Thinking+About+Our+Thinking+(Metacognition)

**Thinking About our Thinking (Metacognition)** Metacognition requires you to think and evaluate why you made one decision and how you reached a conclusion.

During our kinetics unit, we had to design another experiment that tests one of the three properties of kinetic theory that would increase a rate of reaction. In my experiment, I decided to test whether or not increasing temperature also increases the rate at which magnesium dissolves. My reasoning for choosing this property was that I believed it would have been the simplest property to test in that the procedure would have been easily understood and carried out. In my mind at the time, I easily pictured beakers on a hot plate being heated up at different temperatures and me just dropping the magnesium in and recording the time. I did not choose the test the surface area because I believed that calculating the surface area of a substance and manipulating it would have been more complex than just altering temperature. I honestly don't know why I didn't choose to test concentration looking back. From now, it seemed like the most simple, pure experiment choice as all I had to do was get different concentrations of an acid and record the time in which magnesium dissolved, yet I was so stuck and fixed on the idea that I really didn't want to try any other method. In my head I only searched for evidence to go against testing any other property. However it turned out that there were a lot of other factors that were hard to control and resulted in a more complex experiment than that I had hoped for. For example, it is impossible with the equipment I had to keep a substance at a constant temperature. Also, it took some time for the hot plate to heat up the substance to the temperature that I wanted. Even though I tried to find the most simple, least complex experimental procedure for this task, I ended up with one more complex and flawed. Looking back, this experience was very enlightening. Actually, it just reminded me of a weakness of mine, which is to overestimate the extent to which a decision or a certain method will work out and succeed. It was actually not that smart to try and manipulate temperature because of the time it took to heat the beaker. There was also a lot of experimental error in my data because of the variation in temperature. I hope that this experience has taught me to think more realistically and less idealistically. In the future my metacognition has to improve with considering all possible factors of a situation. I have to know that things will never turn out perfectly and therefore always tune my expectations down a bit. In the future when I hold a job and have a career, it will be very important for me to be able to evaluate all the risks and factors of a predicament and be able to make a realistic decision that yields the expected results.