange of knowledge and professional skills within the organization. This way, once the first work plan is completed, the improvement cycle can be reinitiated, incorporating the organizational learning achieved in the first instance and determining new aspects

Institutional Metacognition as an Improvement Tool for Educational Management

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Central to the development of institutional metacognition is the development of reflective instances during all the steps of the improvement cycle, which should be based on conclusions and decisions based on the informed participation of all actors and the establishment, seeking to establish consensus, but without losing awareness of the existence of elements of divergence, which can be kept as elements of an alternative plan, to be revised in the face of

Institutional metacognition (IM) is a methodology that allows for the development of the educational institution, based on the actions of participation and reflection by the school community. It is an innovative methodology since it allows for the joint development of the reflective process of educational practices and the diagnosis of conflict situations, with the participation and dialog necessary for the meaningful and democratic evaluation of the members of the

Although there are strategies that promote reflective processes in educational practices so that teachers can revise and modify their teaching practices and their previous knowledge, and there is a great tradition of action research that has been generated [49], these processes are usually worked independently and do not take advantage of the particularity of the col-

While originally the concept was thought of in the context of collaborative reflection for inquiry and improvement of school coexistence [5], and that similar concepts of organizational metacognition have been proposed, such as the process of recognition of knowledge networks in the management of organizational knowledge [36], the idea of institutional metacognition seeks to transcend these areas and is presented as a methodological perspective focused on the evaluation and improvement of situations that affect both learning and the school coexistence, thanks to the diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation processes

The advantages that can be derived from the IM are, in the first place, the value that is given to the participation as a fundamental element of learning and educational improvement. Even when there is an extensive literature pointing to the advantages of collaboration in learning and in processes of educational change ([43, 44, 49, 53, 57]; Salomon [44]), this aspect is

unexpected changes in the context, the implementation, or the results.

laborative and decision-oriented reflection given by the IM.

in participatory and reflective instances [6, 8].

to be improved for a second plan.

**5. Conclusions**

educational institution.

An example of this is the implementation of reflective encounters within and between the different actors of the school community (teachers, managers, students, parents, educational assistants, etc.), both before and after the application of more traditional forms of self-exploration, with the aim of analyzing the problems that affect the community, with emphasis on those of greater relevance for the whole community. As it has been reviewed, the consecution of this learning requires a collaborative advisory and development process, for example, in the action research perspective where the critical friend role emerges [43, 56, 57]), which operates like a collaborator that through dialog that favors educational improvement provides continual feedback about the factors that create obstacles or that promotes educational development [58].

A second step of the improvement cycle corresponds to the determination of the desired situation, which consists of reaching agreements regarding the objectives and goals to be achieved, which must be the values and behaviors expected in the members of the school community, which allows us to overcome the problem situation detected in the previous phase. In order to do this, the IM perspective can promote the use of techniques such as discussion groups, assemblies, surveys, essays and debates, always constructing a final conclusion as an organization, highlighting convergences and divergences.

Once the current and desired situations have been clarified, the organization must develop an improvement plan. Like all planning, it should contain actions, people responsible, timelines and resources for its execution [54]. In this aspect the institutional metacognition can be taken advantage of by the same techniques as in previous steps, being careful that the plan maintains its participatory character. It is essential in this regard to provide the opportunity for all actors to propose ideas, present previous experiences, investigate experiences of other organizations and consult other institutions. It is recommended to keep a record of all the divergent proposals, which were discarded in the generation of the plan for not achieving consensus, being that during the execution of the plan, elements, situations and unexpected results could arise, which require making modifications to the plan and can then incorporate elements that were not considered in the initial plan.

The fourth step is the monitoring and evaluation of the plan; it is here that the institutional metacognition, especially the community self-regulation, plays a fundamental and enriching role for the improvement of the organization. The process must be carried out in two ways, on a focused way and a general way; on the focused way, we refer to the exercise of reflections and self-regulation regarding the implementation of a specific improvement plan and its established ways to deal with emerging situations in the processes of change. It is important in this process to have an accompaniment during the observation of situations and subsequent reflection with the agents involved, both individually and in small groups.

On the second way, the more general, the same techniques for the previous steps can be used to favor the reflection of the implementation of the plan, contrasting the situation before, during and after the plan and, especially, determining consensual adjustment measures. Also, meetings can be held to exchange professional experiences regarding the process, in order to promote the exchange of knowledge and professional skills within the organization. This way, once the first work plan is completed, the improvement cycle can be reinitiated, incorporating the organizational learning achieved in the first instance and determining new aspects to be improved for a second plan.

Central to the development of institutional metacognition is the development of reflective instances during all the steps of the improvement cycle, which should be based on conclusions and decisions based on the informed participation of all actors and the establishment, seeking to establish consensus, but without losing awareness of the existence of elements of divergence, which can be kept as elements of an alternative plan, to be revised in the face of unexpected changes in the context, the implementation, or the results.
