Blog Assignment Week 2
This week's topics included the brain and how it learns,
information processing theory, and problem solving methods used during the
learning process. After searching for websites and journals that were
applicable to these topics, I found several, but wanted to reference two
particular sites.
The first one is http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/infoproc.html .
This site focused on breaking down how the brain processes information, and how
memory plays a part in that process. It also has a great section on how to use
the information processing approach in the classroom. This is very beneficial
for me being a teacher that is always looking for new and inventive ways to
educate my students. Also included on this page were four basic principles that
most cognitive psychologists agree with. Of those principles, the one that
caught my attention was the fourth principle which stated, that the human
organism has been genetically prepared to process and organize information
in specific ways (Huitt, 2003). An example given was how all human
infants develop language in similar ways regardless of what language they
speak. It is only after that when words start to be developed that the learning
process changes. Additionally, this website addressed how sensory, short-term
and long-term memory works. I especially enjoyed the part on sensory memory
which stated that first, individuals are more likely to pay attention to a
stimulus if it has an interesting feature, and second, individuals are more likely to pay attention if the
stimulus activates a known pattern (Huitt, 2003). This relates back to our
readings from this week that referred to meaningful information. Meaningful
information is more likely to be retained because it easily connects to
propositional networks (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009). The last part
that I liked on this site was where the author described some strategies to
help with elaboration. These include rhyming, creating images and connecting to
a familiar location so that the information can become more relevant to the
students. I know I will refer back to this site frequently when planning my
instruction.
The second site I found was
http://globalcrisis.info/teachproblemsolving.html .
This site broke down the concept of problem solving, and also how to teach
students the best ways to solve problems. It showed the development of how we
used to learn by rote or memory techniques, and now we have realized that those
methods do not work anymore. It then delved in to the ways in which we learn
best. The way I related to the most was the one that stated that we learn best
when we have discovered the answer for ourselves (Global Crisis Solution
Center, 2003).
It will be more memorable if you had taken
the problem apart by yourself and found the solution without any help. It also
related to our video from this week's resources where Dr. Ormrod stated that
when breaking down a problem, the process includes how people encode the
problem, what they decide it's a problem about, which includes what the end
point would be, and what the solution would look like (Laureate Education Inc.,
2009). The last section that got my attention was the steps to help the
students in the problem solving process. Several of those were extremely
applicable to my instruction on a daily basis. I especially liked the ones that
said to enter the world of the student, and to work towards the strength of
each student. According to our textbook, teachers enhance learning when they
develop lessons to assist students to link new information with knowledge in
memory (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009). If the teacher knows what
background knowledge the student is coming in with, they can find ways to build
on their strengths and also to get inside their head to figure out how they
might solve the problem. There were also some assumptions on problem solving
and how to work with examples, but I feel that the above mentioned topics were
more relevant to our concepts for this week.
I also found an interesting quiz that supposedly
can help you determine if you are more left brained or right brained, as well
as an article about the difference between left and right brained thinking for
any who are interested. I found it intriguing since it definitely had me on one
side (left brained) more than the other, which I always thought anyway.
References
Global Crisis Solution Center. (2003). Teaching and Learning
Through Problem Solving. Retrieved from
http://globalcrisis.info/teachproblemsolving.html
Huitt, W. (2003). The information processing approach to
cognition. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA:
Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date] from, http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/infoproc.html
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Learning
Theories and Instruction [DVD].
Information Processing and Problem Solving. New
York. Dr. Jeanne Ormrod.
Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M.
(2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York:
Pearson.
