Information for Module 2: Guided Imagery & Strategy Instructions
Introduction
In this Module you will explore various cognitive approaches to assessment and teaching appropriate for learners with a range of additional education needs. On completing this module you should:
have an understanding of cognition and cognitive theories including information processing theory;
have insights into the concept of intelligence, the development of IQ tests and the limitations of psychometric testing;
become familiar with the concept of “metacognition” as a process to assist students to develop self awareness and control of cognitive processes;
have an understanding of the importance of assessing cognitive skills and activities that display students’ own insights and understanding;
have an understanding of the importance of metacognitive instructional strategies when working with children who have learning difficulties
acquire a sound knowledge of a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies
an appreciation of the importance of fostering self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-determination amongst learners who need a range of support.
What is Cognition and Cognitive Theory?
This Module introduces you to various and diverse views primarily drawn from psychology that guide our understanding of human development and, more particularly, our understanding of the differences and needs that become evident as students progress in the education system.
Within western culture from earliest recorded times there is information about the nature of understanding and knowledge. This “philosophy” has guided education and is widely espoused as being the reason and justification for education systems and schooling. Schools in their various shapes and forms have played a prominent role in providing learners with access to knowledge.
Questions about the best methods of gaining knowledge and the different rates, blocks, gaps and capacities have challenged teachers and administrators from Plato onwards. The “evolution” of compulsory education in many countries towards the end of the 19th century (1877 Education Act in New Zealand) and the requirement for children to attend school (except for some interesting exceptions) highlighted the fact that there were significant variations within any age group in terms of rates of progress and what was learned. Cognitive theory, which is primarily concerned with internal mental processes and their role in learning, provided an explanation of these individual differences. What is more early psychologists believed that the (then) new psychological methods could provide definitive insights into students academic progress and variations between students rates in particular.
In the next clip you will see animated version of Jerome Bruner and Ausubel talking about their learning theories. The content of the clip is has deep meanings and implications for teaching.
Information Processing Theory
A different point of view of the way people understand the world around them comes from psychologists studying how people receive information and then how they “process” it. These are known as Information Processing Models. This approach uses hypothetical constructs such as sensory register stores, memory, both short (working) and long (remembered) and systems that connect them e.g. schemata, to explain how information is attended to by the learner and then stored (cognitively) for application at other times.
The you tube clip that follows explains the process of Learning and Cognition including theorists in a nutshell with examples of implications. You can read more in any of the Educational Psychology texts available in the library to further expand you knowledge on the theories and I do recommend that you read about them.Take time to read and understand each slide. Note down any information that was new to you, or validated your existing knowledge and teaching practice. Share what resonated most with you on the forum with your peers.
The reading by Freund and Rich describes information processing and schema theories. It also provides some guidelines arising from these theories that can be applied to teaching learners both with and without special education needs.
big grin Read: Freund L., & Rich, R. (2005). Theories of teaching and learning. In Teaching students with learning problems in the inclusive classroom (pp. 133-137). New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Metacognition
Basically metacognition is “thinking about thinking.” It refers to a person’s awareness of their cognitive processes and of the strategies that are needed to perform a task. It includes their ability to plan how to use these strategies and to evaluate how well they worked. Metacognition “functions as an executive control that overseas our capacity to plan, monitor, regulate, question, reflect on and review our cognitive processes (Duchesne, &McMaugh, 2016, p. 235). This process allows us to both self monitor as well as self regulate our learning in that it enables us to recognise, analyse and interpret the requirements of tasks; enables us to set goals and directions and access the necessary ways to complete the task, and monitor ourselves throughout the process and make adjustments when and as needed until a task is completed. This is defined by Hallahan, Kauffmann & Pullen (2009) as “a person’s ability to regulate his or her own behaviour (e.g., to employ strategies to help in problem-solving); an area of difficulty for persons who are intellectually disabled.” (p.157)
Reflect
Consider your own learning or study methods. How do you go about deciding what to remember and how to remember it? Are some things easier to remember than others e.g. recipes, songs? Why is this? How self-regulated are you when it comes to reading your study guides and completing your assignments? Do you see yourself as an effective student? What would make you more effective?
