Chapter 6: Cognitive Learning

What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning?

 

The definition that best explained cognitive learning for me personally was “the procedures we have for manipulating information “in our heads.” I think of the ways I process and interpret the information I receive in the form of written words, sounds, and visuals. The items that stick are most likely because I connected them to previous knowledge or they instantly appealed to my interests. Thus far I like the idea of children constructing knowledge rather than absorbing. Because of this, I really like the idea that students receive these streams of educational information and go on to interpret it based on former knowledge and the way in which they view the world. I want to teach my students (no matter the grade) to learn to think for themselves both critically and analytically. I like the idea of open discussion. I know in my experience I remember more based on a flow of ideas within a group rather than reading from a textbook. It also helps me evaluate and choose what I agree with and what I want to challenge. I want my students to be open minded and realize they create knowledge.

Because people are naturally selective of what they choose to mentally process due to the overflow of information, I do not want to bombard them with textbook work. I want to encourage group work, debate, and problem solving. One thing I found in the text that I definitely want to employ within my own classroom is meaningful learning because it “involves recognizing a relationship between new information and something already stored in long-term memory.”  I believe ways that contributes to capturing things in my long term memory were visuals, songs and mnemonic strategies. I want to teach things to my students that will be sure to stick!

 

 

How might your knowledge of the memory processes guide your instructional decisions?

 

My knowledge of memories has enhanced tenfold since I was presented the two teacher projects on cognitive processes and memory. I know the sensory register holds information in basically its original form, but I know that is for a short time and can change over time. I know just like the game telephone, students are not going to save everything just the way they hear it. Any key words or information that they can relate with will likely stick better in one’s minds. This was pointed out in the first teacher project. It was stated that if a visual appealed to your interests, you were more likely to make a connection and store that image. As a teacher I want to do my best to create activities that are relatable since the long term memory “is interconnected.”  What I do not want to do is encourage rote learning which attached no meaning to itself. This was so often my experience in elementary school that I feel like I missed out on some very valuable knowledge.

 I want to use a variety of methods to help information file itself away in the long term memory. I want to utilize mneomnic devices which has always proven helpful for my own remembering. I am also a big fan of remembering through song and rhyme and other creative measures. For example, I remember that the element Gold is Au on the periodic table due to this joke: Silver walks up to Gold in a bar and says, "AU, get outta here!"  My biggest tip to my students will probably be cues through association. I think these things most easily come back to our minds because we can so quickly identify with them. I want to use fun and catchy tios like these that are fun and interactive ways that can be repetitively used in the classroom.