Current Cognitive Theories Of Learning

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

* Tim Seifert*

* Faculty of Education*

* Fall 1993*

Current cognitive theories of learning point to the important role

students' thought processes play in learning. Students need to be

mentally active processors of information if learning is to occur. In

these formulations, several criteria must be met if learning is to

occur. First, students must attend to information to be learned.

Second, students must create an understanding of the material by

creating or identifying relationships amongst the to-be-learned ideas.

Third, students need to relate new ideas to prior knowledge. Fourth,

students need to understand that learning requires mental effort - good

learners are strategic and poor learners are not, and that strategy use

is the means by which learning occurs.

When students attend to information, try to see how new ideas relate to

each other, or try to relate new information to prior knowledge they are

engaged in strategy use. A strategy is a mental event carried out by

the learner to achieve some desired goal (such as remembering some

fact). For example, if the teacher announces there will be a test next

Thursday, the student may repeat that fact over and over (rehearsal)

until the student is confident he/she remembers it.

While much research has been conducted on problem-solving and learning

strategies, many of those strategies are domain-specific and not

generalizable across the curriculum. For example, considerable research

as been devoted to remedial reading strategies (such as backtracking,

vocabulary recognition, inferencing) and mathematics problem-solving.

However, the discussion in this paper will be focused upon a set of

generalizable strategies that meet two criteria: they are well

researched and have been demonstrated to enhance memory and they are

generalizable across content domains and can be used in almost all areas

of study. In most cases, these strategies have been demonstrated to

enhance performance of students requiring remedial assistance (such as

low ability or LID students) and have been used with students across a

wide age range, from as young as eight years (grade three) to university

undergraduates.

The remainder of this paper will be divided into two sections. The

first section will describe each strategy (including imagery,

elaborative interrogation, acronyms, keyword method, summarizing and

concept mapping) by explaining what the strategy is for, why it is

thought to enhance memory, the steps in executing the strategy, and an

example of the strategy. The second section of the paper will describe

how strategies can be incorporated into regular classroom activities.

*Strategies for Enhancing Memory and Comprehension*

*Representational Imagery*. One of the most common and useful methods

of remembering information is to use mental imagery. It can be used for

remembering facts (e.g., During winter, the snowshoe hare turns white in

winter) and with extended prose (such as a description of a mechanical

device, a geographical location, or a scene in a novel).

Developmentally, while older students seem to benefit from imagery, it

has been shown that students as young as eight (grade three) can benefit

from generating their own imagery. However, providing the illustration

for younger children (K-2) will aid memory, as will the use of motor

activity (play). Currently, I am investigating the possibility of

teaching young primary students to generate their own images to enhance

memory for sentences.

Imagery is thought to enhance memory for two reasons. The first

explanation cites Paivio's dual coding theory. In dual coding theory,

memory consists of two separate memory systems. One system is a verbal

system used for representing and thinking with language. The second

system is a non-verbal system for representing and thinking with

non-verbal information like images. When information is received (such

as reading or hearing words) either or both systems may be activated. A

word or sentence becomes stored in either a verbal or non-verbal

representation, or both. If the information is encoded in both verbal

and non-verbal from, the likelihood of memory for that information

increases. By generating images of verbal information, including

illustrations with text (pictures or mental images), or by elaborating

upon illustrations with explanations, the likelihood is increased that

both systems are activated, that information is encoded in verbal and

non-verbal form, and that memory is enhanced.

In addition to dual coding theory, a second explanation for the

effectiveness of imagery cites Wittrock's generative theory. In making

a mental image of some information, the student must identify important

ideas and relate those ideas. That is, the image contains both the

concepts to be learned and the relationships between those concepts.

There are two steps in using mental imagery:

1) Read the information to be remembered.

2) Make a picture of that information in your head.

A good image is one which contains all the important concepts and shows

the relationships between those concepts. For example, suppose that in

reading about animals the student needed to remember that *The great

blue heron builds its nest in the tops of trees*. To use imagery, the

student needs to read this fact then make a mental image of it. A good

image might contain a tree, a nest in the top of the tree, and a heron

sitting in the nest.

