Introducing cognitivism as a learning theory

Ndagire Kizito 27 February 2014

Introducing “Cognitivism”as a Learning Theory

Rita Ndagire Kizito

27 February 2014

[email protected]


About cognitivism

The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the dominant paradigm for understanding the learning process. The main argument was that instead of just studying responses to external stimuli, it was important to open the ‘black box’ of the human mind in order to understand how people came to learn. The exploration of what brought about inner mental activities and processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving was important and became the focus of educational psychological exploration.


About cognitivism

Cognition – from Latin base cognitio – “know together”.

A collection of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, and understanding as well as the act of using those processes.

How do these processes impact learning?


What does cognitivism embrace?

Learning theories which tend to occupy a psychological rather than a philosophical space

Concerned with explanations of how mental processes function. Asks questions such as: How do people perceive, remember, think and solve problems?

(.. to do with the brain

or mental functioning).


Learning model

Could be termed a “cognitive psychological learning “model:

It is positivist in its assumptions and methodology, separating knowledge from the knower and valuing the use of the scientific method to conduct and validate investigations and findings.

It is structural in its view of knowledge and learning using terms such as schema and schemata for representing and describing knowledge and the learning process.


What does this mean?

From a cognivistic perspective ( in simplistic terms): Knowledge is a schema consisting of

symbolic mental constructs. The learner is viewed as an information

processor (likened to a computer) Learning is the means by which a learner is

assisted in moving these constructs from the short term to the long term memory. This results in a change in the learner’s schemata.


Some contributors to the cognitive psychological learning model

Willhelm Wundt who started the first psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. He believed in developing of introspection as a means for studying the mind." Though he was not specifically involved in the field of Educational Psychology, he began the study of the mind.



Ulric Gustav Neisser (1928 2012), a German-born American psychologist and member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He played an important role in the development of cognitive science and the shift from behaviorist to cognitive models in psychology.


Some contributors…

Sensorimotor

0-2 years

Exploration through senses: taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell

Pre operational

2 – 7 years

Development of language and thinking skills, ability to focus on self

concrete 7 - 12 years

Seeing the world in relation to others, not just self, beginning to develop logical thinking

formal operational stage

12 - adult

Developing both logical and abstract thinking. Thought process changing.

Jean Piaget theorized about the four stages of Cognitive Development.


Some contributors…Piaget

Assimilation occurs when a person perceives a new object in terms of existing knowledge.

Accommodation occurs when you modify existing cognitive structures based on new information.

Equilibration includes both assimilation and accommodation and is considered the master developmental process.

Piaget also believed that a child who hadn't completed certain developmental stages could not learn things from higher developmental stages. For example, a child who had not learned language could not think logically.

Three major concepts when dealing with changing ingrained schemes.



Gagne, psychologist linked to army training in the army, studied learning and transfer. Introduced the field of instructional design with a process, preparation, acquisition , transfer. In a book - Conditions of learning.



Gagne, Briggs, Wager (moving toward cognitive constructivism).



Ausubel - advance organizers materials presented before information is introduced.

connect new knowledge to old knowledge.

add meaning to new content.



…“ learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” ( 1984, p. 38).

A holistic perspective that combines experience, perception, cognition and behavior.

Kolb - Experiential Learning Theory



Merrill (1983) claims that associative and algorithmic memory structures are directly related to the performance components of Remember and Use/Find respectively. Associative memory is a hierarchical network structure; algorithmic memory consists of schema or rules.

Component Display Theory


Some contributors to the cognitive psychological learning modelCharles Reigeluth posited an instructional design model to help select and sequence content in a way that would optimize attainment of learning goals. It is holistic and fosters meaning-making and motivation. It allows learners to make many scope and sequence decisions on their own during the learning process.

Reigeluth, C.M. (1999). The elaboration theory: Guidance for scope and sequence decisions. In C.M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory. (Volume II). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.


It is not only in education -Other areas: Computer Science- Artificial

Intelligence Neuroscience Psychology – Cognitive

Psychology Philosophy Linguistics Anthropology, and Education

Learning is now supported by current research in areas such as cognitive neuroscience, which addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain and could affirm evidence of psychological brain states having some relation to mental states.


So what is the role of the educator?

Attention getter, sets expectations, organizer, connector and repeater

Creates opportunities for rehearsing, encoding

?


And what do the students do? Mentally process, store,

locate and produce responses.

Question, think, generate new knowledge, learn to work with others.

Become self-motivated As a result create new

evolving schemata.


Where is cognitivism useful in the teaching/ learning contexts? Learning complex

systems/issues Learning processes

…. In labs, etc. Generating ideas


What does teaching from this approach entail?a) Presenting the learner

with challenging environments.

b) Linking new knowledge to prior knowledge and organizing information and processes.

c) Assisting learners to develop learning strategies.

d) Helping learners to control their own learning processes (metacognition).

e) Assisting learners to perform self assessment.

f) Assessing learners' performance and providing informative feedback.


Criticisms

Stripped of contextMind reduced to

robotic, simplistic representations

Depicts one form of cognition while there are others – (situated, distributed, embodied etc.)

digitalsandbox.edublogs.org

https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=fivHeYeZKE4XhM&tbnid=twCh8Ecx7xu_2M:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalsandbox.edublogs.org%2Fdesign-digital-lessons%2F&ei=AXUPU6zpGeHT0QXVpoDIAg&psig=AFQjCNHVUijRm2siysu2WLqq75s-63IVIA&ust=1393608257803507


Linguist Noam Chomsky , who published Syntactic Structures in 1957, theorizing that language learning was based on a system of rules that underlined actual performance. However, in his later work, rules were replaced with principles-and-parameters - a kind of departure from cognitivism.


John Searle - brain processes are necessary for intentionality . He questions the onset of seeing mental functions as information processing models. He views the world as one which has both mental and physicals states where consciousness is just a higher level property of these physical systems where mental events can cause physical events and the reverse is true.


The rest is up to you !