Cognitivism

Cognitive learning environments focus on helping students encode information meaning fully to long-term memory so that it can be easily retrieved. What methods could you as a teacher use (with or without technology to support you) to facilitate this process?

I pondered over and over about information processing. For the reason that it involves three key elements unifying all learning development; encoding, storage and retrieval of sources. In cognitive view of learning, I questioned either course modules or chapters can be developed to help learners.

Often found that it is hard to understand the information it is first introduced. It is easier for students to remember if practiced using the multi-sensory approach. This can be done with problem-solving practice quizzes or games. Both working memory and long-term memory are always active when the learner is in the process of learning. In recent years, there are more and more interactive quizzes and games to help students with cognitive learning skills. For example, military has been using this technique for long time.


On the production side of educational materials, cognitivism is vital in scaffolding and designing effective learning modules. In computer technology, there are tremendous improvements on web application, such as, web 2.0 and multimedia web applications in the last 2-3 years. It allows learning to become easier and faster in processing knowledge or information. Furthermore, increasingly teachers adapt to using technology tools or multimedia resources to help with their teaching. Many of math teachers are using quizzes as part of their pedagogy and others are adapting interactive quizzes with graphs, graphics, and audio. These interactive quizzes are embedded to their online course materials.

Not only are these well-designed digital forms of activities helping students to engage in their learning, but it also helps reconstruct knowledge for them to apply in other contexts. As a foundation, cognitive in today’s teaching environment is exciting because it includes embedded audio, movies, flash games and a vast variety of learning resources.