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Friday, June 13, 2014

Free Response Number Five: Continuation of Social Cognitivism and Cognitivism

I am finding that the more we learn about the four learning theories the more interested I become. I feel like I am learning so much from these renowned theorists and concepts, much more than I thought I would. I guess I did not think I would enjoy learning about these different theories because I felt they would prove too abstract for me to comprehend. Some aspects may appear more challenging than others, but overall I able to synthesize this information and recognize its application in an academic setting. That is another part of it too; I can see how these concepts could be readily applied inside a normal classroom. I guess I am admitting this now more than I would have liked to before, but I am starting to recognize more of the merit behind educational psychology. I am starting to see why all of this matters because I can come up with concrete examples and have seen how these ideas have played out in real life.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I enjoy learning about social cognitivism and think it can be useful in my own classroom. Unfortunately, I will probably only focus on constructivism, even though I would like to incorporate strands of social cognitivism. But this realization brings up a good point, that all four theories can work together to complement one another rather than educators picking one and solely relying on that particular school of thought. I believe that effective instruction includes a range of styles and ideas, not just  a single one. I think that although one idea or thought process may be good, there will also be flaws present or something lacking from it; you need a little bit of all of them in order to obtain the most holistic picture possible.

I really, really enjoyed Aaron and Fred's long-term retrieval activity. I thought it was innovative and applicable to what we were learning. It made me think back to when I had to retrieve my own long-term thought processes in order to well in my classes. I do agree that meaningful learning is better than rote learning. I never had to do too much rote learning, particularly with memorizing and rehearsal, but I could recall that difficulty in some of my science classes. Even when I had large amounts of information to remember, I would still try to connect some meaning behind the words, otherwise I would not be able to provide an accurate definition or explain the significance behind that particular word. Thinking back to high school, I remember how my French teacher shared stories of how she would remember things. She told my class that when she took biology she made up a song to remember all the parts in the body, much like the example given in the book. Another trick she learned was to perform. She told us how she had to learn "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe in order to recite it in front of her class. What she did was turn the poem into a song, which was easy to do given it was poetry, and turned the recitation into a narrative performance. From what I remember, that technique worked and the event became so memorable that everyone remembered it years later. This ties back to what James had shared in our presentation with how music can help us remember things. If you think about, we learned many, many things through song: the alphabet, body parts, grammar (if you watched Schoolhouse Rock). It is actually quite fascinating how this method works. It makes sense though. Learning becomes more enjoyable and the information sticks.

Even though most of us would agree that meaningful learning is, overall, better than rote, many people still rely on that and can do it well. If you think about people in medical school they have to rely on rote learning most of the times. Also, I am reminded of most, if not all, Asian countries who are very big on rote learning. That is how my mom learned when she went to school in the Philippines, and it is how my friends learned grammar in grade school. Even today, that is still the predominant way to learn. I hope that, with time, they can encourage more creative and meaningful ways to learn so that students can enjoy the learning process more often than not.

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