Cognitive Learning Theories

As we think about cognitive learning theories, it is heavily associated with the thinking and application of students in the classroom. As we apply technology, students are able to apply technology to concept maps, graphic organizers, blogs, and other different learning tools online. We were asked to apply “Summarizing and Note Taking.” along with “Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers”. These areas are awesome thoughts when dealing with cognitive learning because it forces the students to be in thought process and recalling relevant information that will be needed for the future.

As I think about "Summarizing and Note Taking, I think about what is happening in my own classroom. I utilize graphic organizers a great deal in conjunction with summarizing and note taking in my classroom. These areas are a key and central part of the learning in my classroom. Students are able to use graphic organizers for note taking, study material and summarizing at the end of a unit. I believe that summarizing, note taking, cues, questions, and advance organizers are all intertwined to make the learning atmosphere greater. Which brings me to cues, questions and advanced organizers: Teachers should be able to utilize each of these areas in the classroom while at the same time allowing students to think through different areas of study.

As we think about technology and cognitive learning theories, "Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007)states "When cues, questions, and advance organizers focuses on enhancing students' ability to retrieve, use and organize information about a topic, they are most effective. Also, Cues are explicit reminders or hints about what students are about to experience, Questions perform the same function as cues by triggering students' memories and helping them to access prior knowledge and Advance Organizers, is a concept originally developed by David Ausubel (1960), and they are structures that teachers provide to students before a learning activity to help them classify and make sense of the content they will encounter, particularly new content that is not well organized in its original format".

Lastly, cognitive learning theories goes with summarizing and note taking as well. "Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007)states that summarizing and note taking is a strategy that focuses on enhancing students' ability to synthesize information and distill separate important information from extraneous information and state the information in their own words. As I think about concept mapping, this will play a great part in the learning tool of cognitive theories in technology because students are able to create their learning online. Therefore, all aspects of cognitive learning is beneficial to the learning process for the student. Incorporating technology will allow the student to use these same tools online, therefore these tools can be recall in the future when needed.