Cognitive Learning theory

Describe and explain learning in terms of internal

events
Involves the transformation of information in the
environment into knowledge that is stored in the
mind
Information is defined as patterns of energy
present in the environment
A sensation is a signal from the senses to the
brain that occurs whenever a particular kind of
energy is presented in the environment
Knowledge is created when the information
contained in sensations is represented in a
meaningful manner in the mind of the learner
Knowledge as the Representation of Information
Three capabilities of human memory in
developing their ideas about the nature of human
knowledge:
1. Knowledge can represent different types
of information
2. Knowledge can represent information in
different ways
3. Knowledge can represent isolated pieces
of information or the perceived
relationships among many pieces of
information
Types of information
When the science teacher asks what the students
know about the Periodic Table of Elements,
Samuel answers, ’’The atomic number tells us the
number of protons and electrons in an atom of an
element.’’
George is going fishing with some friends after
school. He rides his bicycle to the store to meet
his friends before they all go to the lake.
The statement of Samuel exemplify our ability to
store and remember important events and facts –
declarative knowledge
The statement of George exemplify our ability to
remember how to do things – procedural
knowledge
Procedural Knowledge
• It is how to knowledge that guides the
performance of physical and mental skills
e.g. bake cookies, solve complex problems
Procedural knowledge is related to the procedure
to carry an action out.
Knowledge about "how" to do something is
procedural knowledge.
Procedural knowledge is instruction-oriented.
It focuses on how to obtain a result.
Knowledge how to do something

e.g. The claims to know how to juggle and how to

drive are claims to have procedural knowledge.
• Characterised by automaticity
Automaticity refers to the degree to which a skill
can be performed without consciously thinking
and deciding about each step of the performance
(practice)
 • e.g. Taking notes while reading without
concentrating on
writing skills
Psychologists say:
5% of behaviours are
consciously controlled,
while
95% function
without conscious
control
Distinction between declarative and procedural
knowledge
• Important for teachers
• Declarative knowledge – facts, concepts
e.g. Speed of light
• Procedural knowledge – skills
e.g. Operation of special equipment
• Teachers, therefore, need to understand
these different types of knowledge and
how they are learnt.
Representation of Declarative Knowledge in
Memory
• Information-processing theories claim
declarative knowledge consists of basic
cognitive units – chunks
• Chunk – represents some information
people have learnt
e.g. World War II
sequcne of events
Human Memory
• We seem to be able to remember some
things using a language-based code, such
as a verbal description or definition
• We may recall information in a form of a
mental image
e.g. Look on a friend's
face when he was
surprised
Representation of Procedural Knowledge in
Memory
• mental and motor skills are stored as
procedural knowledge – ability to drive a
car , write a letter, understand text etc
The Basic Unit of Procedural Knowledge
Production

a condition an action
Condition
The condition portion of the production stores
information about the environment and mental
conditions that trigger the action
Action
The action portion of the production stores
information that guides a mental or physical
action that is trigerred when a person recognizes
the existence of the condition
Conditions

The traffic light is red

Actions
You remove your foot from the accelerator to
slow the car and stop at the red light
Cognitive learning theories describe and explain learning in terms of internal
mental events, i.e., how knowledge is acquired and/or modified.
Learning involves the transformation of information in the environment into
knowledge that is stored in the mind.
 Information – patterns of energy present in the environment.
 Energy – any aspect of the environment that can produce a
sensation and is primarily in the form of light, sound, and
pressure.
• A sensation – a signal from the senses to the brain
that occurs whenever a particular kind of energy is
present in the environement.
 Knowledge is created when the information contained in
sensations is represented in meaningful manner in the mind of
the learner.
 Learning occurs when new knowledge is acquired or existing
knowledge is modified by experience.
Nature of Knowledge
 Can represent different types of information – specific
events, facts and ideas, how to perform tasks.
 Can represent information in different ways – explanation,
description or performance of an action.
 Can represent isolated pieces of information or the perceived
relationships among many pieces of knowledge – ability to
interconnect and organize knowledge into larger integrated
wholes.
Declarative knowledge is the way our mind represents facts, ideas, and
concepts.

