Cognitivism In Practice

Cognitivism can be described as "a mental operation that takes place when information enters through the senses, undergoes mental manipulation, is stored, and is finally used"(Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). It is centered around information processing and how one remembers and recalls information.

One instructional topic that incorporates technology that was mentioned in this weeks resources was Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers. This includes "the technologies that support cues, questions, and advanced organizers to assist teachers in quickly capturing student responses and organizing the responses into useful information"(Pitler, et.al., p.75, 2007). In my classroom, I tend to lean heavily on cues because as my students perform a skill with their body they usually need an easy way to remember the steps or progressions of the skill. I also use lots of questioning in my classroom because I don't see my students every day that they come to school. I have tried to follow the Bloom's Taxonomy progression of asking questions in the classroom; however, I have never had the opportunity to have my students check out some of the websites presented in Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski's book, "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works". Using advanced organizers can be very help too and my school has access to programs such as Kidspiration, Inspiration, and various video resources such as United Streaming. These tools give students and teachers the ability to "integrate multiple senses in lessons and presentations, which improves learning" (Orey, Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). Furthermore, these tools support cognitivist theorist ideas about dual coding and elaboration.

Another instructional topic that incorporates technology that was mentioned in this weeks resources was Summarizing and Note Taking. This "focuses on enhancing students' ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form"(Pitler, et.al., p.119, 2007). The cognitivist approach stresses elaboration, which is the method used when learning information that will be stored long term. This is not something that I focus on a lot in my classroom because my students are "learning to move and moving to learn" so they are rarely summarizing or note taking (with pencil and paper or on a computer). However, I do feel that my students visually internalize information and take notes, and if asked questions they could summarize the information presented in class. One idea that was presented in the book that I'd like to try with my students is creating a blog site for my students to interact with each other. As stated in this weeks resource, "blogs can provide a very effective way to implement the strategy of reciprocal teaching" which focuses on "summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting"(Pitler, et.al., p.137, 2007).

Concept Mapping and Virtual Field Trip are two great ways to engage students in learning while allowing students to use technology. Concept Mapping is a great way to organize ideas, and it also provides connections between concepts that students can easily see. "It helps visualize ideas and it is a good replication of the network model of memory"(Orey, Laureate Education, Inc., 2009). Virtual Field Trips (VFT's) are another excellent tool for classroom use because they can take you to places that you can't go in real life. They create an experience that is as close to real life as possible without being real life, and this correlates with cognitivists ideas about eposodic memory and dual coding.


References

Laureate, Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Cognitive Learning Theories. [DVD]. Baltimore, MD.

Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. Alexandria, Virginia: Ascd.