**3. Findings**

Our findings show that 15 of the leaders we have interviewed recognized the value of metacognitive teaching in learning and instruction:

*We really really want to be there [i.e., to engage in metacognitive thinking]. We are aiming at it. We want very much to be there.* (#7).

*I wish, I wish it [i.e., metacognition] would have been implemented in all schools.* (#17).

*Metacognitive processes are really important… Because at the moment you are engaging in a metacognitive process you secure the strategy and you make it possible to transfer it to another domain…/ You need it [the metacognitive process] in order to acquire a thinking skill and to transfer it from one domain to another.* (#2).

Yet, although the majority of the participants recognized that metacognition is indeed valuable for their program, only four of them reported that their programs currently apply metacognitive teaching in classroom learning and instruction. A number of participants reported that metacognition is part of their PD. Participants reported that the major reason for the unsatisfactory implementation of metacognition was teachers' fragile knowledge.

#### **3.1. Teachers' fragile metacognitive knowledge**

In total, 15 interviewees noted weaknesses in teachers' knowledge regarding metacognition, referring to two different elements: knowledge of metacognition and pedagogical knowledge concerning how to teach metacognition. Participant #4 noted that teachers are ill-informed in this area and don't know how to apply metacognition in the classroom *(teachers did not understand it at all).* He continued by explaining that:

*This whole idea of metacognition is something you really need to understand. That students actually need to think about what they are doing, before, while and after [engaging in a thinking task]. This whole thing… It is something that [teachers] first need to study, to understand from a theoretical point of view, and then to connect it to whatever they do….*

In her response to a question about metacognition, participant #14 noted that:

*Earlier this year I gave a talk in a professional development workshop for "X" teachers ["X" stands for a particular school subject]. I was shocked to discover that although it appears in the textbook [for students], some teachers don't know anything about it.*

Participants also addressed the type of knowledge teachers need in order to apply metacognition in class. Although they did not use the concept "pedagogical knowledge in the context of metacognition," they had in effect referred to the meaning of this concept and to its relationship to metacognitive knowledge, expressing the idea that teachers must first gain metacognitive knowledge before they can start teaching it:

*….The teacher needs to understand the process before she starts teaching it….* (18).

*I think teachers did not feel confident in this area… They did not… and even those who did try to…/ It was not based on comprehension…/ You cannot engage in metacognitive thinking on a process that you do not really and truly understand… or that you are fully clear about… And that you are deeply involved with and you know what it entails… What it means from an instructional point of view….* (#15).

*They don't teach metacognition in the relatively simple way metacognition appears in the teaching unit…. Teachers themselves don't know how to use it….* (#14).

Participants therefore see teachers' fragile knowledge of metacognition as an inhibiting factor in their ability to teach metacognition, even when they are using learning materials that were specifically designed to teach metacognition and even when such learning materials are rather simple.