It allows us:
 to interpret our experiences by recognizing how they are similar
to past experience;
 to understand the present and predict the future.
Representation of DK in Memory
Declarative knowledge may be thought of as being composed of basic
cognitive units sometimes called ‘chunks’.
A chunk – a packet of declarative knowledge representing some information
people have learned (e.g. humas are mortal).
Types of Chunks
 Temporal strings
 Images
 Proposition
(Anderson, 1983)
! each stores different type of information
A Temporal String: def
 a chunk that preserves our perception of the timing or order in
which things occur.

e.g. notes on the scale might be represented in memory as a

specific sequence of sounds and pauses that create a melody.
A Temporal String: use
• whenever order is important;
 the information will be most easily recalled
starting from the beginning:

e.g. when doing a crossword puzzle

it is easier to guess the word
if the first letters are given.
An Image
 a chunk that represents information about the way objects are
arranged in space.
 images are closely related to our visual perception & we tend to
store information as an image.
e.g. If you ask someone for directions to the nearest mailbox,
there will be a pause before
the answer.
Why? à People try to visualize
the location.
A Proposition: def
 a language-based representation that stores information about the
semantic relationship between at least two elements of a chunk.

 represents an idea, not words

A Proposition: use
propositions store information about the meaning of experiences based on our
interpretations of those experiences.

e.g. Crocodiles are smaller

than Alligators.
Interconnections of Knowledge
Important capability of human memory – ability to interconnect and organize
knowledge into larger integrated wholes.
Declarative Knowledge
Schemata
Declarative Knowledge Networks (ATC)
 Schema – explanation of how declarative knowledge is organized
in memory.
  Schema – memory structure that contains the organized and
interconected declarative knowledge people have in a particular
domain or area.
e.g. Eating in a restaurant
Characteristics of Schema: 1
 It may be as small as single idea or as large as several
interconnected ideas.

 Schema for your pet cat:

 Schema for cats as a general category of animals:

2) One schema can become a part of another schema. Lesson planning

Classroom management

Assessing students

 3) More experiences with the same event – more rich and detailed
schemata;

 Schemata is flexible – eating in one fast food restaurant we

understand what to do in any fast food restaurant.
Varieties of Schemata
1. Natural categories;
2. Scripts;
3. Text schemata.
Natural categories
 Stores information from our experiences with naturally occurring
objects (e.g. plants, animals);
 Practical application: development of natural categories for
geometric shapes:
 definition;
 examples;
 how examples fit definitions
Scripts
 Schema for events;
 Formed with repeated experiences with various categories;
 Influence expectations, guide actions;
 Scripts:
 behavior on playground;
 lunch;
 regular classes.
Scripts: Practical Application
 First classes – students do not know what to expect.

 Solution: first few classes – simple exercises, students get used to

materials and routines -> they can work on more complicated
projects.
Text Schemata
narrative (stories)
expository texts (school texts
Declarative Knowledge Networks
 Chunks of declarative knowledge are stored in memory as
declarative knowledge network.

 Information is connected by associations forms network of

temporal strings, images, propositions
 Chunks of declarative knowledge connected by lines that
represent associations.
Declarative Knowledge Networks: Learning
 Model stored in person’s memory;

 Learning – adding a new chunk to the net,

adding new associations between chunks, or changing the nature
or strength of association.

If learning is to occur, educators must ensure that new information is processed

in such a way that it can be retained in long-term memory.

Declarative knowledge is likely to be understood and remembered if it is

meaningful to the learner
Elaboration – association of new information with knowledge already stored
in long-term memory.

Adding new chunks of knowledge to the net by making connections

between the new knowledge and knowledge stored in memory.
Organization – placing new information within a category or sequence of
related ideas.
The ability to organize information is influenced by the learner’s ability to
categorize, which changes with both maturation and experience.
- Grouping of specific events, ideas, people,
things, etc. into concepts;
- identifying similarities of members
of the concept;
- distinguishing differences
The retrieval of declarative knowledge from long-term memory to working
memory is determined by the associations among the chunks of knowledge in
long-term memory.

The more associations that lead to a chunk of declarative knowledge, the

more likely it will be recalled.
In order to make new material meaningful, instruction must be presented in
such a way that students can easily access and connect previous learning and
experiences with the new material.

