ed psych chap 9 - complex cognitve process

Metacognition

• Thinking about thinking

• Ability to monitor and regulate one’s own thinking, reasoning problem solving, learning, etc

Three essential skills related to Metacognition:

1. Planning - How can I accomplish this task? What resources do I need? How to start?

2. Monitoring - How am I doing? Is this making sense?

3. Evaluating - Can I finish? Am I finished?

3 types of knowledge related to metacognition

1.Declarative Knowledge

2. Procedural Knowledge

3. Self-Regulatory Knowledge

Declarative knowledge

• knowledge you can declare

• Explicit

• Content Specific

• Knowledge about self as a learner

Procedural Knowledge

knowing how to use skills

Self-Regulatory Knowledge

• When, why, and how to apply declarative and procedural knowledge

• Most difficult to accomplish

what do students need to learn something?

• Focus attention to relevant information

• Effort, make connections, process information 

• Regulate and monitor learning

what should be included in teaching learning strategies?

• Exposure to general and specific strategies

• Self-regulatory knowledge - when/why to use strategy 

• Motivational component to counter reliance on easier, less effective strategies 

• Self-efficacy

learning strategies of expert students

• focusing attention - using headings, outlines, learning outcomes

• organization - concept maps, drawing, flow charts

• summaries - brief and important ideas only

• underlining/highlighting - over-used and not very effective

• note-taking - paraphrase, review and flag unknown material; not very effective

what technique do all effective learning strategies have?

• doing something with the information; not just rote memorization

common elements of reading strategies

• Previewing → find subheadings, boldface, etc

• Questions → “What do I expect to learn?”

• Read

• Summarize/Review → main ideas/paraphrase

3 aspects of problem solving

1. identify/ frame the problem

2. devise strategies to solve problem

3. make decision if the problem has been solved

problem solving: identify

• understand the statement of the problem and the whole problem

what do novice and expert learners focus on in problem identification

• Novice learners → focus in surface details

• Expert learners  → focus on deeper meaning

Why are problems easily identifiable in the early elementary years

•  as children gain experience with problem identification, they need less help with identification

problem solving: devise strategies

critical thinking - students need to be taught how to use this

long term memory - students can use prior knowledge

• The more possible strategies and solutions produced, the more successful the problem solving 

Critical thinking

unbiased evaluation by logically and systematically examining the problem, evidence and conclusions 

algorithm strategies for problem solving

• Uses precises steps and instructions

• Following the algorithm exactly will always lead to success → errors come from incorrectly following or algorithm itself is wrong

• Can be inefficient; too many steps to come to solution

  • Lots of info to keep in working memory 

Ex. steps for long division

Heuristic strategies for problem solving

• General approach to problem solving; rule of thumb approach

  • Ex. means-ends analysis, working backwards, analogical thinking

  • Efficient; less instructions to remember 

    • Simpler approach then algorithmic → less info kept in working memory 

• Does not always lead to solution; results may vary

  • Individual must try a new strategy when original strategy does not work 

• Ex. tv isn’t working → turn it off and try again, laptop won’t work → restart it and try again

Problem Solving: decision making

• Is the solution acceptable? Can I move on? 

• Risk: risk averse unless loses

  • When people are trying to recover from a loss, the more they are willing to take on bigger risks

    • Can I make a bad decision here and be okay or will there be consequences

• Motivation: how motivated is the student to do well? 

• Experience: if student has experience in this problem solving area, then they have knowledge as to what make a good final product/answer vs. if they have no experience, then its much harder for them to judge when they are finished

• ex. final exam vs homework practice 

Characteristics of Expert problem solvers

• have domain and procedural knowledge

• focus on relevant details

• can perceive large meaningful patternns

• good at monitoring their own performance

• lots of practice

things that interfere with problem solving

• functional fixedness

• response set

• representativeness

• availability

• belief perseverance

• conformation bias

Functional fixedness

• Considering only typical uses for materials, tools, etc

• Rigid thinking 

Response Set

• Tendency to represent problems in a familiar way and respond to them in the same way

• I do it this way because that is the way i have always done it

Representativeness

Judgements based on stereotypes

Availability

• What is available in your memory, what comes to mind first 

Belief Perseverance

• Tendency to hold onto beliefs despite contradictory evidence

Conformation Bias

• Tendency to search for and consider evidence only if it is consistent with my beliefs and discount/ignore contradictory evidence 

Transfer

previous learning influences current learning

automatic transfer

Overlearning, multiple contexts

thoughtful transfer

• Deliberate application of knowledge (strategy, procedure, concept) to new situation

positive transfer

• Goal in education

• Easiest with related domains and the knowledge transfer is direct and explicit 

  • With unrelated domains, the transfer will be abstract or conceptual

What encourages positive transfer

• Mastery and practice

• Teaching when/how to use strategies (procedural knowledge)

• Practice with feedback; don’t want student practice skill incorrectly 

• Students should be able to apply skills to novel problems

negative transfer

previous learning interferes with or hinders new learning