Performance and Metacognitive Skills of Grade 8 Students in Biology

Due to the pandemic, general loss of knowledge and skills have been prevalent and degrading in all parts of the world including our country. Learning poverty is gradually making its footprint on the field of education. To make things worse, scientific literacy is also downgrading. In lieu of these problems, the researchers have came up with an educational innovation with the type of assessment that can be used in remote distance learning. The use of “Metacognition” in the form of Learning Activity Sheets (LAS) in Biology was developed. These LAS uses 4 metacognitive skills namely: Awareness, Cognitive Strategy, Planning, and Self-Checking. Including in the study is a 45-item test and Self-Assessment Questionnaire, which showcased the performance and the level of Metacognitive Skills students of San Juan Bag-O High School (SJBHS) have exhibited. This has followed by a discussion about the reasons, which hinders the students to develop their metacognitive skills. Generally, the performance of Grade 8 students of SJBHS in Biology is 81.43%, which has a verbal description of Approaching Proficiency, which is moderately okay but is still near the verge of failing. Thus the proposed LAS, deems to change that fact by enhancing the metacognitive skills of the students that are innate in nature and are waiting to be developed.