wk 4 - Learning Theories: Cognitive Constructivism

Cognitive Constructivism

source: http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/et-it/cognitiv.htm

• Cognitive constructivism is based on the work of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget.

• Piaget's theory has two major parts:
• an "ages and stages"component that predicts what children can and cannot understand at different ages, and
•  a theory of development that describes how children develop cognitive abilities. It is the theory of development that will be the focus here because it is the major foundation for cognitive constructivist approaches to teaching and learning.

• Piaget's theory of cognitive development proposes that humans cannot be "given" information which they immediately understand and use.

• Humans must "construct" their own knowledge. They build their knowledge through experience.

• Experiences enable them to create schemas - mental models in their heads. These schemas are changed, enlarged, and made more sophisticated through two complimentary processes:
• assimilation
• accommodation

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Background

http://gsi.berkeley.edu/teachingguide/theories/cognitive.html

• Dissatisfaction with behaviorism’s strict focus on observable behavior led educational psychologists such as Jean Piaget and William Perry to demand an approach to learning theory that paid more attention to what went on “inside the learner’s head.”

• Developed a cognitive approach that focused on mental processes rather than observable behavior.

• Common to most cognitivist approaches is the idea that knowledge comprises symbolic mental representations, such as propositions and images, together with a mechanism that operates on those representations.

• Knowledge is seen as something that is actively constructed by learners based on their existing cognitive structures.

• Learning is relative to their stage of cognitive development; understanding the learner's existing intellectual framework is central to understanding the learning process.

 

View of Knowledge

• While behaviorists maintain that knowledge is a passively absorbed behavioral repertoire, cognitive constructivists argue instead that knowledge is actively constructed by learners and that any account of knowledge makes essential references to cognitive structures.

• Knowledge comprises active systems of intentional mental representations derived from past learning experiences.

• Each learner interprets experiences and information in the light of their extant knowledge, their stage of cognitive development, their cultural background, their personal history, and so forth.

• Learners use these factors to organize their experience and to select and transform new information.

• Knowledge is essentially dependent on the standpoint from which the learner approaches it; it is therefore actively constructed by the learner rather than passively absorbed