Know When to Use Each

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Strategy Knowledge & Use in 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

Owning a strategy is not the same as knowing when to reach for it. Winne calls this conditional knowledge, and argues it is what separates skilled learners: not a bigger toolbox, but a better sense of which tool this task calls for.

That means teaching the cues, the features of a task that signal which method fits, and not just the methods themselves.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

The teacher shows two worked cases side by side: a vocabulary-heavy topic matched to flashcards and spaced review, and an essay question matched to planning plus self-explanation. The question to the class is not "what are these methods?" but "what was it about each task that made that the right match?"

Try it

A way to begin

Next time you name a strategy in class, add the when: the one or two task features that make it the right call here.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Pupils' answers to "why this method for this task?". Feature-based answers are conditional knowledge arriving.
• Strategies misapplied with full confidence, flashcards aimed at essay skills, say. The method is fine; the matching is the gap.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• Conditional knowledge grows from comparing cases, so one example is not enough; contrast is what makes the cues visible.
• If your class keeps a strategy reference sheet, add a when column to it. The cue belongs next to the method.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• 📚 Know the Strategy Itself Flavell: students cannot deploy a strategy they have never been taught. Teach retrieval, spacing or self-explanation explicitly as named methods before expecting independent use. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Strategy Knowledge & Use
• 📜 Pick a Strategy on Purpose Flavell: planning means selecting an approach, not defaulting to one. Have students name which method they will use for this problem and why, before the first line goes down. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Forethought & Planning
• 🧹 Keep What Works, Drop the Rest Winne: learners refine an approach by checking whether it worked. Have students trial a study method, judge it against results, and keep only what the evidence supports. 06 Metacognition & Self-Regulation · Strategy Knowledge & Use
• 🧪 Study Strategy Audit Dunlosky's review rated ten strategies: re-reading scored low; practice testing scored highest. Ask students how they revise, then show them the data. That conversation is the intervention. 01 Retrieval Practice · Metacognition & Calibration

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

Winne's account of self-regulated learning gives conditional knowledge, knowing which strategy suits which conditions, the deciding role in whether regulation actually helps. The card’s attribution stands as published: Winne.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Metacognition & Self-Regulation.