Mnemonic is a memory support that connects unfamiliar information to

students’ prior knowledge (elaboration).
Information processing theories – how?
• Cognitive science
– systematic study of the mind
– Investigates
• The nature of knowledge
• How it is acquired and modified
• How it influences mental and physical
performance
→ Models of mind work
Nature of Human Knowledge

• Knowledge represent:
– different types of information
– information in different ways
– isolated pieces of information or the perceived
relationships among pieces of information
• Cognitive psychologists explain the variety of ways humans learn
and apply knowledge
Types of Information

• Important events and facts

– Heard
– Read
– Experienced

e.g. When science teacher asks what students know about the Periodic Table of
Elements, Samuel answers: ‘The atomic number tells us the number of protons
and electrons in an atom of an element.’
Types of Representations

• The representation of information determines its influence on

behaviour (Anderson, 1983)

• Differences to perform (sb can describe and action but cannot do

it themselves)

• Declarative knowledge (description, recognition)

• Procedural knowledge (physical and mental performance)

The Information Processing Model is a framework used by cognitive
psychologists to explain and describe mental processes.
Atkinson-Shiffrin Multistore Model (1968)
- a model of information processing through memory stores
‘The sensory register is where information that is in its original unprocessed
form goes. Although the sensory register has a large capacity, it has a limited
duration, which means that whatever information gets sent here is not going to
stay for very long. In order to be remembered, the information must be moved
to the working memory.’
Sensory register
Sense organs:
• SR helds them briefly;
• Duration can vary between a fraction of a second to a few
seconds;
• Many sansations never reach a conscious level of awareness;
• Only some are identified and held for further processing.
The cognitive processes that accomplish initial screening of information are
reffered to as
selective perception processes.

The process of The process of

ATTENTION PERCEPTION
1. The process of ATTENTION:
It is a process of selecting particular information from sensory
register.

• A voluntary process, e.g., a person selects himself to what he pays

attention to;

• Or there is an automatic shift of attention, e.g., someone breaks a

glass and a person turns to that direction to check out what has
happened.
1. The process of PERCEPTION:
It is the critical first step in processing information, because what
is learned depends on what is attended to, processed, and stored in memory.

• There are two types of learning processes:

• Top-down;
• Bottom-up.
The working memory is where most thinking is believed to occur. Working
memory is where new information temporarily stays while it is being
processed. Working memory has a limited capacity, so it doesn’t hold very
much information at a time. [...] Working memory has a subcategory called
maintenance rehearsal.

Maintenance rehearsal is when the act of repetition keeps the new

information fresh in your mind.’
• The information enters from the sensory register or it may came
from the long-term memory;
• Limited duration period – information remains active as long as
there is no distraction;
• Limited capacity, e.g., adult capacity is proved to be 7 +/- 2
chunks of information.
Long-term memory
 • Is the third and final memory structure, and it is where all the
knowledge we have learned is stored.
• A major goal of education is to help learners store information in
long-term memory and to use that information on later occasions
in order to effectively solve problems.
Divided into Declarative and Procedural components:
• The knowledge in declarative long-term memory represents the
concepts and ideas organized into schemata or knowledge
networks;
• Procedural knowledge representing an individual’s skills are
represented in procedural long term memory.
Three Different Types:
• Episodic memory refers to our ability to recall personal
experiences from our past;
• Semantic memory stores facts and generalized information;
• Procedural memory refers to the ability to remember how to
perform a task or to employ a strategy.
Two major problems related to the use of long-term memory:
• to transfer the information accurately to long-term memory;
• to retrieve the information accurately.
Encoding, Compilation & Retrieval:

• Encoding and compilation process allow us to modify the

contents of long term memory and retrieval allows us to make use
of the knowledge we have stored there.
Meaningfulness:

• This term refers not to the inherent interest or worthiness of

information, but rather to the degree to which it can be related to
information already stored in our long-term memory. One concept
or piece of information is more meaningful than another if the
learner can make a larger number of connections between that
piece of information and other information already in long-term
memory.
Information:

• The key point of this section is that information is stored in the

long-term memory in a structured fashion - with elements of
knowledge chained together or organized in schemata related to
specific topics. Information is likely to be effectively entered into
long-term memory (and available for subsequent retrieval) to the
extent that the learner actively interacts with the information in
working memory.
AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE MULTI-STORE MODEL
Levels of Processing
Atkinson-Shiffrin’s:

Sensory memory
(register)
Working memory
Long-term memory
USING INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY IN A
CLASSROOM
William Huitt’s principles:
1. Gain the students' attention
1. Bring to mind relevant prior learning
2. Point out important information
1. Present information in an organized manner.
1. Show students how to categorize (chunk) related information
Provide opportunities for students to elaborate on new information.
7. Show students how to use coding when memorizing lists.
8. Provide for repetition of learning.
9. Provide opportunities for overlearning of fundamental concepts and skills.