Cognitive explanations of learning and approaches to teaching
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Transcript of Cognitive explanations of learning and approaches to teaching
COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS
OF LEARNING AND
APPROACHES TO TEACHING
Education Foundations, SecEd, Week 6, Semester 1, 2012
Cognitive views of learning• What is learning?• Cognitivist vs. behaviourist view• Three models
Information processing model
Constructivism• Individual / psychological constructivism
• Social constructivism
WHAT IS LEARNING?
Learning involves “the acquisition or reorganization of the cognitive structures through which humans process and store information” (Good and Brophy, 1990, p. 187).
Memory, conceptual learning, thinking, and problem solving
History and context
COGNITIVIST VS. BEHAVIOURIST VIEW OF LEARNING
LearningBehaviourism: Development of behaviour as Cognitivism: Transforming understanding
LearnerBehaviourism: passively influencedCognitivism: actively choose, focus attention, ignore, reflect and make goal-driven decisions
What are the patterns?
THREE MODELS
From acquisition of knowledge to construction of knowledge
Information processing model
Personal / psychological constructivism
Social constructivism
INFORMATION-PROCESSING MODEL: MEMORY Listen to the reading of two short
paragraphs. As I finish reading each paragraph, write down as much as you can remember from what you’ve heard.
IMPACTS ON MEMORY
Meaning-making Concentration and interference Rehearsal Contexts of learning and recalling Motivation
FROM EBBINGHAUS TO THE COMPUTER MODEL OF THE MIND
Hermann Ebbinghaus
FORMS OF INFORMATION PROCESSING Stage / multi-
store theory
Levels-of-processing theory
Connectionist theory
STAGE THEORY OF MEMORY Sensory memory / register
Salvador Dali’s Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire
Short-term or working memory
• Elaboration / organisation: -- Connecting the info to what you already
know• Rehearsal / repetition: -- Useful for retaining info you plan to use
and then forget• ‘Chunking’
Long-term memory
Executive control
USING THE INFO-PROCESSING APPROACH IN THE CLASSROOM (Krause, et al., 2011, p.207)
Principles Examples Focus attention
‘Let’s concentrate on this.’ ‘This is a key point.’ ‘If there’s one thing you need to get out of this lesson, it’ll be…’
Use prior learning
Review previous lesson; brainstorm ideas
Present information in an organised manner
Show logical sequence to concepts and skills;Move from simple to complex conceptsUse concept maps to help organise information
Teach cognitive and memory strategies
Demonstrate chunking and elaboration; Use mnemonic devices such as rhymes for memorising
Review and practice
Revisit and connect concepts learnt from many sessions
CONSTRUCTIVISM
An umbrella term referring to a vast range of different theories
Piaget, Bruner, Ausubel, Lave, Palincsar, and Dewey
Is Vygotsky a constructivist? (Liu & Matthews, 2005)
CONSTRUCTIVISM, CONT’D Learner are active in constructing their
own knowledge Social interactions are important in
knowledge construction Individual / psychological constructivism Social constructivism
INDIVIDUAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
Individual thinking and knowledge development Not concerned with the ‘correct’ knowledge but
with meaning-making Knowledge originated from reflecting and
(re)organising thoughts Discovery learning Inquiry and problem-based learning
DISCOVERY LEARNING (WOOLFOLK & MARGETTS, 2010)
Scenario: You are being interviewed for a job in a school with
students of a wide range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. The principal asks: ‘How would you teach abstract concepts to a student who just arrived in the country and can’t speak or read much in English?’
An example of a discovery learning lesson: What is fruit?
Phase 1: Presenting data and Identifying concept
Phase 2: Testing concept attainment
Phase 3: Analysis of thinking
1) Teacher presents examples
2) Students compare attributes in examples and non-examples
3) Students generate and test hypotheses
4) Students statge a definition according to the essential attributes
5) Students identify additional unlabelled examples as yes or no
6) Teacher confirms hypotheses, names concepts and restates definitions
7) Students generate examples
8) Students describe thoughts
9) Students discuss role of hypotheses and attributes
10) Students discuss type and number of hypotheses
Woolfolk & Margetts, 2010, p.306
J. Bruner
Learning focusing on essential structure of a subject matter
Students identify and discover key structures and principles by themselves
Inductive reasoning
Intuitive thinking
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
Knowledge is constructed from social interactions and experience
Learning is contextualised by social and cultural environment
Development is the appropriation of cultural tools of reasoning and acting
COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP
Cooperative and collaborative learning Situated learning and cognitive
apprenticeship Reciprocal teaching An example: Apprenticeship in
mathematics problem solving
REFERENCES Good, T. L. & Brophy, J. E. (1990)
Educational psychology: a realistic approach, 4th ed., Longman, NY.
Liu, C. H. & Matthews, R. (2005) Vygotsky’s philosophy: constructivism and its criticisms examined, International Education Journal, 6 (3), pp.386-399.
Perkins, D. N. (1991). Technology meets constructivism: Do they make a marriage? Educational Technology , May, 18-23.
Woolfolk, A. & Margetts, K. (2010) Educational Psychology, Pearson, NSW.