COMPARING PRINCIPLES OF COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY TO SOME INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

The theory of cognitive learning is based on short term memory transferred to long term memory. Processing information is the main concept. Does the strategy of cues, questions, advance organizers, summarizing and note taking, correlate to the cognitive learning theory? To see if they do, I would have to examine the purpose of them. What are their goals of each?

Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski explain that cognitive learning theory process information you receive through a sensory input. You quickly attend to it as a short-term memory. You later, must go through a rehearsal stage, practice or studying method to enter into a long term memory. This is then divided into different types of memory. They are declarative which are facts, procedural which explain how things are done, and eposodic which is a powerful event that happens. These types of memories form a network connecting to meaningful information or images which are very beneficial to the long term memory. So this cognitive learning theory primary mechanism is to link as many concepts or images to a particular subject or new piece of information in order for long term memory to take place.

When I ask questions, I believe that I am trying to help students begin to think about a particular subject. I am just trying to get them thinking about the subject matter and examine what they already know about the subject matter. The advance organizers would help my students to process their thoughts and put down information for later use. No heavy analyzing would be going on yet. They are just focusing on what is important. Students start to get into deep synthesizing and understanding if they can express and summarize what they learned.

An example of this whole process and how it connects to cognitive learning theory would be if students answering quick questions about what he already know about the Civil War such as what century did the war take place. What states were involved? He then write down important facts about the war on an organizer such as the dates it took place, major participants involved, why it started, how it ended, and why it was so important in our history. Students begin to draft their presentation using technology by research information looking for visual images from the internet of the actual leaders involve like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and Jefferson Davis . Students might add photos of the Battle of Gettysburg to a poster. Collecting auditorial sound effect to side shows such as cannons blasting might cause an episodic experience during the summary of a presentation.

Therefore, I believe there is a lot of correlation between cognitive learning theory and the instructional strategies expressed here. Students summarizing through just a simple explanation of the civil war or completing an extensive presentation will develop long term member because they are apply the information they have learned. This is in the purpose and goal of the cognitive learning theory.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

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

Behaviorist Learning Theory

In this week course resources, I read about behaviorist learning theory. I will discuss how reinforcing effort” and “homework and practice correlate with the principles of behaviorist learning theory which embeds technology. Behaviorist learning theory has fallen out of favor in our education system, but many teachers still use the strategy. Dr. Orey (Laureate 2009) explains that behaviorism resolves around operant conditioning, which involves positive reinforcement and punishment. Today’s society mainly leans towards using positive reinforcement to encourage academic achievement. Punishment is not encouraged by the leaders of public educators.

Reinforcing effort is never talked about at the federal, state or local government level. Our district, and school administrator never mention anything about reinforcing student effort. Since the adoption of No Child Left Behind, scores are the main focus of attention. Many of the technology programs used by school districts are geared towards raising test scores. But Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Maleenoski 2007, recommend that we teach students the importance of effort. We should have students keep track of their own efforts and achievements by using data collection software like Microsoft Excel, and Survey Monkey. Students that are encouraged to put forth the effort, should see some academic improvement. Students see the results as it translate to a letter grade. They will not have to fear putting forth all their hard work and still fail. Some of the category suggested for evaluation are, class notes, attention, participation, homework, and studying.

Homework and practice help students to reassess what they were taught. I think assigning homework using technology has its advantages. Students are comparing only their own success. They get instant feedback. Pressure for timely completion is not as important as mastering the skill. Lastly, students don’t have to be embarrassed about not knowing an answer. On line tutorials like Internet4Classrooms Tutorials are also very good for helping students learn new skills. They present how to do certain skills you may had a difficult time with the classroom. Tutorials give students a step by step method in completing the task and the tutorial can be replayed as many times as needed.

The idea of using technology more for both reinforcing effort and for homework is a good idea for teachers that don’t mind the behavior learning theory. Using technology allows the use of the multisensory approach. Reading just a textbook bore many students. Students become more responsible for the own success when they are tracking their own effort.


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Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer) (2008). Behaviorist Learning Theory, Baltimore: [Educational video].

