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Chapter 9 Complex Cognitive Processes. Conceptual Understanding. Conceptual understanding is a key aspect of learning. Concepts are categories that group objects, events, and characteristics on the basis of common properties.
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Conceptual Understanding Conceptual understanding is a key aspect of learning. Concepts are categories that group objects, events, and characteristics on the basis of common properties. An important aspect of concept formation is learning the key features, attributes, or characteristics of the concept. One of the main teaching goals is to help students understand concepts rather than just memorize facts.
Conceptual Understanding (Cont’d) • Concepts aid the process of remembering, making it more efficient. They help students to simplify and summaries information, as well as to improve the efficiency of their memory, communication , and use of time. • Students form concepts through direct experiences with objects and events in their world as well as symbols (formulas, graphs, pictures). • Some concepts are relatively simple, clear and concrete , whereas others are more complex, fuzzy and abstract.
Promoting Concept Formation Identify the features of a concept. Use the rule-example strategy. The strategy consists of four steps: 1. Define the concept and give clear examples. 2. Clarify terms in the definition 3. Give examples to illustrate the key features or characteristics. Provide clear, concrete examples. Relate new concepts to already-known concepts 4. Provide additional examples.
Promoting Concept Formation (Cont’d) Create concepts maps .Concept maps offer a visual representation of a concept’s hierarchical organization. Develop hypotheses about what the concept is and what it is not. Help students learn what a concept is and what it is not. Prototype matching compares the item with similar items in a category. Prototype matching refers to when students engage in a decision-making process about whether an item belongs to a category.
Thinking • Thinking involves manipulating and transforming information in memory. • We think to form concepts,reason,think critically,make decisions, think creatively, and solve problems. • Students can think about the concrete and the abstract;about the past and the future ; about reality and the fantasy
Reasoning Reasoning is logical thinking that uses induction and deduction to reach a conclusion. Inductive reasoning involves reasoning from the specific to the general. That is , it consists of drawing conclusions (forming concepts) about all members of a category based on observing only some of its members. When a student is asked whether a concept in math class applies to other contexts , such as business or science, inductive reasoning is called for. Deductive reasoning involves reasoning from the general to the specific. When you solve puzzles, you are engaging in reasoning. When you learn about a general rule and then understand how it applies in similar situations but not others, you are engaging in deductive reasoning.
Critical Thinking Critical thinking involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence. Mindfulness is a key to critical thinking. Mindfulness means being alert, mentally present, and cognitively flexible while going through life’s everyday activities and tasks ( Ellen Langer ,1997,2005). Mindful students create new ideas, are open to new information, and are aware of more than one perspective. Mindless students accept what they read or hear without questioning the accuracy of the information. Mindless students become trapped in rigid mindsets, not taking into account possible variation in contexts and perspectives.
Critical Thinking (Cont’d) • Langer emphasizes that asking good questions is an important ingredient of mindful thinking. • Langer stresses that it is important to stress on the process of learning rather than the outcome.
Decision Making Decision making- involves thinking in which individuals evaluate alternatives and make choices among them. Biases and flaws that affect our decision-making Confirmation bias- the tendency to search for and use information that supports our ideas rather than refutes them Belief perseverance - the tendency to hold on to a belief in the face of contradictory evidence
Decision Making (Cont’d) Overconfidence bias - The tendency to have more confidence in judgments and decisions than we should, based on past experience Hindsight bias- the tendency to falsely report, after the fact, that we accurately predicted the event. People not only are overconfident about what they predict will happen in the future (overconfidence bias), but also tend to overrate their past performances at prediction.
Creative Thinking An important aspect of thinking is to be able to think creatively. Creative Thinking is the ability to think about something in novel and unusual ways and come up with unique solutions to problems. Guilford distinguished between convergent and divergent thinking. Convergent Thinking: Produces one correct answer, and a characteristic of the kind of thinking required on conventional intelligence tests. Divergent Thinking: Produces many answers to the same question, and is more characteristic of creativity.
