COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY

Cognitive School– Information Theorists– Constructivists

Constructivist View – individuals are actively involved in constructing their personal understanding of their experiences, more concerned with learning processes than content

Main Assumption – Learning results from internal mental activity and not on externally imposed stimuli

Focus: the mental processes involved in learning – observing, categorizing, making generalizations to make sense of the input / to work out how the language system works

Role of learner: - Active participant in the learning process, using various strategies to process information

Jean Piaget

Renowned for his model of child development and learning. He identified 4 developmental stages and the cognitive processes associated with each of them

Developmental Stages

Sensori-motor - makes sense of his environment through the basic senses

Intuitive /Pre-operational - Thoughts more flexible, memory and imagination begin to play a part in learning, capable of more creativity

Concrete Operational – Can go beyond the basic information given, but still dependent on concrete material and examples to support reasoning

Formal Operational – Abstract reasoning becomes increasingly possible

Assimilation, Accommodation and Equilibration

Accommodation – The process by which we modify what we already know to take into account the new information

Assimilation – The process by which new knowledge is changed / modified / merged in our minds to fit into what we already know

Equilibration – the balance between what is known and what is currently being processed, mastery of the new material

Learning is the process of relating new information with what was previously learnt

Learning is cumulative

Jerome Bruner

View of Learning– Development of conceptual understanding,

cognitive skills and learning strategies rather than the acquisition of knowledge

– Learners must be encouraged to discover solutions via appropriate tasks which require the application of relevant critical thinking skills

Bruner – Modes of Thinking

Extended aspects of Piaget’s theory. He identified three ways in which learners make sense of input

Enactive Level – learning takes place via direct manipulation of objects and materials

Iconic Level – Objects are represented by visual images and are recognized for what they represent

Symbolic Level – Learning can take place using symbols, objects and mental images. Language is used to represent thoughts and experiences

Application in the Classroom

The importance of providing opportunities for learners to be actively engaged in making sense of the language input through meaningful tasks

Providing opportunities for learners to develop the ability to analyze the language, make generalizations about rules, take risks

in trying the language, and to learn from errors

Catering for interaction of learner with curriculum material and the learning environment

Catering for the three modes of thinking (Bruner)

The need to organize and structure learning activities. The requirements of the task must be appropriate to the developmental stage (Piaget, Bruner) and the conceptual stage (Bloom) of the learner

The cumulative nature of learning requires frequent opportunities for reviewing previously learnt material

David Ausubel

Stressed the importance of active mental participation in meaningful learning tasks

Learning must be meaningful to be effective and permanent

Makes a distinction between meaningful learning and rote learning

Meaningful Learning – relatable to what one already knows so it can be easily integrated in one’s existing cognitive structure

Rote Learning – the material to be learnt is not integrated / subsumed into an existing cognitive structure but learnt as isolated pieces of information

Implications for Classroom

Teacher has to enhance the meaningfulness of new material to increase the chances of its being anchored to what is already known

New material must be organized to be easily relatable to what is already known

New material must be appropriately sequenced to facilitate integration

Use of advance organizers. These facilitate the learning process by providing ideas to which the new knowledge can be attached– Introductory material presented in advance of the

new material– Information that activates relevant background

knowledge

– Material that orients learners to the subject matter and relates new learning to what is already known

– Can take the form of textual material, pictures, titles, topic summaries, questions