A second example comes from the Grade 5 social studies text. In

discussing the life of the Inuit, it states that "During the winter, the

hunters would go out onto the ice to hunt walrus, polar bears, and sea

birds." In using imagery to remember this fact, the student might

generate an image of an Inuit hunter on ice with a polar bear, walrus,

and sea bird. A good image would contain the Inuit hunter interacting

with a polar bear, walrus, and sea bird.

*Elaborative interrogation*. Elaborative interrogation is a simple

strategy to enhance memory for facts. The strategy involves reading a

fact to-be-remembered, asking *Why would that be true?*, and then trying

to generate an answer. Its primary use seems to be enhancing memory for

important facts that need to be remembered, such as facts about animals,

countries, provinces, and gender differences. For example, the student

might read a fact such as *During winter, the snowshoe hare turns white

in colour*. To use elaborative interrogation to remember this fact, the

student would then ask himself or herself *Why would the snowshoe hare

turn white in colour?*, and then try to answer the question.

To date, the explanation for the effectiveness of the strategy has been

prior knowledge activation. To use this strategy, students must

generate an elaboration which clarifies the relationship between the

subject of the sentence *(snowshoe hare) *and the predicate *(turns

white in winter)*. That clarifying relationship is drawn from memory

and is used to strengthen the relationship between the subject and

predicate. However, it is not clear what prior knowledge is needed.

Some researchers suggest that knowledge about the subject (such as the

animal or country the fact is about) is required. Others seem to

suggest that content specific knowledge is less important but that

abstract knowledge in the form of rules or principles is important. For

example, consider the act *The people of Morintha come from many

different cultural and ethic backgrounds.* The first group of

researchers suggest that knowledge about Morintha is needed for

elaborative interrogation to be effective. The second group suggest

that more general knowledge is needed, such as knowledge that liberal

immigration policies lead to increased immigration or that strong

economic prosperity leads to high immigration.

Developmentally, the strategy has been demonstrated to work with

students as young as grade 4. However, the strategy seems to increase

in power as the students get older. Only one study has been published

in which an attempt was made to assess the benefits of elaborative

interrogation with students younger than grade four. The results

reported in that study suggested that elaborative interrogation did not

enhance memory for facts in young children. However, given the lack of

research such conclusions seem weak. I would hypothesize that if young

children are able to generate an answer to the *why* question they will

benefit. The potential pitfall in using this strategy with young

children is that they may not possess enough prior knowledge to generate

an answer to the*why* question.

Elaborative interrogation is a fairly straightforward strategy and

involves three steps:

1) Read the fact to be remembered

2) Turn the fact into a why question

3) Answer the why question

As an example, consider the first fact from the imagery example - *The

great blue heron builds its nest in the tops of trees*. Using

elaborative interrogation to remember this fact involves three steps.

First, read the fact. Second, turn it into a *why* question (*Why would

the great blue heron build its nest in the tops of trees?*). Third,

answer the *why* question (*for protection from enemies, lots of

building materials available*).

In general, research to this point suggests the answer generated to the

question is not important, but it is important that the student generate

a reasonable answer.

As a second example consider a act from the Grade 5 social studies text

which states that "During the winter, the hunters would go out onto the

ice to hunt walrus, polar bears, and sea birds." After reading this

fact, a student using elaborative interrogation would turn that fact

into a why question (Why would the hunters go out onto the ice to hunt

walrus, polar bears, and sea birds?) Finally, the students would try to

answer that question (because that's where the animals are living and

the hunter would need to go out on the ice to find them).

*Acronyms.* An acronym is a series of letters that spell a word (or

something like a word) with each letter in the acronym representing

another word. They are commonplace in everyday life - MUN, USA. For

example, to remember the names of the great lakes (Huron, Ontario,

Michigan, Erie, Superior), the first letter of each name can be arranged

to form the acronym HOMES. By thinking of HOMES, the student is able to

remember the names of the great lakes.

