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• Introduction to Cognitive Theories of Learning

Learning Objectives

• Session will review research of cognitivist learning theorists Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner
• Session will consider how cognitivist learning approaches are used in various learning contexts and settings

Cognitivist Theory

• Learning is an internal process of associating previous knowledge with new information
• Learning involves organizing knowledge and reinforcing memories
• Input is the stage of receiving information with attention
• Processing (encoding) is translating information into a meaningful form for memory
• Output (retrieval) is identifying and recalling information for a specific purpose Meaning-making occurs as individuals construct their own understanding of experiences
• Learning involves a search for meaning
• Meaning requires understanding of 'wholes' and parts
• Teachers should understand students' mental models and assumptions
• Students should construct their own meaning avoiding memorization
• Assessment should be part of the learning process

Theorist Timelines

• Jean Piaget: 1896-1980 (active 1920s-1970s)
• Lev Vygotsky: 1896-1934 (active 1920s-1930s, translations influenced 1960s-1970s)
• Jerome Bruner: 1915- (active 1950s-1990s)

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

• Swiss natural scientist, biologist, and epistemologist
• Best known for research on children's cognitive development
• Interested in how children learn and their growing capacity to understand the world
• Studied children from infancy to adolescence through observation with exercises and tests

Vygotsky on Piaget

• Piaget revolutionized the study of child's speech and thought
• Piaget developed a clinical method for exploring children's ideas
• Piaget was the first to explore a child's perception and logic systematically

Piaget's Assumptions About Children

• Children construct their own knowledge through experiences
• Children learn independently without older children or adults
• Children are intrinsically motivated without needing rewards

Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development
• Nature relates to brain/body maturation, ability to learn, perceive, act, and motivation
• Nurture includes:
  • Adaptation: children respond to environmental demands to meet goals
  • Organization: children integrate observations into coherent knowledge

Key Aspects of Piaget's Cognitive Theory

• Schema is innate and acquired
• Children are actively engaged in the learning process
• Cognitive structures change via equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation
• Developmental stages of children are age-defined

Schema

• Schema is understanding and knowledge of the world
• Schema helps make sense of and categorize knowledge
• Schema represents perceptions, ideas, objects, and actions
• Schemas can be acquired/learned or innate (e.g., reflex)
• Schemas develop with experience, and are not fixed
• Example: an 8-month-old baby knows a rattle makes noise when shaken

Continuous vs. Discontinuous

• Sources of continuity include:
  • Assimilation: translating incoming information into an understandable form
  • Accommodation: adapting current knowledge structures to new experience
  • Equilibration: balancing assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
• Sources of discontinuity include distinct stages of cognitive development:
  • Qualitative change: children of different ages think in distinct ways
  • Broad applicability: thinking at each stage pervades topic and content
  • Brief transitions: transitions to higher stages are not necessarily continuous
  • Invariant sequence: a stable sequence of stages for everyone, without skipping

Assimilation, Accommodation and Equilibrium

• Assimilation involves external elements integrated into evolving or completed structures
• Assimilation is the process of taking material into the mind from the environment
• Accommodation involves changes to one's mind or concepts via assimilation
• Assimilation and accommodation co-occur
• Accommodation includes adjustment or modification of schemas as new information is assimilated

Developing Brain

• Cognitivism uses a growing and maturing brain that can engage with its environments
• Constructivism uses a child constructing its identity and understandings of its environments
• Social constructivism means a child constructing its identity and understandings within their social environments

Equilibrium

• Equilibrium drives the learning process
• Equilibrium is seeking to restore balance by mastering new challenges
• Disequilibrium occurs if new information does not fit existing schemas
• Equilibration is Piaget's equivalent to the notion of 'motivation'

