Learning, Cognition, and Memory 3rd Reading

Big Ideas

Enduring Understandings (Mega-Ideas):

a) Much of human learning involves a process of actively constructing--not passively absorbing--knowledge.

b) Knowledge about the brain is helpful, but there are many misconceptions.

c) Human memory is complex, multifaceted information-processing system that is, to a considerable degree, under learners' control.

d) Human memory is fallible. Learners don't remember everything they learn, and sometimes they misremember what they've learned.

e) Effective teachers help students mentally process new information and skills in ways that facilitate long-term memory.

Why may learners may or may not remember what they’ve learned?

What helps people to remember? What prevents people from remembering?

What is context?

Define and give an example retrieval cues:

What is reconstruction?

Define reconstruction error.

Define retrieval failure.

Define decay.

When and how have you experienced reconstruction error?

When and how have you experienced retrieval error?

When how have you experienced memory decay?

1. Long -term memory is not necessarily forever.

How easily something is recalled depends on how it was initially learned. Remembering depends on the context. If they connected it with something else in long term memory.

The parts of written or spoken statement that precede or follow specific word or passage usually influencing its meaning or effect.

Retrieval cues clearly help learners recall what they have previously learned. For example, songs and smells.

Somethings people retrieve only certain of something they have previously learned. In such situations they may construct their memory of an event by combining the tidbits they can recall with their general knowledge and assumptions about the world.

Inability to locate information that currently exists in long-term memory.

Gradual weakening of information stored in long-term memory, especially if the information is used infrequently or not at all.


Try to remember spelling by remembering vocabulary and how it is spelled to help me.

When I forget my exam coming up.

When I tried to remember what I learned in math class for 3 years ago.

Summarize what you learned from this section:

I learned that remembering depends on how easily something is recalled depends on how it was initially learned. Remembering depends on the context. Memory is very interesting thing to learn about. I like the idea that when I listen to a song I remember an event or person and that’s very true and happened with all the people.

How can teachers (and students) promote effective cognitive processes (thinking)?

What are important things we should remember about memory?

How can a teacher grab and hold students’ attention?

Why should a teacher grab and hold students’ attention?

What is meant by the limited capacity of working memory ?

Why should a teacher remember students’ have a limited capacity of working memory?

Why should a teacher relate new ideas to students’ prior knowledge and experiences?

How can a teacher relate new ideas to students’ prior knowledge and experiences?

Why should a teacher accommodate diversity in students’ background knowledge?

How can a teacher provide experiences on which a student can build?

What is elaboration?

Why should a teacher present questions and tasks that encourage elaboration?

Why should a teacher show how ideas are interrelated?

What is conceptual understanding?

Why should a teacher facilitate visual imagery?

How can a teacher facilitate visual imagery?

Why should a teacher give students time to think?

What is wait time? How long should it be? Why should you use it?

What is a mnemonic?

What is a verbal mediator?

What is keyword method?

What is superimposed meaningful structure?

Why should a teacher use mnemonics?

Why should a teacher provide many opportunities for students to practice important knowledge and skills?

What is retrieval?

How does a teacher provide opportunities to practice important knowledge and skills?

Why should a teacher give hints that help students recall or reconstruct what they’ve learned?

Why should a teacher focus assessments on meaningful learning rather than rote learning?

Why should a teacher be on the lookout for students who have unusual difficulty with certain cognitive processes?

Remembering how the human memory system works encouraging effective long term memory storage.

Attention is critical for moving information into working memory. Working memory has a short duration and limited capacity.

Rating a wide variety of instructional methods into the weekly schedule. Problem solving activates.

Better learning and understanding.

Students have only limited space in their working memory.

Instruction must be paced to accommodate what students working memories can reasonably accomplish.

Teachers can encourage more mean leering by explicitly showing students new material relates to one or more.

1- Concept and ideas in the same subject area.

2- Concept and ideas in other subject area.

Thus students from diverse back ground may come to school with some different knowledge.

Teachers can create foundational experiences at school, perhaps by offering opportunities to work with physical objects and living creatures.

Psychiatry Ian unconscious process of expending and embellishing a detailed especially while recalling and describing a representation in a dream.