Cognitive and Metacognitve Skills
To assist students to develop metacognitive skills, teachers model ‘thinking about learning’ and encourage students to think about their own learning, including how to go about learning, how and what to attend to, how to monitor progress in learning, and how to use the knowledge they already have. Students should be encouraged to think about their thinking and to help one another to advance in their learning. The development of reflective thinking can be assisted through talking aloud and self-questioning procedures. For example:
‘Can I describe this problem in my own words?’
‘Do I know what to do first to solve this problem?
‘Can I make a plan to solve this problem?’
‘How can I check to see if I am correct or not?’
Teaching metacognitive strategies empowers students by giving them control over learning and skills to become teacher-independent thinkers. The main features of students who display these skills are that they are aware of their own thinking and can make conscious attempts to control their own problem-solving strategies.
You next have two readings. The first discusses the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to teach positive social interactions to students who require this additional learning support. It also discusses self-management. The second one discusses the development of cognitive skills in young children. It also provides useful guidelines for teaching cognitive and metacognitive skills, and information about self-regulation skills and problem solving.
big grin Read:
Foreman, P. (2008). Encouraging positive interactions. In Inclusion in action (2nd ed.) (pp. 222, 230-231). Melbourne: Thomson.
Porter, L. (2002). Cognitive skills. In Educating young children with special needs (pp. 174-185). London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Watch this powerful TED Talk by Dr. Derek Cabrera on the importance of nurturing chldren’s thinking skills. Does his 4 principles of DSRP resonate with you? Which of those four are you already well-versed in doing? Are there areas to improve in your practice? THINK about it!
Metacognition
Basically metacognition is “thinking about thinking.” It refers to a person’s awareness of their cognitive processes and of the strategies that are needed to perform a task. It includes their ability to plan how to use these strategies and to evaluate how well they worked. Metacognition “functions as an executive control that overseas our capacity to plan, monitor, regulate, question, reflect on and review our cognitive processes (Duchesne, &McMaugh, 2016, p. 235). This process allows us to both self monitor as well as self regulate our learning in that it enables us to recognise, analyse and interpret the requirements of tasks; enables us to set goals and directions and access the necessary ways to complete the task, and monitor ourselves throughout the process and make adjustments when and as needed until a task is completed. This is defined by Hallahan, Kauffmann & Pullen (2009) as “a person’s ability to regulate his or her own behaviour (e.g., to employ strategies to help in problem-solving); an area of difficulty for persons who are intellectually disabled.” (p.157)
Reflect
Consider your own learning or study methods. How do you go about deciding what to remember and how to remember it? Are some things easier to remember than others e.g. recipes, songs? Why is this? How self-regulated are you when it comes to reading your study guides and completing your assignments? Do you see yourself as an effective student? What would make you more effective?
Cognitive and Metacognitve Skills
To assist students to develop metacognitive skills, teachers model ‘thinking about learning’ and encourage students to think about their own learning, including how to go about learning, how and what to attend to, how to monitor progress in learning, and how to use the knowledge they already have. Students should be encouraged to think about their thinking and to help one another to advance in their learning. The development of reflective thinking can be assisted through talking aloud and self-questioning procedures. For example:
‘Can I describe this problem in my own words?’
‘Do I know what to do first to solve this problem?
‘Can I make a plan to solve this problem?’
‘How can I check to see if I am correct or not?’
Teaching metacognitive strategies empowers students by giving them control over learning and skills to become teacher-independent thinkers. The main features of students who display these skills are that they are aware of their own thinking and can make conscious attempts to control their own problem-solving strategies.
You next have two readings. The first discusses the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to teach positive social interactions to students who require this additional learning support. It also discusses self-management. The second one discusses the development of cognitive skills in young children. It also provides useful guidelines for teaching cognitive and metacognitive skills, and information about self-regulation skills and problem solving.
big grin Read:
Foreman, P. (2008). Encouraging positive interactions. In Inclusion in action (2nd ed.) (pp. 222, 230-231). Melbourne: Thomson.
Porter, L. (2002). Cognitive skills. In Educating young children with special needs (pp. 174-185). London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Watch this powerful TED Talk by Dr. Derek Cabrera on the importance of nurturing chldren’s thinking skills. Does his 4 principles of DSRP resonate with you? Which of those four are you already well-versed in doing? Are there areas to improve in your practice? THINK about it!
Does Schooling Stifle Thinking?
