When we think about Cognitive Structures we need to look at what Garner says about how they are used to process information. There are 4 ways she lists to help us.
1) Making connections- Students need to make connections to prior knowledge in order to make better sense of the information we present.
2)Finding patterns & relationships- these allow students to compare and organize information. All learning is based on relationships. Too often as teachers we point out the patterns and relationships for the students instead of allowing them to find them on their own. Do not teach imitation.
3)Formualting rules- Cognitive structures help formulate rules that make processing information automatic. Students then do not have to expend energy to think about information.
4)Abstracting principles- Apply or transfer information to situations other than the original context.
Garner goes on in the chapter to discuss 3 questions about Cognitive Structures that we should look at. First, how do students develop cognitive structures? She submits two ideas- reflective awareness and visualization. The conept of visualization is interesting because it allows for students to represnt and manipulate information. The next question is why have some students developed them and others have not? Sometimes students are not encouraged to be reflectively aware of the information in a situation. Lastly, what can teachers do to help students develop the structures? We can crreate safe environments and ask stimulating questions. We must also develop student's reflective awareness by making them aware of sensory data around them. Most importantly, let students find answers on their own. Mistakes are OK when they are learning.
A final thought from the chapter which I think sums up the entire message. Garner makes the point that the understanding is more important than the grade. And we can assess the true level of understanding in the kinds of questions students ask. Think about that the next time you have students raising their hands. Do their questions represent true understanding? And let them struggle a little to find the answers, don't teach them to imitate you, let them develop their own understanding.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Getting to Got It Chapter 1
Betty Garner's book Getting to Got It has a great deal of information that will useful to us as special education professionals. When I read the book the first time it really struck me how relevant the situations were to us from the book. Our students have so much difficulty just getting it sometimes. For us to get them over that hump, so-to-speak, is often the most frustrating time in teaching. Garner's book gives us specific ideas and strategies as to how we can work with those students. More importantly to me, she provides us concrete strategies to build the cognitive abilities of our students. These abilities will be the basis for how our students learn.
In this first post I wanted to take a few lines and set up the book. Chapter 1 is vital to understanding the rest of the text. There are a few viewpoints you need in order to really enjoy the rest of the book.
Garner states that "Making meaning involves more than the brain; it also involves issues of the heart, the soul, and the spirit" (Chapter 1). When I used to teach kids about pitching I would explain to them that they did not throw with their arms, they threw with their bodies. Everything they did in the act of pitching involved their entire body. They had to feel the proper mechanics from their feet all the way up. Once they go that feeling they understood their motion better and were better able to pitch consistently. My take on Garner's statement is that students need to feel what they are learning. Many researchers talk about accessing prior knowledge and creating emotional attachments to learning. I agree with these concepts completely. I think that is what Garner is saying here. Students need to have some attachment to the learning in order to better understand it.
Garner also lists 3 categories of cognitive structures to define them. First is comparative thinking. In his stage students process data by how they are alike or different. Examples she gives of this type are recognition, memorization, classification and conservation of constancy, among several others.
Next we find symbolic representation. This involves transforming information into acceptable coding systems. For example, math, music, dance, drama would be areas involved in this transformation.
Finally, logical reasoning structures are abstract thinking strategies to systematically process and generate information. Examples of this process would be deductive reasoning, cause-effect relationships, analysis, synthesis or problem solving.
Think about your students. How many of them have trouble in these 3 areas? Wouldn't it be great if we could focus some strategies on these aspects of cognition and build them up in our students. I will discuss these more in my next post.
In this first post I wanted to take a few lines and set up the book. Chapter 1 is vital to understanding the rest of the text. There are a few viewpoints you need in order to really enjoy the rest of the book.
Garner states that "Making meaning involves more than the brain; it also involves issues of the heart, the soul, and the spirit" (Chapter 1). When I used to teach kids about pitching I would explain to them that they did not throw with their arms, they threw with their bodies. Everything they did in the act of pitching involved their entire body. They had to feel the proper mechanics from their feet all the way up. Once they go that feeling they understood their motion better and were better able to pitch consistently. My take on Garner's statement is that students need to feel what they are learning. Many researchers talk about accessing prior knowledge and creating emotional attachments to learning. I agree with these concepts completely. I think that is what Garner is saying here. Students need to have some attachment to the learning in order to better understand it.
Garner also lists 3 categories of cognitive structures to define them. First is comparative thinking. In his stage students process data by how they are alike or different. Examples she gives of this type are recognition, memorization, classification and conservation of constancy, among several others.
Next we find symbolic representation. This involves transforming information into acceptable coding systems. For example, math, music, dance, drama would be areas involved in this transformation.
Finally, logical reasoning structures are abstract thinking strategies to systematically process and generate information. Examples of this process would be deductive reasoning, cause-effect relationships, analysis, synthesis or problem solving.
Think about your students. How many of them have trouble in these 3 areas? Wouldn't it be great if we could focus some strategies on these aspects of cognition and build them up in our students. I will discuss these more in my next post.
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