Applications of Cognitive Learning Theories in Today’s Technology Rich Classrooms

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Jean Piaget (visit http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/piaget.html for his biography) who was born at 1896 interested in learning process and development of thinking. He conducted a research and labeled his framework as “genetic epistemology”. Piaget studied about the intellectual development of a human being starting from birth and focused on cognitive structures which are defined as; “patterns of physical or mental action that underlie specific acts of intelligence and correspond to stages of child development.” In his theory, Piaget stated that there  is four main cognitive structure namely sensorimotor stage (0 to 2 years), preoperational stage (3 to 7 years), concrete operational stage ( 8-11 years) and formal operational stage (12 -15 years) (Genetic Epistemology, n. d.).  Cognitive theory accepts learning as a mental activity, and relates learning with age, information processing, and making connections.

James Hartley (Smith, 1999) identified the most important properties of learning according to the cognitive theory and stated the following:

·         Instruction should be clearly structured. Subject matters are said to have inherent structures - logical relationships between key ideas and concepts - which link the parts together.

·         The perceptual features of the task are important. Learners attend selectively to different aspects of the environment. Thus, the way a problem is displayed is important if learners are to understand it.

·         Prior knowledge is important. Things must fit with what is already known if it is to be learnt.

·         Differences between individuals are important as they will affect learning. Differences in 'cognitive style' or methods of approach influence learning.

·         Cognitive feedback gives information to learners about their success or failure concerning the task at hand. Reinforcement can come through giving information - a 'knowledge of results' - rather than simply a reward.

From Teachertube Videos (http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=53591)

In summary, cognitive theory says that children learn with processing information, and there are three steps. First, brain receives information via senses such as smelling, listening, watching or feeling. Second, brain processes this information in short-term memory. After process, brain may store this information into long term memory with a lot of connections, with a few connections or may not store at all (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).  These steps are similar to the computers. Computers receive inputs from software, process this information in CPU and store in ram, and save the information into the hard disk if you click save button. If you forget to save, you cannot get that information back. If the software was not well-written, processing may be slow and computer may crash. Similarly, students can understand and save information in to their long term memory if this information was well-organized, clearly connected and received from multiple sensors. Thanks to technology and computers, using cognitive theory in the lesson is easier than before, and there are lots of applications of cognitive theory with using cognitive tools. You can find two of them below.

Cues, Questions, and advance organizers.

Cognitive theory states that students learn better when the topic is well organized and more input and connections between information pieces are provided. Accordingly, one of the best cognitive practices is using advance organizers to organize the lesson. Advance organizers are lesson outlines that teachers give to the students at the beginning of lesson (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). These outlines are especially important to connect prior and new knowledge, and connect the information pieces to each other. Before, teachers were using A1 size papers, pictures, photos and drawings to prepare advance organizers. Today, thanks to technology there are lots of educational technology tools that we can use to prepare well-organized, engaging, multimedia rich and different kinds of advance organizers. For instance, teachers can give cues and topic related questions to the students, and ask them to do a research and gain background knowledge. Students can use this knowledge to create more connections while learning. Another method can be preparing a brochure, booklet, chart or tables about the topic (Pitler, et al, 2007). Students may use those materials to prepare themselves to the lesson and figure out the connections between concepts easily. Most importantly, teachers may create mind maps with using online websites such as Webspiration and Bubbl. You may visit http://www.professorarnold.net/6711.htm for a tutorial about how to use those two websites.

Cognitive theory says that students learn when they transfer their knowledge from short term memory to long term memory. More importantly, students need to link pieces of information with each other. Without connections, brain cannot reach  the information and students cannot remember. Research (Ausubel, 1978) says that advance organizers are so effective in creating connections and learning new concepts. There are different kinds of advance organizers such as expository, narrative and graphic advance organizers (Pitler, et al, 2007). While preparing advance organizers keep in mind that you need to ask essential, analytic questions that elicit inferences. Additionally, you should let students discuss and think before answering questions (Pitler, et al, 2007).  Finally, teachers can create so attractive advance organizers with using software, multimedia and office tools. You may visit eHow  and National center on accessible instructional materials websites for more information about advance organizers.

Summarizing and note taking.

According to the cognitive theory, our short term memory can process seven plus or minus two pieces of information at any given time. Additionally, brain needs time to process information, make connections and transfer it to the long term memory. The reason is, brain does not save the same information again and again. Instead, brain records same information pieces only once and create connections between prior information pieces when a chunk of new information is received (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). Its working principle is similar to the indexing system and page rank system of Google, and this is why Google is the best search engine (Wikipedia, 2011). Accordingly, students cannot process all the information in class and must take notes to process information later. To do this, students have to separate the information pieces that are taught in the lesson and process them later. To achieve this goal, students should be able to identify, summarize and note down the important points of the lesson. Additionally, each lesson has important information that students must learn and memorize, and other information that are given to support the main idea or to engage students to the lesson. Therefore, students must know how to analyze given information and record only the necessary items. These notes should be used to process information pieces later and to strengthen connections with reviewing before tests (Pitler, et al, 2007).

Students cannot note down everything that they heard, watched and felt if they are not using a pen shown in video above. Therefore, students must know how to summarize the lesson. Deleting the unnecessary and repeated information, replacing specific words with known and general ones and identifying the main ideas of the lesson are essential steps of summarizing (Pitler, et al, 2007). Students can use word processing tools to summarize articles and research papers that they read. Additionally, students may take visual notes with using concept maps. While taking notes in a lesson, students must note down the answers of main questions such as the topic and statement of the lesson, main problems, possible solutions and best solution for the problem (Pitler, et al, 2007). There are different types of information, and students must adapt different techniques to summarize and note down this information. Some of the education technology tools that students can use are; Microsoft Word to summarize texts and articles, Microsoft Visio to create concept maps and prepare a visual network between information, Powerpoint to create a multimedia rich summary of projects, wikis to share and create summaries as a group and blogs to archive all notes in Internet (Pitler, et al, 2007).

In conclusion, cognitive theory is a very effective learning theory especially when technology is integrated. Cognitive tools (Cognitive Tool, 2009) can be used to ease the learning process, organize the information, and provide dual coded information. Therefore, I strongly advise all teachers to use cognitive tools and find a way to integrate technology into their classrooms. Because, children are our future and they deserve a better education.