Oct. 27 learning log ch 6 continued

what
Cognitive psychology has some basic assumptions. These are that cognitive processes influence what is learned.

People are selective about what they process and and learn-- it's virtually impossible to interpret everything the body senses.
Meaning is constructed by the learner, rather ten being derived directly from environment. This happened because learners are combining new information with what they already know.
Prior knowledge and beliefs play a major role.
maturation helps with cognitive procedures
people are involved in their own learning-- you must be an active participant.
Memory starts with the sensory register where input is received and close to it's original form. The sensory register has a large capacity, but it doesn't stay there very long. After the sensory comes the working or short term memory. To get there a person must pay attention to the stimulus. attention has a limited capacity "the cock tale party phenomenon." People can usually only attend to 2 or 3 automated tasks at a time. It's important to remember that paying attention is a mental process, not a behavior. Working memory does the "mental work." but information only lasts about 5- 20 seconds, which is why we have to repeat things over and over (maintenance rehearsal) Movement from working memory to long term memory usually involves making connections to other things. When stimulus makes it to long term memory its encoded in different ways.

Retrieval
Getting things from long term memory seems to be a process of following a path way of associations. ex/ going down memory lane. It's there fore easier to remember later if in storing it, it's been connected to something else in long term memory. If it is connected logically it will be much easier to find later, like if you keep things in a nice file cabinet.


so what
Cognitive psychology tells us that there is something going on in the brain. It can be measured and things and be stored there. It is a just a matter of trying to figure out the best way to store things and the best way to get the information back out. because we know about cognitive psychology we can study the way people learn and the way things are stored and retrieved in the brain. we can do this in a number of ways especially through brain scans and he like. The more we know about these things the more efficiently and effectively we will be able to teach.

now what
We need to be regularly monitoring students understanding. To make sure students are paying attention we need to ask questions to test under standing, or put class room materials to use. mostly we want to create a stimulating class environment where people WANT to pay attention. WE need to keep limited capacity in mind when teaching. It's hard for kids when too much information is presented at a time. We may need to repeat the same idea several times for children to be able to pay attention and store it in their long term memory. We need to help students know what is important to remember by giving guidelines and omitting unnecessary detail from lessons.
since retrieval is difficult at times we need to increase the chances of retrieving information. To do this we should try and make multiple connections to information. Practice the information enough that you reach automaticity. This can be done by routinely incorporating basic knowledge and skills into a variety of meaningful and enjoyable activities. Retrieval cues are things like mnemonic devices or other helpers like looking a t a map. Recognition tasks are easier than recall tasks.