Chapter 6 Cognitive Learning

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Chapter 6Cognitive Learning Complex Cognitive
Processes
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Early Cognitive

• Bruners Theory of Cognitive Growth
• Ausubels Meaningful Reception Learning

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1. Bruners Theory (1/2)

• Cognitive growth
• The development of human intellectual functioning
  is shaped by a series of technological advances
  in the use of mind.
• Knowledge representation
• Enactive representation motor responses
• Iconic representation action-free images
• Symbolic representation uses symbol systems to
  encode knowledge

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Bruners Theory (2/2)

• Spiral curriculum
• Concepts should initially be taught to children
  in a simple fashion and presented in more complex
  fashion as they grow older.
• Discovery learning
• A type of inductive reasoning, best handled as a
  directed activity.
• Critique
• The well-structured content presented by teachers
  may not always be correct and useful.

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2. Ausubels Meaningful Learning (1/2)

• Meaningful learning
• The learning of ideas, concepts, and principles
  by relating new information to knowledge in
  memory.
• Expository teaching
• Present information to students in an organized,
  meaningful fashion.
• Deductive strategy
• Add knowledge and establish links between
  networks.

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Ausubels Meaningful Learning (2/2)

• Advance organizers
• Expository organizers comprehension, concept
  definitions, and generalizations
• Comparative organizers introduce new material by
  drawing analogies with familiar material
• Organizers
• Operate at general, abstract levels so it works
  better with older student.
• Aid transfer.

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3. Production Systems (1/3)

• Production System is a network of
  condition-action (if-then) sequences, which
  belong to procedural knowledge.
• Skill acquisition
• Learners drop out individual cues and integrate
  the separate steps into a continuous sequence of
  actions.
• Functional fixedness.

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Production Systems (2/3)

• Practice and feedback
• Overlearning ? mastery
• Instate basic procedural knowledge, require
  corrective feedback.
• Transfer
• Transfer of procedural knowledge occurs when the
  knowledge is linked in LTM with different
  content.

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Production Systems (3/3)

• Critique
• Accretion encoding new information in terms of
  existing schemata
• Restructuring schema creation
• Tuning schema evolution
• There are some issues
• How people know which production to use in a
  given situation.
• Productions always begin as declarative
  knowledge.
• Production systems are not simply glorified
  cognitive S-R associations.

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4. Connectionist Models

• Connectionism
• Higher-order cognitive processes are formed by
  connecting a large number of basic elements.
• Neural system
• Distributed representations of knowledge,
  parallel processing, interaction among processing
  units.
• PDP-create ? pattern
• How the system knows which memory to activate
  how these activations linked?
• Well-established patterns.

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5. Conditional Knowledge

• Understand when why to employ forms of
  declarative and procedural knowledge.
• Select declarative procedural knowledge by
  functional value.
• It is represented in LTM and linked with the
  declarative and procedural knowledge to which it
  applies.
• An integrated part of self-regulated learning.

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5-2. Metacognition (1/2)

• The deliberate conscious control of ones
  cognitive activity.
• Comprise two related sets of skills
• Understand what skills, strategies, and resources
  a task requires.
• Know how when to use these skills strategies.
• Metacognitive skills develop slowly. It begins to
  develop around age 5 to 7.

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Metacognition (2/2)

• Variables influencing metacognition
• Learner variables different age with different
  metacognition
• Task variables the relative difficulty of
  learning retrieving from memory different types
  of information
• Strategy variables people may not know which
  strategies aid learning may not employ those
  that are helpful
• Metacognition and behavior
• Metacognition may not sufficient to enhance
  achievement. In some case, it is unnecessary or
  automatically.
• Metacognition improve achievement but students
  may not automatically use them.

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6. Constructivism (1/4)

• Individuals form or construct much of what they
  learn and understand.
• People are active learners and must construct
  knowledge for themselves.
• Underlie the emphasis on integrated curricula
  where students study a topic in various ways.

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Constructivism (2/4)

• Constructivism is not a unified perspective
• Exogenous constructivism emphasis the influence
  of the external world
• Endogenous constructivism emphasis the
  coordination of cognitive actions (e.g. Piaget)
• Dialectical constructivism interaction between
  person environments

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Constructivism (3/4)

• Situated cognition thinking is situated in
  physical social contexts.
• The idea is similar to Banduras concepts of
  triadic reciprocity. (person/behavior/environment)
  
• It is relevant to the study of motivation.
• Implicit theories influence how people engage in
  learning and their views about what leads to
  success in the classroom.

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7. Constructivism (4/4)

• Vygotskys sociocultural theory
• Socially meaningful activity
• An example of dialectical constructivism
• Controversial contention all higher mental
  function originate in the social environment.
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD) represent the
  amount of learning possible by a student given
  the proper instructional conditions.

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8. Concept Learning (1/4)

• A concept is a mental construct or representation
  of a category that allows one to identify
  examples and non-examples of a category.
• Concept learning refers to forming representation
  to identify attributes, generalize them to new
  examples, and discriminate examples from
  non-examples.
• 3 types of concepts
• Conjunctive concepts
• Disjunctive concepts
• Relational concepts

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Concept Learning (2/4)

• Subjects tend to formulate a hypothesis about the
  rule (if-then form) underlying the concept.
• Generalization occurs when the rule is applied to
  a wide variety.
• The nature of concepts
• Classical theory concepts involve rule formation
  that defines the critical features of the
  concepts
• Prototype theory generalized image of the
  concept schmeta

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Concept Learning (3/4)

• Concept attainment
• Way
• exposed to a typical instance of the concept
• abstracting features from examples
• Gagne
• besides learner conditions, certain situational
  conditions involve a set of verbal cues
• represented ? generalization ? stimulus feature
• reinforcement
• Klausmeier
• competence at each level is necessary for
  attainment at the next level

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Concept Learning (4/4)

• Instruction model of concept teaching
• determine the structure of the concept
• define the concept
• arrange the examples
• order and present the sets
• Hierarchy concept-superordinate, subordinate,
  coordinate
• To foster concept discrimination, teachers should
  present negative instances.
• Motivational processes dissatisfaction,
  intelligible, plausible, fruitful

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9. Transfer (1/4)

• Knowledge being applied in new ways or in new
  situations.
• Positive transfer-prior learning facilitates
  subsequent learning.
• Negative transfer-prior learning interferes with
  subsequent learning.
• Zero transfer-one type of learning has no
  noticeable influence on subsequent.

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Transfer (2/4)

• Activation of knowledge in memory
• activating knowledge
• cross-referenced
• linked in LTM
• cued knowledge

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Transfer (3/4)

• Types of transfer
• Near transfer vs. Far transfer
• Literal transfer vs. Figural transfer
• Low-road transfer vs. High-road transfer
• Near literal transfer involve declarative
  knowledge and mastery of basic skills.
• Far figurative transfer involve declarative and
  procedural knowledge as well as conditional
  knowledge.
• Low road transfer involves declarative knowledge
  and high-road transfer uses productions and
  conditional knowledge to a greater extent.

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Transfer (4/4)

• A model useful for enhancing transfer
• Acquisition phase
• Retention phase
• Transfer phase
• Transfer of problem-solving strategies
• Knowledge of strategy
• Conditional knowledge of uses of the knowledge
• Feedback