Cognitivism in Practice

As a teacher of ancient history, I had heard the quote by Confucius that introduced the Cognitivist method of experiential learning: "Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand."(Orey, 2001). But reading about embedding technology in chapters four and six of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works gave me a better understanding of what Confucius meant. Here I learned about how to integrate cues, questions, advance organizers, summarizing, and note taking while using technology to benefit students in the cognitive learning style. The goal of transferring information to long-term memory requires students to focus on main concepts, eliminate unnecessary information, and to organize it in a way that is meaningful to them so that they can build connections to their prior knowledge. In order to do this, teachers need to explicitly teach students how their brains work and model appropriate ways to manage the many pieces of information that they are required to learn. 

In giving cues, creating questions, and advanced organizers, teachers must recognize their role in helping students succeed. Higher level work will only be produced in the teachers create an expectation and environment that asks students to go beyond the basic facts and declarative information typical of rote learning. The students will probably have a tough time adjusting to this type of questioning and activities, but ultimately it will serve them well in helping them to make their own personal connections to material and will assist them in their careers in higher education. 

Technology can be applied in many ways to help teachers achieve this goal of student reflection and metacognition of learning. Some examples of specific programs that are helpful for teachers using the cognitive method include the various forms of Inspiration to organize information and multimedia sites like my personal favorite, United Streaming. If your district does not subscribe, urge them to do so before next year! "The technology, in turn, provides you with editable visual aids and multimedia resources that appeal ti a number of learning styles." (Pitler, et al, 2007). This is ideal for students since dual coding and elaboration can be delivered in this method. Additionally, this provides students with a specific episode of learning which can be drawn upon where no prior knowledge exists. 

As for summarizing and note taking, I recognized many of the problems that my students encounter as they worked on becoming better note takers from their limited elementary school skills in this area to the level that is expected of middle school students. When the students first begin taking notes in the beginning of the year they want to copy sentences directly from the book or power point presentation and they want to write down everything. If they were permitted to high light the text, the entire thing would be yellow! The authors of our text recommend that teachers do several things to prevent this from happening; teach students to eliminate anything that is not essential information, teach them to summarize, model various note taking formats, give teacher-prepared notes, and perhaps most importantly, to show students that information can be organized in a way to make it easier to understand. 

Again, the application of technology can make our job easier. Word can help to summarize student notes that are typed in a new document. They can also track changes, because as I learned, notes are not final. They should always be viewed as a work in progress. Infinitely more helpful could be the many available concept mapping softwares. Additionally, note taking can be a collaborative process- something I had my students dabble in by using blogs this year. But I plan to enhance the students ability for reciprocal teaching of our content by adding wiki projects and adding the steps of clarifying and predicting to their blogs. Mainly I had the students summarize and question one another about the material presented in class. I like the fact that blogs can take learning to the next level: "Blogs provide the means for students to use the strategy of reciprocal teaching be allow time for more in-depth conversation that can extend beyond the allotted time in the classroom." (Pitler, et al, 2007). Additionally, this kind of cognitive learning activity can help students review and assess their learning. 

In conclusion, technology can greatly aid teachers as they work to help their students learn. Cognitive tools can be applied for information seeking, information presentation, knowledge organization, and knowledge integration as teachers work to increase higher-order thinking in their classrooms.

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.