Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Cognitivism
One of the ideas behind cognitivism is that the process the mind goes through to learn can be changed and improved. The learning techniques suggested in the reading this week address this idea. The use of various different advance organizers provides a mental layout for students to follow in their learning. At first they are guided and shown exactly how to draw and fill in the graphic organizer. Eventually though the graphic organizer provides a pattern that the students can fill out on their own to help them organize their thoughts, or maybe some students don't even need the physical organizer anymore but the form has enabled them to organize their thoughts in a logical manner. The same idea applies for the many different summarizing and note taking strategies. You start out with a pattern for the student to copy so that when the pattern is taken away the mind has been trained to process information in an organized manner.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Students today are bombarded with information. So much information that they have a hard time deciphering the good from the bad. In our "get in now" society, some students simply don't know how to change and improve. Their role models on television never change and improve, so why should they. I agree with your point that it is our job to provide the necessary guidance and model effective education skills. I make it a point to share what I am learning in this class with my students. I demonstrate the new technologies and new tools we have learned. I also share my grades. I have a standing rule that if any student can achieve a higher score that me in a class, I will but them a juice drink at lunch. So far, I'm still winning. But it's nice to have a competition in class that revolves aroung academic achievement, not athletic achievement.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about patterns, I think that's where students have a hard time recognizing how things are arranged. After modeling and think-alouds, students are better able to understand the hierarchy that exists among concepts. I'm unsure why this is, because students work with patterns from a very young age. Perhaps as we get older and have more experience, we can just see connections more easily.
ReplyDeleteAccording for meaningful learning, whether through note taking, summarizing, or concept mapping, to occur, three conditions must be met. We, as teachers, must make the concepts clear. The learner must have prior knowledge to attach new learning to. The learner must purposefully choose to learn (Novak & Canas, 2008. Creating patterns definately supports the first two. How do we build the third?
ReplyDelete