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Cognitive psychologists emphasize the role of experience, the development of meaning, and the use of problem-solving and insight as the sources of learning. The individual learner will perceives organised wholes – rather than disconnected pieces. Each person will behave and learn in terms of what is real for them. Learning is therefore based on the re-organisation of experiences into systematic and meaningful patterns that lead to problem-solving and insight. This will mean that interpretation is subjective – reality is what each of us perceives and understands at any given time. TASK: Watch the following video from the Wharton University of Pennsylvania:http://www.learningwiki.com/theory Part 2 – Cognitivism Examples you may be familiar with: Meaningfulness:According to cognitive theory – our brains look for patterns and completion. Our brains have the capacity to associate anything with anything else and will find associations if we allow it to! This allows us to be creative and problem-solve. Each person will create their own meaning based on the current context and their past experiences. Insight:The sudden Blinding Flash of the Obvious! The realization of how to solve a problem by a cognitive restructuring of the environment – looking at things differently!
Until we start thinking around the problem (restructuring and reorganising) we will not be able to gain any insight into how to solve the problem.
What effect might meaningfulness and insight have in e-Learning contexts?
To be continued
Advance Organisers:An advance organiser provides a scaffold for the ideas – or cognitive structure – which will bridge the gap for the learner between the content – what’s known and what they will need to know before new material becomes meaningful. The scaffolding is intended to provide a higher level (more generalized) concept that will then allow the learner to incorporate more detailed and differentiated materials into the structure. Advance organisers use current and relevant concepts that the learner already has – to make it possible to put new learning into the framework. The sequencing of content must allow new concepts to be related to old ones.
How can we use Advance Organisers in e-Learning contexts?
To be continued
Principles emphasised by Cognitive theory: § The perceptual features of the problem as interpreted by the individual affect what is learned § A learning problem should be structured by the teacher so that the essential features are open to the learner’s inspection § The organisation of knowledge should move from simple to complex to create a meaningful whole § Feedback as hypothesis testing is a basis for correcting faulty learning Burns, R. 1995, The Adult Learner at Work, Business & Professional Publishing, Sydney
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