Participants in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest-Teagle Collegium on Student Learning examined recent work in the cognitive sciences, tested the theories through classroom interventions and experiments, and sought to improve student learning through the application of metacognitive practices. They focused especially on the importance of metacognition, which might be summarized as knowledge of one's own thoughts and the factors that influence one's thinking. Other researchers emphasize the ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate the learning process as key elements of metacognition. In creating scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects that documented their questions and interventions, and working as part of a group of scholars, collegium members reported becoming significantly more thoughtful about their teaching practice. The group found that metacognition was an effective tool for focusing students' attention more consciously on their learning and, ultimately, providing a means to encourage students to think about the larger purpose of their education. Perhaps as important, the collegium group found that by asking metacognitive questions of students, they became both more aware of their students' learning and increasingly self-reflective about their own teaching practices and effectiveness.