A variation on the letter acronym is the acronymic sentence. Instead

of arranging the letters to spell a word, the letters are used as the

first letters of words in sentences. For example, the lines on the

treble clef are used for the notes EGBDF. To remember those notes, the

sentence Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge can be created.

Acronyms are useful when a small number of grouped items need to be

remembered. For example, if the student needs to remember the names of

the 13 states in the New England colony, or the names of famous

scientists who made substantial contributions, an acronym is useful.

Acronyms work for two reasons. First, they help reduce a large amount

of information into a small amount of information. Second, and more

importantly, they help impose an organization on information that

enhances retrieval of information. Each letter serves as a cue to

remember some other piece of information. For example, what are the

names of the great lakes? Think of HOMES - H stands for Huron, 0 stands

for Ontario, and so on. The acronym provides a systematic way of

enhancing retrieval. Third, and equally important, the acronym helps

the student transform and relate new information into something

familiar. The unfamiliar names of the lakes are transformed into a

familiar word.

To create an acronymic sentence, the student needs to carry out four

steps.

1. List the names or words to be remembered.

2. Make a list of the first letter of each name or words.

3. Using those letters, create words which start with those letters

and try to arrange them into a sentence.

4. Replace the familiar words with alternative familiar words until

the sentence seems to make sense.

5. Practice remembering what the first letter of each word in the

sentence stands for.

To illustrate the process, consider the names of the famous explorers

listed in the grade five social studies text. These explorers are the

Vikings, Columbus, Cabot, Corte-Real, Fernadez, Gilbert, and Cartier.

An acronymic sentence may be constructed to remember the names of these

explorers. First, list the names of the explorers - Vikings, Columbus,

Cabot, Corte-Real, Fernadez, Gilbert, and Cartier. Second, list the

first letter of each name - V, C, C, C, F, G, C. Third, create words

which start with those letters and arrange those words into a sentence -

Very Cool Cats Can Find Good Cars. Finally, practice remembering what

the first letter of each word stands for:

Very V Viking

Cool C Columbus

Cats C Cabot

Can C Corte-Real

Find F Fernadez

Great G Gilbert

Cars C Cartier

*Keyword Method*. The keyword method is a well researched mnemonic

that has been clearly demonstrated to enhance memory for definitions of

scientific words, foreign language vocabulary, and associating an object

with its attributes (such as remembering the accomplishments of a famous

person or the characteristics of a particular town). Research has

demonstrated substantial learning gains for students using the keyword

method. The keyword method involves identifying a new word or name to

be learned, transforming that word into a familiar sounding word, and

then generating an image of the new word and old word interacting. For

example, the Spanish word *carta *means letter. To remember that

*carta* means letter, transform the word *carta* to *cart*, and make a

picture of a cart with a letter in it. As another example, consider the

fact that *Charles McKune was a famous artist*. To remember this fact,

transform McKune into the similar sounding *raccoon* and create an image

of a raccoon painting on a canvas.

The keyword method might work for several reasons. First, there is an

imagery component involved - students are required to generate an image,

and that will tend to enhance memory. Second, and more importantly, the

learner transforms the material (deep processing) by creating a similar

sounding word. This creates a link between the new information and

something familiar. Retrieval of the word-definition or

object-attribute is enhanced by being associated with a readily

remembered, familiar word.

Developmentally, elementary aged children are able to benefit from the

use of the keyword method. However, research has shown that when the

keyword and interactive image are provided for young children (K-3),

memory is enhanced. Research has also demonstrated that a sentence

generation variation of the keyword method can be successfully used by

students as young as three years of age. In this variation, students

are given the new word and the keyword, and asked to generate a sentence

which describes the definition of the new word interacting with the

keyword. For example, the young child would be told that *carta* means

letter, and that a good keyword that sounds like *carta* is*cart*.

Students would then be asked to make up a sentence relating cart to

letter, such *The mail was delivered in a cart.*

To use the keyword method, students need to carry out three steps:

1) identify the to-be-learned pair (word-meaning, term-definition,

object-attribute)

2) think of a familiar word that sounds similar to the to-be-learned

word/term/object

3) create and image (or sentence) the depicts the familiar keyword

with the meaning/definition/attribute

4) practice remembering what the

word-meaning/term/definition/object-attribute associations by

remembering the image

As an example, consider the following English words and their

definitions: antiar (a poison used on an arrow by natives), bolter (a

machine for sifting), and jarvey (a carriage driver). The definition

for each of these words can be remembered using the keyword method.

