Three Cognitive Learning Strategies
Brittani Reynolds
Source: Seifert, K & Sutton R. (2009). Educational psychology. 2nd Ed. Global Text Project
Self Reflection
Self Regulation
Is when students start to think about beliefs and experiences in order to clarify their personal
meaning and importance. (Seifert and Suttion, 2009)
Students begin to take ownership of their learning and their work. It is always student directed.
How to Apply in the Classroom
- Concept Maps- an outline of goals and objectives.
- Reading Logs- students are able to track their reading daily.
- Tracking Progress Monitoring- students graph their results when being progress monitored.
Challenges to strategy
- Lack of student motivation/interest in their learning
- Time to teach strategy of how to truly self regulate
- Students may not be able to accomplish this strategy to where it is student directed.
Inquiry Learning
Instead of
presenting well-organized instruction to students, the teacher (or sometimes fellow students) pose thoughtful
questions intended to stimulate discussion and investigation by students. (Seifert and Sutton, 2009)
Inquiry Learning
Teachers may introduce questions however students then lead the discussion and learning from there.
HOw to apply strategy to the classroom
- Student led discussion is the most common application.
- Cooperative Learning strategies build Inquiry learning.
- Group investigations and experiments allow students to plan and assess with discussion with one another.
Challenges when using Inquiry Learning
- How do you ensure all student participation?
- How can you assess inquiry learning?
- What ways can you motivate a student to participate but still keep discussion student led?
Problem Solving
The analysis and solution of tasks or
situations that are complex or ambiguous and that pose difficulties or obstacles of some kind. (Seifert and Sutton, 2009)
Problem Solving
A life long strategy that will be used in every day life, thus showing relevance to students' lives.
How to apply strategy to classroom
- Analogical thinking—using knowledge or experiences with similar solutions to help solve the current problem.
- Working backward- explaining solution after finding the solution first.
- Problem Analysis—identifying the parts of the problem and working on each part separately
challenges
- An ill structured problem-problems that are missing information or are too vague.
- Functional Fixedness- where students struggle to think outside the box and become routine with the same "fixed" solutions.
- Problem Representation- the way that a person understands and organizes information provided in the problem.