INFORMATION

PROCESSING
THEORY
FACILITATING LEARNER-
CENTERED TEACHING
Lesson Objectives

 At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:

 explainthe major features of the information
processing theory,
 citeteaching implications derived from the
theory; and
 identifyteaching strategies that facilitate the
storing and retrieving of information.
Nature of
Information
Processing
Information Processing Theory (IPT) of
Cognitive Development

 pertains to the study and analysis of

what occurs in a person's mind as he
or she receives a bit of information
(Miller, 1956).
Assumptions: Information Processing
Theory (IPT) of Cognitive Development
 First, information processing occurs in stages
that intervene between receiving a stimulus
and producing a response. The form of
information, or how it is represented mentally,
differs depending on the stage. The stages are
qualitatively different from one another.
Information Processing Theory (IPT) of
Cognitive Development
 Second, information processing is analogous
to computer processing. The mind receives
and represents/encodes the stimulus from the
environment, processes the information, stores
it, locates/retrieves it, and gives a response to
it. Learning is a change/revision in the
knowledge that has been stored by the
memory.
 Basic Components of the IPT Model
 The information
processing theory
model has three
major components,
namely: sensory
memory, short-term
memory, and long-
term memory
(Schunk, 2012;
Woolfolk, 2016).

https://www.tcd.ie/Education/ICT/unit02/explanation03b.htm

The Information Processing Model

 Sensory Memory
 Sensory memory is the state in which the stimuli sensed (heard, seen,
touched, smelled, tasted) are temporarily held in mere seconds for the
information to be processed further. As a person is presented a lot of stimuli
at a given time, the sensory memory serves as a filter on what to focus on.
Selective attention is the individual's ability to choose and process
information while disregarding the other stimuli or information. Schunk
(2012) cited several factors that influence attention.
1. The meaning is given by the individual to the task or information
2. The similarity between competing tasks or source of information.
3. The difficulty or complexity of the task as influenced by prior
knowledge.
4. The ability to control and sustain attention.
Short-term Memory
 Short-term memory serves as a temporary memory the
information is given further processing before it is transferred to
long-term memory. Information in this stage is 15-20 seconds
only and can hold from 5 to 9 bits of information only at a given
time. Before the information is transferred to long-term memory,
there are two strategies involved: rehearsal and encoding or
elaboration.

 Information that is not rehearsed and maintained in the short-

term memory is forgotten. It also involves the relationship
between the new information and what is already known.
Short-term Memory

Maintenance Rehearsal Elaborative Rehearsal

 Maintenance rehearsal  Elaborative rehearsal is
involves repetition of the process of relating
the information to the new information to
sustain its maintenance what is already known
in the short- term and stored in the long-
memory term memory to make
the new information
more significant.
 Short-term Memory
Organization
 song (chunking)
• kingdom
• phylum Mnemonics
• class Kids prefer cheese over fried
• order green spinach.
• family
• genus
• species
Short-term Memory
Mnemonics (Planets)
• Mercury
• Venus
• Earth My very excited mother just served us nine pies.
• Mars
• Jupiter
• Saturn My very educated mother just served us noodles.
• Uranus
• Neptune
• Pluto  imagery
Short-term Memory
Mnemonics (working out equations)
• parentheses
• exponents
• multiplication
• division
Please excuse my dear aunt Sally.
• addition
• subtraction
Short-term Memory

 imagery
Long-term memory
The long-term memory is the storehouse of information transferred from
short-term memory. It has unlimited space. Varied contents of information
are stored, namely:
1. Semantic memory is the memory for ideas, words, facts, and concepts
that are not part of the person's own experiences. Individuals with good
semantic memory include those who know the capital of countries in the
world, many words and their meanings, the order of planets, and other
facts.
2. Episodic memory includes the memory of events that happened in a
person's life, connected to a specific time and place. An example is a
student who can explain the details of his or her most embarrassing
moment (who were involved, when, where, why, and how it happened).
Long-term memory
3. Procedural memory accounts for the knowledge about how to do
things. A student teacher who recalls the step-by-step process of
presenting the lesson to the class has procedural memory.

4. Imagery refers to mental images of what is known. For instance,

beginning readers use configuration clues, shape, and appearance of
words to help in word recognition. Associating a familiar image to the
name of a newly introduced person, like giraffe, guides one to recall the
name of Gigi, a long-necked beautiful lady.
Retrieving Information from the Long-
term Memory
 Retrieving information from long-term memory involves
locating the information and transferring it to the short-
term memory to be used for a purpose. Studies have
shown that a person remembers a lot less of the
information stored in long-term memory. The quality of
how the information was stored influences its access and
retrieval.
Retrieving Information from the Long-
term Memory
 Retrieval of information from the long-term memory
entails bringing to mind the previously acquired
information to understand some new input or to make a
response.
Two ways of information retrieval.
1. Recalling, which is either free recall or cued recall.
2. Recognition

- Primacy and recency effect principle

 Forgetting
Forgetting is the loss of information, either in the sensory
memory, short-term memory, or long-term memory.
1. Interference is the process that occurs when remembering
certain information hampered by the presence of other
information
a. retroactive interference - new information interferes with
recalling the previous information
b. proactive interference - old information interferes with
recalling the new information
Forgetting
2. time decay is another factor for the loss of stored
information from long term memory. Unused information
decays and is forgotten.

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

- It involves the failure to retrieve the information, but the
person is sure the information is known. The person feels
that retrieval is imminent, but there is difficulty to directly
identify it at the moment.
Teaching Implications of the IPT
Following the concepts and principles associated with the IPT,
Woolfolk (2016), Slavin (2018), and Schunk (2012) recommend the
following to be used in helping learners to understand and recall
whit they have learned:

1. Make sure you have the students’ attention. Develop a signal that
tells students to stop what they are doing and focus on you. Make
sure that students respond to the signal. Practice using the signal.

2. Move around the room, use gestures, and avoid speaking in a

monotone.
 Teaching Implications of the IPT
4. Regain the attention of individual students by walking closer to them, using
their names, or asking them a question.

5. Help students to separate essential from nonessential details and focus on

the most important information. Summarize instructional objectives to indicate
what students should be learning. Relate the material you are presenting to the
objectives as you teach.

6. When you make an important point, pause, repeat, ask a student to

paraphrase, note the information on the board in colored chalk, or tell students
to highlight the point in their totes or readings. The use of mnemonic devices
could assist learners' retention of the information learned.
 Teaching Implications of the IPT
7. Help students to make connections between new information and what
they already know. Review prerequisites to help students bring to mind the
information they will need to understand new material.

8. Provide for repetition and review of information. Using graphic organizers for
rehearsals can help.

9. Present material in a clear and organized way. Make the purpose of the
lesson very clear. Advance organizers can help.

10. Focus on meaning, not on memorization. For instance, in teaching new

words, help students to associate the new word to a related word they
already understand.
“ Thank you!

RODALIE C. DINEROS

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached,

”
don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
– Confucius