First, think of a familiar sounding word, then generate an interactive

image:

antler sounds like ant a picture of

a dead ant with an arrow stuck in him.

bolter sounds like bolt a picture of

a machine sifting bolts.

jarvey sounds like jar a picture of

a driver on a carriage carrying jars.

In the context of the grade five social studies curriculum, the keyword

method could be used to remember the names of William Cormack and Mina

Hubbard who were the first Europeans to cross Newfoundland. To remember

that Cormack and Hubbard walked across Newfoundland, the student would

need to change the name to a similar sounding word then generate an

interactive image:

Cormack sounds like doormat a picture of an explorer

waling over a doormat.

Hubbard sounds like cupboard a picture of a male explorer

carrying a cupboard.

*Summarizing.* Often students are required to read prose and remember

information contained in that prose. Aside from remembering bits and

pieces of information scattered throughout the text, students need to

remember themes and main ideas. Summarization is one strategy that has

been demonstrated to enhance memory for main ideas. In summarization,

students read a section of prose (typically a paragraph) and then write

a sentence that describes what that prose was about. Research has

demonstrated that summarization can improve memory for prose by about 33%.

As a strategy, summarization should be effective for two reasons.

First, the act of summarizing requires students to attend to important

concepts within the text and then generate meaningful relationships

between those concepts. Students must distinguish important information

from unimportant, and state how important concepts are related to each

other. Second, because summarizing requires students to express the

main ideas in their own words, there is a transformation or recoding

process involved (deep processing) in which students mentally manipulate

the information. Without this transformation, the task is reduced to a

form of rehearsal in which students merely copy out the main idea.

Subsequently, learning is reduced.

The generation of a summary involves three important steps:

1) read the text (such as the paragraph).

2) identify the main idea or main ideas.

3) write a sentence that describes what the main idea is, in the

students' own words.

4) combine summary sentences from paragraphs to form a summary for

the section or chapter.

A an example, consider the following paragraph:

Horns are useful to animals. Many animals, such as elk and moose, use

horns for fighting their enemies. Goats, buffaloes, and cows use their

horns to butt or throw their enemies. The horn of the rhinoceros makes

him a truly dangerous foe.

To create a summary of this paragraph, the student would need to read

the paragraph and identify the main idea. Here, the main idea is that

animals have horns which they use for protection. A summary sentence

might be something like *Many animals, such elk, moose, goats, cows, and

rhinoceros use their horns for protection from enemies*.

In the context of the social studies curriculum, one paragraph in the

textbook is:

Each spring, as the ice drifts south along the Labrador coast, it

brings with it great herds of seals. The early Inuit of Labrador

and the Indians of Newfoundland depended upon the seals to live.

After the long winter, the animals provided them with meat, oil and

clothing. The Europeans who first came to the area also quickly

learned how valuable seals could be.

Students can use summarization o remember the main idea of the

paragraph. In this example, the student would need to identify two

important ideas - that the ice flows along the coast, bringing seals

with it, and that many people hunt them for survival. Having done that,

the student would need to create a summary sentence of the

paragraph: *In spring, the ice brought seals down the coast where Inuits

and Europeans hunted them for survival.***

*Concept mapping*. Concept mapping (also called webbing, concept

webbing, mind-mapping, or semantic networking) is an effective strategy

for helping students develop a conceptual understanding of complex

prose. In concept mapping, the student is required to identify

important concepts and relate those concepts to each other (see Figure

1). The strategy may be used in almost any content domain, including

science, social studies, mathematics, and physical education. It can be

used whenever students are studying passages with a large number of

concepts and they need to see how important ideas relate to each other.

Developmentally, the concept map has been successfully used with

students in all grade levels (1 - 12).