Jean Piaget - Developmental Stages

• Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years):
  • Children differentiate themselves from objects
  • Develop knowledge of touch, smell, sight and taste
  • Develop knowledge of object permanence; understanding objects exist even when they are no longer present
• Pre-operational Stage (2-7 years):
  • Children learn to use language to represent objects by words and images
  • Thinking is egocentric; they find it difficult to take on the viewpoints of others
  • Struggle adjusting to changes in appearances and lack conservation
• Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):
  • Children can think logically about objects and events
  • Can use logical rules to solve problems
  • Objects can be ordered by features such as height, weight or speed
  • Concept of conservation is developed and grasped
• Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years):
  • Thinking becomes more flexible
  • Children/teenagers can think logically about abstract concepts
  • Thinking becomes more symbolic
  • Children/teenagers are concerned with the hypothetical and future

Jean Piaget – In Practice

• Learning should be child-centered and tailored to the child's readiness to learn
• Learning should be constructive and active, with an emphasis on practical activities
• A teacher is a facilitator rather than an instructor
• Materials and activities should help children construct learning by progressing from discovery to discovery

Jean Piaget - Critiques

• Piaget does not sufficiently consider the impact of environment and culture on cognitive development and learning
• Piaget's stages are too rigid
• Children develop at different rates
• Some never reach formal operation stage
• Piaget places less emphasis on the teacher's role relative to theorists like Bruner and Vygotsky
• Language used in tests was too hard for children to understand
• Sample sizes were too small
• The study did not include a range of children from different cultures and included Piaget's own children

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

• Russian psychologist (originally studied law) Active in 1920's & 1930's
• Influenced Western researchers in 1960's and 1980's when translations of his work became available
• Much of his research is based on language learning in children

Lev Vygotsky: Ideas

• Cognitive development is essentially a social process
• Thought development is determined by language
• Intellectual growth is contingent upon the development of the social key of language
• Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding society and constructing knowledge

Lev Vygotsky: Social Development/Constructivist Theory

• Children do not develop in isolation but in a social world
• A child's environment, age, culture, life experiences, social relationships, and interactions matter
• Learning is based in real life experiences and social and cultural interaction is vital for learning

Vygotsky: Language and Thought

• Language is essential to learning, and is the main means by which adults communicate and transmit information
• Children internalize language as thought/inner speech
• Thought results from language
• Criticized by Fox (2001), who argues that without language, children are devoid of thought

Lev Vygotsky: Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Learning is accelerated through the learner working with or the teaching of a 'More Knowledgeable Other'
• ZPD is collaboratively produced in the interaction between the child and more knowledgeable others
• Collaborative interaction aims to lift the learner to become 'head taller'

Jerome Bruner (1915)

• American psychologist who focused on schooling in the 1950s
• Believed education should reflect the values of society
• Influenced by Vygotsky and the social constructivist approach
• Interested in how context and culture influenced learning

Jerome Bruner - Key Ideas: Three Modes of Learning

• Enactive: learning through actions and muscle memory
• Iconic: learning through images and mental pictures
• Symbolic: learning through codes, symbols, and language that provides flexiblity.

Jerome Bruner - Key Ideas

• Learning is an active process where learners construct new ideas based on current/previous learning
• Discovery learning and problem solving activities supported

Jerome Bruner - Additional Key Ideas

• Language is important for developing thinking skills and dealing with abstract concepts
• Learners need to be interested and motivated
• Emphasized the social nature of learning with adults playing an active role
• Teachers should facilitate learning and support children
• Scaffolding involves breaking down complex tasks, with adults offering and gradually reducing support

Jerome Bruner - Spiral Curriculum

• Opposes Piaget's stages of learning and readiness concepts
• Argued schools waste time trying to match subject complexity to a child's cognitive stage
• Children are held back by teachers seeing certain topics as inaccessible

Spiral Approach

• Topics are restudied at deeper, more complex levels
• Claims any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development
• Advantage involves helping learners link topics to a range of concepts
• Criticism involves being too repetitive for some

Cognitivist Impacts on Learning

• A child/learner-centered approach to teaching and learning with:
  • Discovery learning
  • Active learning
  • Inquiry-based learning
  • Reciprocal learning
• The teacher serves as a facilitator
• Role is to guide/help students learn (zone of proximal development and scaffolding) rather than simply transmit information
• Education aligns with societal values and belief systems