The more students elaborate on new material the more they mentally expand on what they are learning the more effectively they are apt to understand and remembers.

the more interrelationships students identify within the subject matter they’re learning—in other words, the better they organize it—the more easily they can remember and apply it later on. When students form many logical connections within the speci c concepts and ideas of a topic, they gain

knowledge about a topic acquired in an integrated and meaningful fashion.

visual imagery can be a highly e ective way to learn and remember information.

teachers better help students remember new ideas when they encourage students to encode classroom subject matter both verbally and visually.

students and personal meaning in, elaborate on, organize, and visualize classroom subject matter. Such processes require thought, and thought requires time.

More students (espe- cially more females and minority students) participate in class, and students begin to respond to one another’s comments and questions. Students are more likely to support their reasoning with evidence or logic and more likely to speculate when they don’t know an answer. Furthermore, students are more motivated to learn classroom subject matter, are better behaved in class, and actually learn more.

Can help them learn classroom material mor effectively.

is a word or phrase that creates a logical connection, or “bridge,” between two pieces of information.

aids memory by making a connection between two things. This technique is especially helpful when there is no logical verbal mediator to ll the gap.

Familiar word, shape, sentence or story imposed on information in order facilitate recall.

can help them learn classroom material more ectively.

· Provide mnemonics that can help students remember a sequence of steps.



The chance of recovery or restoration.

Automaticity can occur just as readily when the basics are embedded in avariety of stimulating and challenging activities.

Because sometimes it is easy to forget.

Because it is more important to make sense of classroom material than onto to memories it.

Students with learning
disabilities have significant defcits in one or more
specific cognitive processes. For instance, they
may have trouble remembering verbal instructions, recognizing words in print (dyslexia), or
thinking about and remembering information
involving numbers (dyscalculia). Students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may show marked deficits in attention, have trouble inhibiting inappropriate thoughts and behaviors, or both. Most experts believe that learning disabilities and ADHD have a biological basis, sometimes as a result of genetic inheritance and sometimes as a result of adverse environ- mental conditions (e.g., exposure to toxic substances) during early brain development.

Summarize what you learned from this section:

Human learning involves a process of actively constructively not passively knowledge.

Knowledge about the brain is helpful. Teachers need to know about the brain and memory so they can help their students to learn.

Learning, Cognition, and Memory

How does human memory operate?

Memory is:

Storage is:

Retrieval is:

Draw figure 2.5 or find another model of human memory.

What happens to sensory input once it enters the brain?

Define sensory register

Why is attention essential for most learning and memory?

Define attention:

Describe working memory.

Define working memory:

Define rehearsal:

How does information move into long-term memory?

Describe long-term memory:

What is the difference between declarative and procedural knowledge?

How is information in long-term memory interconnected and organized?

Define concept:

Define schema:

Define script:

Define theories:

What long-term memory storage processes are more effective? Why are they more effective?

Define rote learning:

Define meaningful learning:

Describe elaboration:

Describe organization:

Define visual imagery:

Define learning strategy:

How does prior knowledge and beliefs affect new learning?

Memory is: Ability to save something (mentally) that has been previously learned also the mental locations where such information is saved.

Storage is: Process of putting new information into memory.

Retrieval is: Process of finding information previously stored in memory.

The sensory register is the component of memory that holds the information you receive-input-in more or less its original uuencoded form Much of what your body sees hears and otherwise senses is stored in the sensory register In other words the sensory register has a large capacity It can hold a great deal of information at one time.

sensory register: component of memory that holds incoming information in an unanalyzed form for a very brief time (perhaps one to two seconds)

Paying attention involves directing not only the appropriate sensory receptors (in the eyes ears fingertips etc) but also the mind toward whatever needs to be learned and remembered.

Focusing of mental processes on particular stimuli.

is the component of memory where attended-to information stays for a short while so that we can make better sense of it .

working memory: Component of memory that holds and actively thinks about and processes a limited amount of information for short time period.

rehearsal: Cognitive process in which information is repeated over and over as a possible way of learning and remembering it.

long-term memory: Is where we store our general knowledge and beliefs about the world, our recollections of past experiences and things we have learned in school.

long-term memory: component of memory that holds knowledge and skills for relatively long time.

Declarative knowledge: knowledge is related to what is that is to the nature of how things are were or will be.

