July 25, 2013
Entry 3: Cognitivism
During my fieldwork this week, I made observations focusing on how cognitive theory is at work in my Leaders of Change classroom.
One major behavior that I see again and again involves heuristics students use to take notes. For every lecture there are at least five different students that will ask for a definition to be repeated. They will ask for each definition at least twice, and up to four times. The asking occurs most often if a student is in the middle of writing and the teacher continues speaking. The teacher usually stays on the same topic for a while and is elaborating or giving examples to better illustrate an idea. However, the students miss a lot of these elaborations because they are so focused on getting the definition written down. If the teacher speaks more in terms of parables and examples (done when a concept is more complex), these students get confused, asking, “So which part of that was the definition?” It is clear that they have organized their learning process, or at least their note-taking process, around the heuristic that definitions are important (to some of them, THE most important thing).
Furthermore, if the second repetition of a definition does not have the exact wording of the first definition given, the students point it out, asking which one is correct. They want to be sure they have written down what the teacher said verbatim rather than getting down the general idea. Again this happens every class with at least five students. Given the consistency of the behavior, it would seem that these students have structured their concept of learning in such a way that they believe there is one right answer and that their teacher knows it best.
This example illustrates the potential dangers of certain heuristics. Yes, it is important to learn the definitions of key terms. However, too much focus on this reduces one’s attention on applications of said terms. They are learning in an identifying, concrete fashion at the expense of abstract, conceptual thought. With this “the teacher’s words are law” viewpoint, students also limit their critical thinking, their ability to judge the validity of a statement, and their ability to put concepts into their own words for the purposes of improving their own understanding.
Heuristics are shortcuts in learning and thinking that can be helpful, but they are most helpful in situations where students have a lot of different ones to utilize. Too much dependence on one strategy is ultimately a weakness.
One student I’m focusing on (I’ll call her Dana) is a counterexample to this overly dependent student and I saw some positive instances of constructivist theory present in the way she participates in class. We had a group discussion of the research projects that each student is currently working on. Dana, during this discussion, was able to connect the topics discussed in lecture to the ideas that other students had. For instance, at the beginning of class we discussed the notion that people, in answering questions, often tend to give an answer they think the asker wants to hear. We then talked briefly about making efforts to ensure that the questions in their research surveys were as unbiased and non-leading as possible. Dana took this advice and ran with it, using the discussion to suggest more objective ways of wording questions that other students had. There are elements of modeling and scaffolding at work in the way Dana learns. She takes what she hears/sees and builds off of it.
Her intelligent, enthusiastic participation in the group discussion then pulls in other students and gets them more interested. This is one of the most helpful elements of constructivist theory to me—the way that learning is built up and passed along from teacher to student and from student to student. Constructivist and cognitive theories both focus on the mentally organizational/structural/procedural aspects of how this happens, but observing Dana makes me think that there is an element of passion/enthusiasm/vigor that plays a role as well. Is there an aspect of cognitive theory or perhaps another theory that looks into the ways that passion, interest, and enthusiasm influence learning? I'm sure there's evidence that individual interest in a subject improves individual learning in that subject. I wonder if there is research on how the enthusiasm of a small, invested group of students can influence the learning of a larger group that is initially uninterested.
Entry 3: Cognitivism
During my fieldwork this week, I made observations focusing on how cognitive theory is at work in my Leaders of Change classroom.
One major behavior that I see again and again involves heuristics students use to take notes. For every lecture there are at least five different students that will ask for a definition to be repeated. They will ask for each definition at least twice, and up to four times. The asking occurs most often if a student is in the middle of writing and the teacher continues speaking. The teacher usually stays on the same topic for a while and is elaborating or giving examples to better illustrate an idea. However, the students miss a lot of these elaborations because they are so focused on getting the definition written down. If the teacher speaks more in terms of parables and examples (done when a concept is more complex), these students get confused, asking, “So which part of that was the definition?” It is clear that they have organized their learning process, or at least their note-taking process, around the heuristic that definitions are important (to some of them, THE most important thing).
Furthermore, if the second repetition of a definition does not have the exact wording of the first definition given, the students point it out, asking which one is correct. They want to be sure they have written down what the teacher said verbatim rather than getting down the general idea. Again this happens every class with at least five students. Given the consistency of the behavior, it would seem that these students have structured their concept of learning in such a way that they believe there is one right answer and that their teacher knows it best.
This example illustrates the potential dangers of certain heuristics. Yes, it is important to learn the definitions of key terms. However, too much focus on this reduces one’s attention on applications of said terms. They are learning in an identifying, concrete fashion at the expense of abstract, conceptual thought. With this “the teacher’s words are law” viewpoint, students also limit their critical thinking, their ability to judge the validity of a statement, and their ability to put concepts into their own words for the purposes of improving their own understanding.
Heuristics are shortcuts in learning and thinking that can be helpful, but they are most helpful in situations where students have a lot of different ones to utilize. Too much dependence on one strategy is ultimately a weakness.
One student I’m focusing on (I’ll call her Dana) is a counterexample to this overly dependent student and I saw some positive instances of constructivist theory present in the way she participates in class. We had a group discussion of the research projects that each student is currently working on. Dana, during this discussion, was able to connect the topics discussed in lecture to the ideas that other students had. For instance, at the beginning of class we discussed the notion that people, in answering questions, often tend to give an answer they think the asker wants to hear. We then talked briefly about making efforts to ensure that the questions in their research surveys were as unbiased and non-leading as possible. Dana took this advice and ran with it, using the discussion to suggest more objective ways of wording questions that other students had. There are elements of modeling and scaffolding at work in the way Dana learns. She takes what she hears/sees and builds off of it.
Her intelligent, enthusiastic participation in the group discussion then pulls in other students and gets them more interested. This is one of the most helpful elements of constructivist theory to me—the way that learning is built up and passed along from teacher to student and from student to student. Constructivist and cognitive theories both focus on the mentally organizational/structural/procedural aspects of how this happens, but observing Dana makes me think that there is an element of passion/enthusiasm/vigor that plays a role as well. Is there an aspect of cognitive theory or perhaps another theory that looks into the ways that passion, interest, and enthusiasm influence learning? I'm sure there's evidence that individual interest in a subject improves individual learning in that subject. I wonder if there is research on how the enthusiasm of a small, invested group of students can influence the learning of a larger group that is initially uninterested.