Cognitivism in Practice

This week's readings, Orey presented four roles of cognitive tools and gave examples of each. These include information seeking, information presentation, knowledge organization and knowledge integration. Two instructional strategies that relate to the cognitive learning theories are cues, questions and advance organizers and summarizing and note taking.

"Presenting information involves the organization, format, and verbalization of knowledge conveyed through cognitive tools" (Orey, 2001). Examples include graphic organizers and concept maps. Using concept maps allows students to start at the top with the main thought and work their way down to the less general concepts. Concept maps are used frequently in elementary schools to prepare for writing paragraphs. I can now see where they would fit into other areas to strengthen the students' learning.

Summarizing and note taking strategies focus on "enhancing students' ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form" (Pitler, 2007, p.119). These strategies force the students to weed out what is not important and what is. I still use this strategy to jot down key words and cues and also to summarize in my own words, therefore, I will be more likely to remember the information being presented.

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.