Applied Cognitive Science: Education

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Applied Cognitive Science Education

• Rachel Fithian

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Overview

• Four key aspects of cognition research inform
  educational practice
• 1. Memory
• 2. Problem-solving
• 3. Metacognition
• 4. Social Cognition
• (Based on Bruers chapter 54 in the Blackwell
  Companion)

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1. Memory

• 2 central ways that memory research informs
  education
• 1. the nature of learning situations affects
  transfer
• The circumstances surrounding encoding affect
  retrieval and use in future situations
• 2. learning is influenced by the learners
  pre-existing conceptions and understandings

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1. Transfer

• There strong interaction between memorys
  encoding and retrieval processes (Bruer)
• Must evaluate learning situations from the
  perspective of how the learning will be used in
  the future transfer is important
• Role of authenticity (Shaffer Resnick)
• Can see these ideas in case-based reasoning
  (indexing, encoding, retrieving)

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Ex. Problem Based Learning

• Problem-based learning (McGilly)
• Knowledge acquired through problem-solving is
  better retained and more effectively transferred
  to new situations than knowledge obtained through
  more passive modes of information access
• These types of situations are more authentic to
  future situations where learners may utilize
  their new knowledge, thus aiding in the tasks of
  retrieving and applying the knowledge

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2. Pre-existing conceptions

• Students come to a learning situation with
  pre-existing knowledge and conceptions
• We must take these preconceptions into account in
  structuring learning situations
• Example science learning (Minstrell Hunt)
• particularly tenacious pre-misconceptions
• must assess these preconceptions, then address
  them

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2. Problem Solving

• Expertise is domain-specific within each domain,
  knowledge acquisition towards expertise follows a
  specific trajectory
• Can apply this knowledge to domains in school
• Identify common bottlenecks and alleviate them
• Accomodate students at different levels in the
  trajectory (must diagnose first)
• Example RightStart math (McGilly)

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3. Meta-Cognition

• Metacognition refers to a persons knowledge
  and control of the cognitive domain (Bruer)
• Influences ideas about child development
• Piaget Self-regulatory skills for conceptual
  reorganization proceed from automatic to
  conscious
• Vygotsky Children proceed from
  inter-subjectivity and other-regulation to
  self-regulation

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2 kinds of metacognitive knowledge

• 1. Knowledge about cognition
• Tends to be more declarative, e.g. understandings
  of how the mind works or awareness of ones own
  cognitive limitations
• Some learners are more gifted at this than
  others we can help by teaching it explicitly
• 2. Self-regulation of cognitive processes
• includes skills like planning and monitoring

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Ex. Reciprocal Teaching

• (Palincsar and Brown)
• Goal To help students learn metacognitive
  strategies monitoring and comprehension skills
  characteristic of expert readers
• small groups, turn-taking
• collaborating to enhance understanding of texts
• both guiding and explicit modeling of techniques

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4. Social Cognition

• Learning has a significant social component
• Vygotsky inter to intra, mediated by more
  expert facilitators
• Has influenced learning environments that make
  use of peers and skilled facilitators to mediate
  learning and provide scaffolding
• Making implicit knowledge explicit and publicly
  available

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Examples (Collaboration is big)

• Legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and
  Wenger)
• Transforming participation from a peripheral
  novice to a mature member of some community
• Communities of learners (Rogoff)
• Learning guided by more mature members each
  person contributes uniquely
• Samba schools (Papert)
• Everyone is learning everyone participates
  toward a shared (public) goal

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The 4 aspects in practice

• Cognitive Apprenticeship (Collins, et al.)
• 1. Memory Authenticity to expert strategies that
  will fulfill future needs
• 2. Problem-solving Guide students through the
  trajectory from novice to expert
• 3. Metacognition Goal is to help students learn
  metacognitive strategies and skills
• 4. Social component Expert models skills
  students work together

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Conclusion

• More research is needed
• Should use the findings of cognitive science to
  inform the construction of effective learning
  environments
• This is a hard problem!
• Bruer points out that more research is needed on
  the learning of the teacher
• how can we facilitate learning using these
  understandings from cognitive science