Ways to Improve Creativity Encourage Creative Thinking on an Individual and Group Basis. Involve Creative People. Encourage Internal Motivation. Provide Stimulating Environments. Don’t Over control Students. Foster Flexible and Playful Thinking
Problem Solving Problem Solving involves finding an appropriate way to attain a goal. Steps in solving problems: Find and frame problems: Today teachers recognized that they need to teach students the real-world skill of identifying problems instead of offering clear-cut problems to be solved. Students should have the opportunities to locate and refine problems that need to be solved. The teachers can serve as a guide and a consultant in helping them to frame a meaningfully problem and to clearly define it.
2. Develop good strategies: Once you define and identify a problem, students need to develop strategies for solving it. Among the effective strategies are setting subgoals,using algorithms, and relying on heuristics. • Subgoaling: involves setting intermediate goals that put students in a better position to reach the final goal or solution. • Algorithms: are strategies that guarantee a solution to a problem. Algorithms come in different forms, such as formulas ,instructions , and test of all possible solutions. • Means-ends analysis: is a heuristic in which one identifies the goal (end) of a problem, assess the current situation, and evaluates what needs to be done (means) to decrease the difference between the two conditions.
Heuristicsare strategies or rules of thumb that suggest solutions to a problem, but do not ensure they will work. Availability heuristic - A prediction about the probability of an event based on the event’s past occurrences Representativeness heuristic - Faulty decisions based on how well something matches a prototype- that is ,the most common or representative example, rather than its relevance to a situation
3. Evaluate solutions: Once we solve the problem, we might not know whether our solution is effective unless we evaluate it. 4. Rethink and redefine problems and solutions over time: An important step in problem solving is to continually rethink and redefine problems and solutions over time.
Obstacles to Problem Solving Fixation: is when you are fixated on a particular strategy for solving a problem and fail to examine a fresh perspective. Functional fixedness is a type of fixation in which an individual fails to solve a problem because he or she views the element in terms of their usual functions. A mental set up is a type of fixation in which the individual tries to solve a problem in a way that has worked in the past. Lack of motivation: Some students may have great problem-solving abilities, but are not motivated to use them. They lack persistence. Inadequate emotional control: Emotions can facilitate or restrict problem solving. Too much anxiety or fear can restrict a student’s ability to solve a problem.
Developmental Changes • One way that developmental changes in problem solving have been studied is called the rule-assessment approach. • Even young children begin to use rules to solve problems. • During early childhood a child becomes capable of more flexible, goal directed problem solving.
Developmental Changes (Cont’d) At about 4 years of age, children acquire the concept of perspectives, which allows them to appreciate that a single thing can be described in different ways. Children become better planners during the elementary and secondary school years. They learn more effective strategies that help them solve problems and have more accumulated knowledge (metacognitive strategies). Adolescents have an increased capacity to monitor and manage their resources to effectively meet the demands of a problem-solving task. They also screen out information irrelevant to solving a problem.
Problem-Based Learning Problem-Based Learning emphasizes solving authentic problems like those that occur in daily life. Provide opportunities to solve real-world problems Monitor effective/ineffective strategies Involve parents Improve students’ use of rules, knowledge, and strategies Use technology effectively
Transfer Transferis applying previous experiences and knowledge to learning or problem solving in a new situation. An important complex cognitive goal is for students to be able to apply what they learn in one situation to new situations. Types of transfer Near transfer is the transfer of learning to a situation that is similar to the one in which the initial learning took place. Example: Near transfer occurs when a student learns to type on a typewriter then he transfers this skill to type on a computer.
Transfer (Cont’d) • Far transfer is the transfer of learning to a situation that is different to the one in which the initial learning took place. • Example: If a student gets a job in an architect’s office and applies what he learned in geometry class to help the architect analyze a spatial problem different from any problem the student encountered in geometry class, then far transfer has occurred.
Transfer (Cont’d) • Low road transferis the automatic, often unconscious, transfer of learning to a new situation. • Example: When competent readers encounter new sentences in their native language , they read them automatically. • High road transfer is conscious and effortful transfer of learning to a new situation. • Example: A student might learn about the concept of subgoaling (setting intermediate goals) in math, then after several months one student thinks about how subgoaling might help him complete a lengthy homework assignment in history.
Transfer (Cont’d) • Forward-reaching transfer :Occurs when student thinks about how to use information in a new situation. From the current situation students look forward to how they are going to apply information to a new situation. • Backward-reaching transfer :Occurs when students look back to previous situations for information to solve problems in a new context.