* FIGURE 1*

The concept map is an effective strategy for two reasons. First, and

most importantly, it requires students to identify important concepts

and the relationships between those concepts. By creating a concept

map, students are organizing the ideas in their minds to create a

cognitive representation of the to-be-learned ideas. It makes them

mentally active. Second, it creates a visually representation of the

ideas. The relationships are represented in a visual display (the map),

which may be used to enhance retrieval of ideas in the map. And

dual-coding theory suggests that verbal and visual representations will

enhance memory of information to be learned.

To create a concept map, students need to do three things:

1) Read the passage

2) Identify important concepts contained in the passage and make a

list of them. A list of important ideas may also be helpful.

3) Arrange the concepts on a page according to how related they are

to each other

4) Draw lines between concepts to represent a relationship between

the concepts

5) Label the lines with the relationship (some people do this, some

do not - it seems optional)

As an example of concept mapping consider the following example:

Horns are useful to animals. Many animals, such as elk and moose, use

horns for fighting their enemies. Goats, buffaloes, and cows use their

horns to butt or throw their enemies. The horn of the rhinoceros makes

him a truly dangerous foe.

Teeth are used for protection by many animals. Dogs and wolves have

long, sharp teeth with which to defend themselves from enemies. Rats,

woodchucks, mink and weasels also have sharp teeth. These animals use

teeth in attacking enemies. The teeth of some animals have developed

into large tusks. Elephants and boars have tusks which are feared by

their enemies.

To use the concept mapping strategy for learning ideas in these

paragraphs, the student must read the paragraph and identify important

ideas. This would take the form of identifying concepts:

- horns - goats - teeth - woodchucks - elephants butting, throwing -

buffaloes

- dogs - mink - boars fighting - cows - wolves - weasels - tusks elk -

rhinoceros

- defend themselves - sharp teeth - feared - moose - dangerous - rats

- attacking other animals - protection

Having listed the important concepts, the next two steps are to arrange

the concepts such that concepts that are related are closer together,

and to draw a line between concepts that are related (See Figure 2).

*Using Strategies within the Classroom Context*

The six strategies outlined in the previous section can be utilized in

the classroom in two ways: altering teacher behaviour, and altering

student behaviour. By altering teacher behaviour, I mean that teachers

can provide prompts, hints, directive questions, and assignments that

are intended to make students think in a strategic way, if they perform

the required task. By altering student behaviour I mean to teach

students how to use strategies, when to use them, and what they are

for. I mean to alter students' study habits and the way they learn

material.

*Teacher behaviour*. The first method of incorporating the learning

strategies into the classroom instruction is to alter the teacher's

behaviour by having the teacher design their lessons according to

generative principles. By this I mean that teachers behave in a

purposeful manner with the intent of directinq or guiding students'

cognition. While many teachers may do this already, careful thought to

how teachers' actions influence students' thinking can lead to more

productive use of classtime. There are three ways teachers can

influence students' thoughts.

* FIGURE 2*

First, the teacher provides the content in a form that promotes

strategic processing. That is, the teacher provides illustrations to

promote imagery, suggests a mnemonic for remembering some piece of

information, or the teacher provides a concept map to clarify chapter

content. For example, in teaching the students about the early

explorers of Newfoundland, the teacher might say to the students

something like the following:

T: "Okay, so the explorers we are going to learn about are the

Vikings, Columbus, Cabot, Cortes-Real, Fernandez, Gilbert, and

Cartier. One way to remember these names is to think of the

sentence Very Cool Cats Can Find Great Cars. The V in Very stands

for Vikings, the C in Cool stands for Columbus, the C in Cats stands

for Cabot, the C in Can stands for Cortes-Real, the F in Find stands

for Fernandez, the G in Great stands for Gilbert, and the C in Cars

stand for Cartier."

A second way of guiding students' thinking is to plan assignments that

require students to engage in strategic thinking. That is, the tasks in

which students engage are designed to make them use imagery, think of

mnemonics, create a summary or concept map. For example, on the lesson

about the explorers, the teacher might ask the students to find the

names of the explorers and then create a mnemonic:

T: Now we are going to start our study of some of the first

explorers to Newfoundland. What I would like you to do first is

make a list of the explorers. (Students then make a list containing

Vikings, Columbus, Cabot, Cortes-Real, Fernandez, Gilbert, and

Cartier.)

