The model of teacher as researcher can be largely traced back to the work of Stenhouse (1975) and over recent years there has been sustained interest in the process and impact of developing a research-engaged teaching profession. This has led to a range of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the topic. Dagenais et al., (2012) found that practitioners with an inquiry standpoint were more likely to have positive views of research and therefore were more likely to use it to inform their practice. McLaughlin et al.’s (2004) state that there are three overlapping purposes evident in the teacher research tradition: (1) research and enquiry undertaken for primarily personal purposes; (2) research and enquiry undertaken for primarily political purposes; and (3) research and enquiry undertaken for primarily school improvement purposes. Where teachers are involved in these kinds of research engaged practices then the teachers can be seen to generate a more sophisticated and metacognitive (Author et al. under review) understanding of the ecology of learning, can develop cultures of risk taking that moves practice forwards, accept challenge and change, can facilitate the change processes for others and thus develop an 'ecological agency’ that is catalytic of change (Leat et al., 2014: 8).

In addition to teachers as researchers we will focus on learning, on metacognitive-based pedagogies: learning to learn. The need to develop metacognitive awareness in students (Higgins et al., 2013) and to develop 21^st century learning skills, competencies and dispositions, has been relatively consistent since the turn of the 21^st century; all be it with different names and emphasis. The way in which this might link with teachers’ engagement with research however is underdeveloped. Vermunt and colleagues have argued that this is arguably ironic considering the core business of schools is learning and what we know about patterns of student learning (Vermunt and Endedijk, 2011), yet we do not translate this knowledge to teacher learning. How different can it be?

As far back as 1987, Wittrock suggested that teachers’ thinking could influence their students thinking, which in turn could impact attainment outcomes, yet there has been limited research to explore this relationship or the impact of teachers’ metacognitive awareness on their students’ thinking and learning development. There are some researchers taking steps towards this. Wilson and Bai (2010) asserted that teachers should have a pedagogical understanding of metacognition, model thinking approaches and ensure problem solving is transparent and explicit by providing an account of how metacognitive pedagogical knowledge is reliant on metacognitive awareness of self. Soodla, Jõgi & Kikas (2016) found that teachers’ metacognitive knowledge of reading strategies was significantly related to their students’ metacognitive knowledge and highlighted the importance of teachers’ metacognitive knowledge in students’ metacognitive knowledge. In addition, Portilho and Medina (2016) have argued for metacognition as a methodology for professional learning, providing a productive space for teachers to evolve and take an active stance in their learning about practice. Yet empirical examination of this and associated process is lacking.

In this paper we will explore what we understand happens when when the trajectories of student and teacher learning are drawn together under an enquiry focus into metacognitive-based pedagogies. We aim to highlight important questions about the role that teachers who are engaging in research that targets metacognitive development might have as ‘learning coaches’ for their students (Bull and Gilbert, 2012), as well as presenting their perspective on their own learning about the teaching and learning process which we thing deserves greater examination and discussion. 

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