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Cognitivism
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Focuses on how information is received, stored, organized, and retrieved. Cognitivism views learning as an internal mental process and has increased our understanding on how we process, make sense, access, interpret, integrate, organize, and manage knowledge. Learners should be actively involved in their learning as they process information. Cognitivism theorists believed learners can connect new learning into previously learned ideas. Cognitivism emphasizes the significance of the thought processes including attention, memory and problem solving.
key researchers
(1896-1980)
Jean Piaget
A French Theorist who extensively studied children including his own regarding their developmental stages. He believed knowledge was shaped by interactions with their environment and it aligned with their cognitive abilities. He developed 4 stages of cognitive development.
(1896 – 1934)
Lev Vygotsky
(1915 – 2016)
Jerome Bruner
A Russian psychologist who believed children develop independently and learn through interactions. Furthermore, he believed children acquire values, beliefs, and problem solving through collaborative dialogues with more knowledge members of society. One of Vygotsky’s most notable contributions includes the “Zone of Proximal Development”, this idea is based on what the learner can achieve independently to what the learner can achieve with guidance from a more competent learner.
His work focused on how children are active problem solvers who want to explore challenging subjects and schooling is only one piece. Furthermore, he believed learning and processing is the ability to predict, create, and invent. Bruner did not believe learning stages happen at any age. He believed learners should be active within their engagement. He came up with the phenomenon known as the “spiral curriculum”.
(1925- 2021)
Albert Bandera
Albert Bandera believed that learning occurs through imitation, observation, and social experience. Bandera believed learners continuously monitor and adjust their behavior’s based on outcomes, demonstrating a sense of mastery over their actions and results. He is known for the “Bobo the doll” experiment.
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Implications of Cognitive Theory and Instructional Design
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When applying cognitive learning theory, the purpose is to transfer knowledge to the learner in a way that the learner can effectively encode the new knowledge. Cognitive learning theory emphasizes the importance of the thought process including attention, memory, and problem solving. There are individual differences in one’s ability to intake and maintain attention and this could be based on age, motivation, self-control, learning disabilities and the learners’ familiarity with the subject.
When applying instructional design the designer should consider the goal, learning task requirements and background information about the learner, i.e., what are their current capabilities. To apply cognitive theory into instructional design must keep in mind that:
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Learning is a process of organizing information into conceptional models
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The instruction should be organized, sequenced, and presented in a manner that is understandable and is meaningful to the learner
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Retention is important and vital in order to build schema
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Memory is supported by organizing learning material
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The teacher must provide tools to help learner’s brain process information
The instructional designer can assist learners within the learning process by ensuring that their learning material expands on previously learned information and by chunking new learned information into bite size pieces. If the learner can link the new information to what has been previously learned this will assist with processing newly learned information. Providing mnemonic devices can also assist in the learning process as it gives meaning to something that can be easily remembered such as when learning the order of operation in mathematics (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally). Providing feedback is also important, the feedback should provide the learner with information about the effectiveness of their strategies. The feedback should be prompt as it allows the learner to plan for future learning.
The instructional designer should eliminate the workload when presenting newly learned information, avoid redundancy, and utilize both visual and auditory samples this will help with ensuring that new learned information can be processed more effectively.
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Strengths:
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Improves problem solving skills
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Enhances comprehension
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Allows for peer interaction and to learn from one another
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The ability to learn from previous learned items- scaffolding
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Allows the learner to be involved in their learning journey
Weaknesses:
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Does not account for individuals with disabilities or other learning challenges
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Does not consider individual differences in learning
Instructional Material on the Internet
The learning material that I selected is a presentation from The Arc of Nova. The Arc of Nova is a nonprofit organization that provides information and referral to the community. This video provides general information regarding the different types of housing resources in Northern Virginia. This learning material does a great job of reducing cognitive load and is a 3-minute webinar.
Applying Principles to Instructional Design
The presentation is a 3-minute video and presents information with the use of visuals, text, and auditory aids. The presenter also utilizes a pointer when referring to certain potions within the power point slide. The presenter speaks clearly, however at times she does speak a little fast, but since this material is being delivered via YouTube the learner does have the ability to stop or rewind the video to control the pace at which they receive the information.
The instructional designer also did a great job of keeping the power point slides clear and did not narrate what was displayed on the screen as the presenter did read word for word on each slide. This is referred to as the “limited capacity assumption”, it is noted in the Richard Mayer’s principal that to have a more effective presentation the number of words should be limited, a simple picture, and clear spoken words should be included within the narration of the presentation.
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This presentation did a great job of breaking down the information into chunks where the learning material is manageable to the learner, often referred to “scaffolding”.
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The presentation took into consideration the “active processing assumption”, according to Mayer the presenter should have an understandable structure. The 3-minute webinar began by providing a definition of housing subsidies and then broke down the information into the different types of housing resources. This allows the learner to have a larger understanding of the material, which is important in this format as the instructor does not know who the audience is and what pre-exiting knowledge they may or may not have.