Procedural knowledge: knowledge concerning how to do something.

In the process of constructing knowledge, learners often create well integrated entities that encompass particular ideas or groups of ideas.

Mental grouping of objects or events that have something in common.

Tightly organized set of facts about a specific concept or phenomenon.

Shema that involves a predicable sequence of events related to a common activity.

Integrated set of concept and principal developed to explain a particular phenomenon.

Cognitive process in which learners try to remember information in relatively uninterested from with little or no effort to make sense of or attach meaning to it .

Cognitive process in which learners relate new information to things they already know.

Cognitive process in which learners embellish on new information based on what they already know.

Cognitive process in which learners find connection among various pieces of information they need to learn.

Cognitive process in which learners from mental pictures to objects or ideas.

Intentional use of one or more cognitive processes for particular learning task.

Generally speaking, people who already know something about a topic learn new information about a topic more effectively than people who have a little relevant background.

Summarize what you learned from this section:

I have known many new things such as

meaningful learning, elaboration, organization, visual imagery, concept, schema and script. Also, I learned about memory and the way that people learn and how the keep the information and storage new information in their memory. I like the idea of rehearsal many people learn from repeating but some other people will not learn in the same way.

Learning, Cognition, and Memory

Learning as a Constructive Process

Learning is:

What are aspects of learning that are important to remember?

What did the author mean when she stated: “Diverse perspectives of learning complement rather than contradict one another, and when considering all the theories of learning they help us to understand learning better?

Information Processing means:

Constructivism means:

How are behaviorism and information theory different?

“By the time they reach school age, young learners are usually actively involved in their own learning.”

Define cognitive process:

Define encoding:

An example of encoding:

Why must learners must be selective about what they focus on and learn?

“Learners create (rather than receive knowledge.” What does it mean to create knowledge?

Explain this statement: “Learners use what they already know and believe to help them make sense of new experiences.”

Is long term change in mental representations or association due to experience.

Long term changes not brief change in brain-mental representations or association caused by experience not drugs not aging not illness.

Many different ideas help us to better understand learning-much better than one idea. Different ideas are behaviorism social cognitive information processing theory constructivism.

What occurs inside the brain. We figure out why people do what they do.

Building own knowledge or understanding.

Behaviorist depend only on what can be seen. They are not interested in what occurs inside the brain even if they have to infer what happens.

They try to learn new things. Implicit and explicit learning going on.

Thinking processes-encoding, elaboration, associating.

Channing the format of information being stored in memory.

“Cognitive processes influence what is learned.”

Drawing a picture using the descriptive words or using words to describe a picture making a table out of information using words associations or mnemonics, adding to a description.

People can only handle so much information at one time so they must be selective of where they are focusing.

Create knowledge means to create new ideas. Know new things and developed you own knowledge.

When the student has an idea about something the can developed their own knowledge on what they believe.

Summarize what you learned from this section:

I have learned what learning means. I also learn about encoding, cognitive process and Constructivism.

Thinking and Learning in the Brain

Describe neurons:

Describe synapses:

Describe astrocytes:

Describe cortex:

Find a picture of the brain cells and label the parts.

Explain each of the following statements:

“The various parts of the brain work closely with one another.”

“Most learning probably involves changes in neurons, astrocytes, and their interconnections.”

“Knowing how the brain functions and develops tells us only so much about learning and instruction.”

Neurons: Cell in the brain or another part of the neurons system that specializes in transmitting information to other cells.

synapses: Tiny space across which one neuron regularly communicates with another reflects an ongoing but modifiable connection between the two neurons.

Astrocytes: Star-shaped brain cell hypothesized to be involved in learning and memory has chemically mediated connections with many other astrocytes and with neurons.

cortex: Upper and outer parts of the human brain which are largely responsible for conscious and complex cognitive processes.

Groups of neurons and glial cells in different parts of the brain seem to specialize in different things.

From a physiological standpoint, how and where does learning occur? Historically many theorists and researchers have believed that the physiological basis for most learning lies in changes in the interconnection among neurons.

Recent research on the human brain has given us helpful insights into the course of cognitive development and the neurological bases disabilities.

Summarize what you have learned from this section:

I have learned the meaning of neurons, synapses, astrocytes and cortex. Also, I have learned many new words and definitions