T: Great. Now, the first letter of Viking is V. I want you to think

of a word that starts with V. What might be a word that starts with

V? Very, vase, vaseline, velvet .... Okay, now do the same for the

other words.

T: Have you all finished your list of words? Now try to arrange

your words into a sentence. Try to make a sentence from your

words. If you are having trouble, change the word, but keep the

first letter the same.

In this brief example, the teacher has designed the task such that

students are carrying out the steps of the strategy. By doing this, the

teacher is guiding the students' thinking. Although the tasks in the

example guided students to create an acronymic sentence, creating a

concept map would have been possible as well.

While lectures and tasks are two obvious ways of guiding student

thinking, a more subtle way is through the use of teacher comments.

During the course of classroom activity, the teacher can prompt students

to engage in strategic activity. Statements like *When you are reading,

don't forget to make a picture in your head. That will help you

remember. or Did you find something important to remember? Don't

forget to turn it into a why question, or make a picture of it in your

head! or Try to make your own acronym to remember the names of the

explorers!* will prompt students to engage in strategic behaviour. To

illustrate the power of teacher comments consider that much of the

research on strategy use involved nothing more than prompting students o

engage in the strategy (*e.g. Make a picture of that in your head.*),

and yet gains in achievement were obtained.

*Student behaviour*. Altering student behaviour refers to teaching

students how to use strategies for improving their learning. Several

methods of instruction have been devised to help students become more

strategic. These include direct instruction, self-instruction, and

reciprocal instruction. Very briefly, direct instruction involves

directly and explicitly teaching the strategies. The instruction begins

with the teacher explaining the strategy to the student, followed by a

demonstration of how the strategy works (teacher modelling). This

instruction is followed by guided practice with feedback in which the

student practices the steps of the strategy under the guidance of the

teacher which is faded to the point where the student is able to

independently utilize the strategy.

Self-instruction follows a sequence similar to that of direct

instruction: explanation, guided practice, and independent practice.

However, unlike direct instruction, self-instruction utilizes a think

aloud process in which the adult verbalizes his/her thoughts as he/she

tries to learn some material or solve a problem. This is followed by

student verbalization of the steps with adult guidance, followed by

overt independent practice which is faded to a whisper and then to

covert practice. In recent research, Peggy Wheeler (MacDonald Drive

Elementary School in St. John's) and I reported that the use of

self-instruction in math had a positive gain on students' motivation or

solving math problems. We are continuing this research and are

examining the potential of self-instruction for teaching a variety of

strategies across the curriculum for enhancing motivation.

Reciprocal teaching refers to a form of small group instruction in

which the teacher and the students take turns explaining and modelling

the strategies while trying to learn some content. In Brown and

Palincsar's formulation of reciprocal teaching, the lesson consists of

four activities: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and

predicting. The purpose of reciprocal teaching is to engage students in

a dialogue, through which the teacher (and expert peers) explain and

model the strategies. While reciprocal teaching was originally designed

to improve reading comprehension, its use with other strategies should

yield positive results.

Ultimately, maximum learning gains are realized when students

spontaneously engage in appropriate strategy use. This is achieved when

students know the steps of strategy (how to use it), what the strategy

is for, when to use it, and why it is important to use strategies.

Research has suggested that differences in good and poor learners are

explainable in these terms. Good learners have a repertoire of

strategies at their disposal, know how to choose a strategy according to

task demands, monitor the use of the strategy, and believe that using

strategies helps them learn. In contrast, poor learners often do not

possess a repertoire of strategies (they often rely solely on rehearsal,

for example), do not know when to use different strategies, are often

unaware of their lack of understanding, and believe that ability (or

inability) is the factor responsible for learning. Given these

important findings, the implications suggest that teachers not only need

to teach students various strategies for enhancing learning but also

need to explain to students why these strategies are important, and when

you use them.