Cognitive Processes and Learning Strategies

Problem Solving

• Problem solving is cognitive processing directed at achieving a goal when the problem solver does not initially know a solution method.

Mesosystem

• A mesosystem is where a person's individual microsystems do not function independently but are interconnected and assert influence upon one another.

Exemplars

• Exemplars represent a variety of examples that allow learners to know that an example under a concept has variability.

Mnemonic Aids

• Mnemonic aids are memory techniques that learners may employ to help them retain and retrieve information more effectively.

Prototype

• A prototype is an idea or a visual image of a "typical" example, usually formed based on positive instances that learners encounter most often.

Wolfgang Kohler

• Wolfgang Kohler connected Gestalt Psychology to the natural sciences, arguing that organic phenomena are examples of holism at work.

IPT (Information Processing Theory)

• IPT is a cognitive psychology theory that studies mental processes involved in acquiring, storing, and using knowledge.

Insight Learning

• Insight learning was first developed by Wolfgang Kohler, describing experiments with apes where the apes could use boxes and sticks to solve problems.

Robert Gagne

• Robert Gagne was an American Education Psychologist best known for his Conditions of Learning Theory.

Procedural Knowledge

• Procedural knowledge is knowledge on how to do things, such as making a lesson plan and baking cookies.

Law of Continuation/Continuity

• The Law of Continuation/Continuity states that we perceive elements arranged on a line or a curve as related to each other, while elements that are not on the line or curve are seen as separate.

Retrieval

• Retrieval is when information is brought back at the appropriate time and reactivates to use on a current task, which is the true measure of effective memory.

Gestalt

• Gestalt is a German term for "Configuration," referring to a school of psychology that focuses on the organization of visual elements into groups or unified wholes.

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt psychology is a psychological theory that attempts to understand the world around us, not by focusing on every small component, but by perceiving objects as elements of more complex systems.

Phi Phenomenon

• The phi phenomenon is an optical illusion where two stationary objects seem to move if they are shown appearing and disappearing in rapid succession.

Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

• Stage 3 of psychosocial development is when children begin to assert their power and control over the world through directing play and other social interaction, occurring during preschool years.

Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalysis is a method of explaining and treating mental and emotional problems by having the patient talk about dreams, feelings, memories, etc.

Subconscious Mind

• The subconscious mind is part of the mind that is responsible for all involuntary actions.

Unconscious Mind

• The unconscious mind is the storage of all memories, habits, and emotions.

Id

• The id is the biological component of the personality and includes instincts.

Conventional Morality

• Conventional morality is a moral development stage where individuals begin to internalize the moral standards of valued adult role models.

Urie Bronfenbrenner

• Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-born American psychologist known for his ecological systems theory of child development.

Jean Lave

• Jean Lave is a social anthropologist who theorizes learning as changing participation in ongoing changing practice.

George Miller

• George Miller is known for his seminal paper, "The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2," which proposes that human short-term memory has a limited capacity of seven items, plus or minus two.

Cognition

• Cognition refers to the higher-level functions of the brain and encompasses language, imagination, perception, and planning.

Metacognition

• Metacognition is an appreciation of what one already knows, thinking about thinking, knowing what we know, and what we don't know.

Benjamin Bloom

• Benjamin Bloom was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning.

Positive Transfer

• Positive transfer is the transfer of learning when learning in one situation facilitates learning in another situation.

Mental Discipline Theory or Faculty Psychology

• Mental discipline theory, also known as faculty theory, states that education is a matter of training or disciplining the mind through vigorous mental exercises.

Individual Differences Factors

• Individual differences factors include personality, intelligence, learning styles, motivations, abilities, talents, emotional intelligence, cultural and social background, and genetics.

Effective Learning

• Learning is most effective when differential development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into account.

Jerome Bruner

• Jerome Bruner believed that whatever new information we desire or require to understand must be connected to whatever we currently know.

Random Trial and Error

• Random trial and error involves randomly selecting a legal move and applying it to create a new problem state and repeating that process until the goal is reached.

Elaboration

• Elaboration is the ability to systematize and organize the details of an idea in one's head before carrying it out.

Incubation Stage

• The incubation stage is the period where a person unconsciously continues to support work on an idea, but there is no active attempt to solve the problem.

David Ausubel

• David Ausubel's theory was originally designed purely for instructional design, in contrast to numerous other educational hypotheses which are psychology-based concepts adapted to curriculum design.

Inhibition

• Inhibition is learning not to do something that we already know how to do because a model being observed refrains from behaving in that way or does something different from what is intended to be done.

Latent Learning

• Latent learning is learning that remains or stays with the individual until needed.