- people are actively involved in the learning process. It does not just happen.
- knowlegdge is organized in a learner's mind (through word association, images, etc)
- learning is relating new information to prior information learned.
(Helpful site where I found information from Dr. Ormrod's Human Learning)
I suppose the reason technology fits so seamlessly into cognitivism is the relative ease with which students can use it. If you think about what Dr. Orey spoke about with the way people store information, the dual processing, technology pieces such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel feed directly into that. Statistics may hold a small amount of meaning to a student, but in conjunction with a pie graph, it becomes something far more powerful. Later, when a student is working with some similar problems, the number may not mean much, but a recall of the chart may be just the trick to push the student through to finding a solution. It begins with basic knowledge and recall, and quickly, it finds it way to critical thinking and potentially analysis.
Cognitivism and Podcasting
This past week, students in my honors class had the chance to read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This began as a simple story reading, using basic pieces of technology to pose questions and chart out the plot. However, by the end, students had developed an understanding of legends. They were instructed to take the story and put it into a modern context. After this, they were to create a performance of it and record it for a podcast that would be uploaded to our class site. In doing so, there were several things happening. They first had to grasp what a legend is. Then, they had to take a story set long before they were born and place it into their own time. They were connecting prior knowledge to new learning and applying this to a format, podcasting, that would make the lesson more meaningful to them, especially since it was their own creation.
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Since, according to cognitivism, learning is a process that requires active engagement, organization, and connection between new information and prior learning, it only makes sense to incorporate various pieces of technology to enhance this process. If students are already creating separate entries in their minds (pictures and words), why not provide them with more control of this process. It will add greater depth to what is being learned because students will be able to take the reigns on what they are learning and manipulate the information to best suit their individual needs.
The description of your honors lesson using podcasting tools sounded very engaging. I bet they had a lot of fun with it. The key is that the students don't have time to fall asleep in their chairs because they are so active in applying the knowledge. And the technology tools allow students to visualize the learning that is going on inside their head. In your honors class, are all your students knowledge hungry, conscientious students? Is there such a thing as a lazy "honor" student? What do you do in their case?
ReplyDeleteAlexi
Knowledge hungry, yes. I would not, however, consider many of them to be conscientious. My class has a strange dynamic, and I do not think it would be labelled as an honors level class in many schools. In fact, I actually have two separate rosters for this class. One is labelled honors and the other is labelled just like my general ed classes. I think what has happened is that we do not have enough students to justify another teacher, and my principal wanted to make sure that students that were identified as being ahead of the game were challenged. So, she took students that she believed would work hard to fill out the rest of the roster. I only recommended about 8 of the 25 students in the class to continue on the advance track when they get to high school.
ReplyDeleteStudents in this class love to work on things that they think are their ideas. There are times when I think they are incredibly lazy. The research paper that we have to write is a perfect example. There are so many points available on this project, but I can usually count on about half of the class doing the bare minimum. So, I suppose the best way to answer your question is find things that the students are interested in and make your lessons fit into that. That is so easy to say and next to impossible to do sometimes. The other piece, I suppose, is to create enough opportunity for choice so that students feel empowered instead of steamrolled.
The one thing that I try to do that I feel I do well is make the material real. Sometimes the story we read is only words on paper. But when I get into the story, and I talk about it as if it really happened, it creates such a sense of wonder or outrage that the students just want to get to the bottom of it. If I could ever get to the level in my teaching that I am in my storytelling, I think I would really be on to something.
The exercise you had the kiddos do with "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" would have been right up my alley in school. I had the hardest time understanding pieces from that time period, but if I had a teacher ask me to reinterpret it, I would have been so into it. And way to incorporate technology, too! I am interested in finding out how it went. To your comment about lazy students. We are all there right now, I bet. The yearbook is 224 pages and supposed to be done by March 12. We have 90 pages left. It's not that the kids aren't working, either. It's that they aren't working fast enough. I think I have an advantage sometimes because they all want a yearbook. Plus, 1,000 kids in the school want their yearbooks. This is a great motivator. In my other classes, I have lazy kids that don't care, but it makes me apathetic as well. I feel like they are 17 years old and have to learn responsibility some time. I failed about 20 percent of my kids last trimester because they didn't turn anything in. An "F" in photography! Are you kidding me? It is simply because they didn't do the work. Sad.
ReplyDeleteI, too, try to make my material real. I feel this gives us an advantage and allows for "cognitivism" to really work. Kids are connecting to the material so they remember it and internalize it. With your podcast activity, kids are also making connections and internalizing it by elaborating on the material. Sounds like you've got it down! Great job!
Ryan,
DeleteConsider yourself lucky. When it comes to graduation, we have to have some last minute make up work (safety net) at the ready if the parent makes a stink about the F. The parent does not care that their kid did not earn a passing grade, we have to come up with some kind of bail out for them.
Adam,
ReplyDeleteAs usual your description of cognitivist theory was better than any professor or expert. What is great about your podcast lesson is that it has elaboration, also. Working on a presentation always creates multiple connections are a certain subject, wouldn’t you agree?
I have to agree with Mr. Brunswick on your description of cognitive theory. The use of technology does give us many more opportunities to present material to our students. This variety allows us to target many different styles of learners in a relatively easy way. I believe the use of the podcast was an excellent idea. I am somewhat jealous.
ReplyDeleteI do also believe that conversation promotes learning and increases cognitive development. Class discussions are crucial to student achievement for this purpose. Technology in classrooms gives even more opportunities for students to be able to learn and explore even more ways of learning and understanding concepts. It is always a good idea to allow students to bring in their own personal background knowledge to learning. This allows the students to see how learning affects their lives directly. Students must have all of these facets available to them in order for learning to be effective and meaningful.
ReplyDelete