"Cognitive Views of Learning" - A Recap

This will be the first of a type of blog post that reviews a chapter in the textbook. In these types of posts, I am expected to address the following questions:

• What ideas in the chapter will be most useful or valuable to you in future teaching situations?
• How has the content of this chapter changed your view or teaching and learning?
• Are there any connections to current issues in education? What are your thoughts on this?

This chapter had a lot of great information in it, but I want to narrow in on what I think will be one of the most valuable things to come out of the entire book. "Learning and Development Depend on Learners' Experiences." I recently finished a Neuroscience course that really inspired me to understand about the way thoughts and ideas are physically created and stored. This one cognitive theory fit so well with what I learned about early neural development that I couldn't help but draw connections between them and share what I think with you.

Early neural development serves as the foundation upon which all other cognitive function will form. Without a properly built foundation, higher order thoughts and processes will not be possible. This idea is central to new ideas about developmental delays including the onset of autism. The same is true with learning higher order concepts. You can't compute limits until you know how the basics of algebra and trig and you can't explain why wars are fought until you understand the concepts of greed, power, and corruption. Without a basic understanding of the world, there is no foundation for learning.

I look forward to applying this concept in the classroom. I believe that in-class demonstrations, field trips, and hands on experiments can do far more to build knowledge than lectures and reading, both of which assume you have the pre-requisite knowledge to learn. There is something about seeing something in action that ignites learning. Even when a student does not know everything he needs to know to complete a task, the act of bringing a detailed process to the proper conclusion invites the student to ask the right kind of questions.

In my own experience with education, I can see this in action. When I started as a Freshman at Tech it became immediately clear that I was not fully prepared for both the rigor and depth of the content. My high school did not give me the foundation I needed to fully succeed. Now that I am approaching graduations, I have watched myself become more confident in my abilities because the courses I have finished have served as a basis for understanding everything else I learn.

As far as current issues are concerned, opportunities that I believe will provide experiences to facilitate learning are becoming more and more rare. As budgets are cut and education dollars are redirected towards other purposes, there is no way for schools to fund much more than the bare necessities, which leaves students without experiences of their own at a disadvantage in the classroom.