The principle of Cognitive Learning Theory is to help students understand, apply and recall information being presented to them. This week’s resources provided examples of several instructional strategies that support the Cognitive Learning Theory. Technology is a valuable tool that provides many resources to help students understand, apply, and recall information.
Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers “assist teachers in quickly capturing student responses and organizing the responses into useful information” (Pitler, et al., 2007, p. 75). A graphic example of an Advance Organizer would be a concept map. Concept maps allow information to be organized. In the past, I have used concept maps as part of planning course curriculum. Concept maps also support students before instruction (prior experience), during instruction (notes, reference, and application), and after instruction (recall). Concept maps can represent the student knowledge of a concept. This week’s resources have shown me the value in using concept maps to help students. Concepts maps can not only include text, but also include images or links to internet resources. My Webspiration and CmapTools are a couple of technology resources available that help in making concept maps.
Summarizing and Note Taking “focuses on enhancing students’ ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form” (Piler, et al., 2007, p. 119). Notes are one of the main instructional strategies that I use in my classroom. There are many ways and forms available on which to take notes. My school has implemented a school wide policy of using Cornell notes across all curricular areas. Sometimes students have to write all the notes, sometimes students are given an outline version to fill in, and sometimes students are given teacher completed notes. The concepts that I am teaching determine which style of notes seems to work best for students. This week’s resources have shown me that my notes need to include more images.
Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) allow students to access people, places, and things that may otherwise be difficult for some students to access. VFTs remind me of the Magic School Bus stories and videos. Students are provided a look at the concepts they are learning about in their classroom. VFTs are a supplement to the core content.
The instructional strategies described will help the students learn. Students learn through experience by making connections to prior knowledge of experiences. Students also need to be active in the learning process. The more active the learner is, the more connections are made, and the more permanent the knowledge. Cognitive Learning Theory allows students to input information into their short-term memory, experience exposure to the information in multiple methods, transfer the information to their long-term memory, and create links for easy recall of the information
References
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Denver, Colorado: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel).
I was never a good note taker because I tried to write everything without organizing the information in any meaningful way. As an adult I loved getting the powerpoint slides with note taking boxes so I could have the information and images presented and add my thoughts or comments from peers to the notes. I think the concept mapping tools are an excellent way for students to see how information is to connected to larger concepts and importing images onto a map really builds those connections. I image you will be able to solidify math concepts using images in the notes.
ReplyDeleteTaking notes is the strategy that worked for me as a young student to absorb and retain information. Part of the appeal of note taking was the physical act of writing out the words I was hearing to help remember them. More importantly, I used an outline format to organize the information in a hierarchy, depending on what facts or concepts I thought were the most important. I have a vivid memory as a kid of taking a test, and "seeing" my notes in my mind, and remembering a fact because I remembered that it was 1/4 of the way down the page on the right and I'd drawn a picture next to it. I think note taking is an extremely valuable skill, and I've had to take accurate and efficient notes on dozens, maybe hundreds of occasions in my professional life.
ReplyDeleteI think that by giving our students notes that are already written, we're denying them the process of slowly absorbing information through writing and visualizing. What do you think about the importance of writing notes for yourself? How about using them during a test?
Megan Boyd
Christina,
ReplyDeleteThe SMART Board Notebook program prints out the slides like powerpoint does. The students really seem to enjoy it. Next year, I plan to use concept maps to help show the connections between all the concepts that are taught. Some students seem able to understand the concepts separately but when several concepts are used together the students seem to be thrown for a loop. My hope is that concept maps can help.
Anna Redding
Megan,
ReplyDeleteIt seems some students like you do have what I call a photographic memory. Those students do benefit from writing out notes. In my class, we may have typed notes one day, student copied notes the next and outline formed notes the third day. I try to vary the number the style of notes to help all the different learning styles. Also, a lot of the concepts that are taught overlap so the students typically have more than one day of notes for a concept.
Typically, students do not use notes on our tests. As a department, we let students use notes if the content contains lots of formulas or sometimes we write the formulas on the board for all students. Our math department decided that if the formulas could be looked up via resources like the internet why should students need to memorize them. I think higher order skills are used of the students learns how and when to apply the concept.
Do you let students use notes on test?
Anna Redding
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI like how you pointed out that concept webs are effective learning tools throughout each stage of the lesson- as an introductory activity, during the course of the learning, and at the end as part of recall and reflection. One of the strengths of digital resources like the concept web is that they are constantly evolving and can easily be changed, added to, or manipulated. Students can track their changes and additions easily by using different colors, symbols, etc. At the end of the unit/lesson, students will be able to look back and see where they started (prior knowledge activity), and how much they learned throughout the course of the unit.