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Susan Brooks and Bill Byles, Internet4classrooms: www.internet4classrooms.com.

Reflective Essay

This course helped me for the first time explore the use of Wikis, blogs and podcasts. I'm not sure when or if I ever would have used those tools during my life, but I see what I have been missing out on. Making a podcast was the most challenging and most rewarding tool I used. For the first time, I actually used my computer recording device. I had to download some extra software tools to help me edit and broadcast my podcast. My podcast could be heard from by people all over the world by placing the URL on a blog site or even iTunes.
I will continue to pursue professional development geared to technology integration in the classroom, because technology is always improving. I discovered that people put technology information on podcasts that you can subscribe to them from the iTunes. I have listened to some of them and learned something every time. One of the best ways to expand my knowledge of technology is to collaborate with colleagues that is already using technology to increase student’s achievements. If you see something working in another class, why not try to use what their doing to increase student achievements.
One long term goal I would like to set is to set up my classroom website where parents can visit any time they want to retrieve homework assignments, present/future projects, identify missing assignments, view progress reports and grades. Our district lesson plan website, “Oncourse” has that option to allow teachers to set up a website, but teachers in our district are not made to use it.
Another goal that I would like to set up within two years in my math class, is a textbook near free classroom. I would use the textbook only for lesson planning, but reframe the student from using it as an only source. I like to have students use real life experiences. With collaboration with my colleagues, we can come up with alternatives to the textbook, which are so confusing to the students anyway. Our textbooks are quickly becoming outdated, because the corporate world is using high tech digital devices to work out their numbers. The world is using scientific calculations and computers software programs to figure out tough calculations within minutes. Students need to learn how to use these various programs

Profiling the Students of Today

Exploring the digital abilities and digital learning styles of the students in my classroom through a survey/questionnaire. This podcast reports the demographic profile of my classroom population. It also includes sound bites from my student interviewed to support my findings.
http://rsmith552.podbean.com/

Technology Survey 1

Technology Survey 1

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Reaction to Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I just visited a web page called Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The site offers some many different ways to teach our students that I agree with. Our students will be competing with students from all over the globe for future jobs that requires skills dealing with critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, social responsibility, etc. I loved the idea that Partnership for 21st Century (P21), and its members provide tools and resources to help the U.S. education system keep up by fusing the three Rs and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation). I was surprised that so far, I didn’t hear anything about test scores. That’s a good thing, if you ask me. Getting students ready for the real world is more important than teaching student’s tricks and some strategies for passing a state run test. Both the schools and the businesses will benefit from this union. Schools will get technology resource, and the businesses get to choose from a pool of experience home grown potential prospects.
I didn’t see anything that I could have disagree with on the site. The implications I see that could come from this are that students will become more exposed to real life situations first hand. That could be an advantage for them on their resume. I could see some teachers balking at this idea, because it’s something different then what they been doing the last twenty plus years. Teachers naturally, get into that comfort zone and don’t want to leave it. I would love it because I love technology. What’s going on now in our classes, is not working too well. So I’m ready for change.

How I Might Use a Blog in My Classroom

The Principal and supervisors are always asking the teachers in every subject area at our school to add more writing assignments in our lesson plans. As I read The Second Edition; ‘Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms,” by Will Richardson, he list many classroom uses of weblogs. The one I like for my class is posting prompts for writing on weblogs. I teach at an urban school district in a city that was rank as one of the poorest in the country. I teach math, science and social studies to special education students. My students are always talking about what they download from the internet or what they said on MySpace. Out of the 12 students I have only 1 student doesn’t have a computer with internet access. But that one student has relatives living near him that does. As a homework assignment I could start simple and post on my classroom blog, a writing prompt about reflection of today’s lesson or open ended questions related to one of the lessons they had. I would give credit for just participating. Since each student posting will see every reply to the post, I will allow student to respond to each other. I could talk to other teachers in the school and combine classes and homework weblog writing prompt. Maybe kids in my school will one day deviate from MySpace and spend more time with each other on the homework writing prompt. One requirement is that web lingo can’t be used like “lol” or “btw.”