Many humanistic model of educators such as Sylvia Ashton believed that traditional/state education with its prescriptions, timetables and class-sized “delivery” of learning experiences involving the teacher as “all-knowing” judge of right/correct and wrong/error, limited the “natural” predisposition of students to learn for themselves in creative as well as conventional ways, e.g. via literacy.A number of more recent critics of formal education have expressed the same concerns in relation to student thinking and the ways schools dominate and define it e.g. training students in how to predict the teacher’s question and then answer it in the way the teacher wants it. Mark Twain once said “Let not schooling interfere with your education”. In more recent times you may have watched Ken Robinson on TED talks talking about schools stifling creativity, If you have not seen it please click on this link http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
De Bono’s Thinking Hats
Educational critics such as Edward Do Bono (1992, 2006) believe that schools have completely under emphasised thinking skills and emphasised “reactive” thinking such as calling for responses to prescribed tasks as in text books and work sheets. De Bono recommends pro-active thinking activities and “operacy” which he defines as “seeing other peoples’ views; setting priorities; objectives; alternatives; consequences; guessing; decisions; conflict-resolution; creativity.”
De Bono is somewhat critical of the concept of “styles” of student thinking as an “in-built” trait that a student has. He believes that students become habitual (unless they are challenged) and only think in practiced ways. This is consistent with the idea that students get used to failure and they (and their teachers) come to expect it. His ideas and activities apply to all students.
One of De Bono’s best known approaches is the six thinking hats, which is a widely used pedagogical tool in many New Zealand schools. Described in the link are De Bono’s six thinking hats. Six Hats at a Glance
The Massey library has a number of books by De Bono. These include: Thinking course, Powerful tools to transform your thinking, Edinburgh: BBC (2006), How to have creative ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind, London: Vermillon (2007), New thinking for the new millennium, London: Penguin (2000), Six action shoes, London: Fontana (1992), The six value medals, London: Vermilion (2005).
Whole Brain Strategies
Students and teachers can get locked into limiting the use of brain functions. In such instances, the dominant mode of communication (teacher talking and students listening) becomes the usual medium for the transfer of knowledge, with the resulting failure by those learners who do not listen wel,l or those who do not remember what they heard or those who did not understand what was being said.
“Mind mapping” is an alternative cognitive approach in which various senses and applications are combined so as to activate different parts of the brain simultaneously on the assumption that using the whole brain at any one time is preferable and more effective than only using a part of it. Buzan has literally raised cognitive and metacognitive strategies to an art form. He advocates “radiant” thinking represented in words, diagrams and also coloured pictures which mirror the neurological activity within the brain itself. These activities are thought to cause the millions of neurones within the brain to fire off in an accelerating sequence.Essentially mind mapping is an active participation exercise that uses visual representations selected by the participants of concepts which are then developed in different ways depending on the purpose of the activity.
In the video clip here Tony Buzan the guru of mind mapping explains the way we learn through mapping images and making associations in a TED talk. He distinguishes between the Information Age and the Intelligence Age to which children are moving to and stresses the importance of understanding mind mapping to nurture and enhance creativity among children and even adults. It is about 20 minutes and very informative viewing
The link to cognitive theory is that this “hierarchical” structuring of information into categories or concepts which themselves link to other representations of experience is consistent with theories about the way memory is thought to operate in an information processing approach. As well as this, the activity can be a lot of fun!The linked graphic organisers are some ways of representing and organising mind maps. However, it should be emphasised that the whole point of mindmapping is to produce a unique representation of an individual’s thoughts. Graphic Organisers
Brainstorming is a useful technique for generating an abundance of ideas. This can be done individually but is best conducted as a group or class activity. It is a particularly effective strategy for problem solving. The teacher poses a problem such as, what can we do if the school raffle does not raise enough funds for our class trip? Children then call out as many solutions as they can think of. At this stage it may be wise to enlist the help of two students to write up the list of ideas being “fired” at the teacher. The golden rule in brainstorming, is that all ideas are acceptable – no judgements are made at this stage. (Subsequent steps in the problem-solving exercise involve evaluating and prioritising brainstorming suggestions.)
Accelerated Learning
It is often claimed that we use only 10% of our brain capacity. Accelerated learning is a teaching approach that aims to help us unlock that other 90%! It is based on a growing understanding of how the brain works.
Accelerated learning techniques are becoming increasingly popular both in general and special education. It places great emphasis on personal learning styles. Your learning style is determined by three factors:
your preferred mode of perceiving information – visual, auditory, kinesthetic etc.;
your preferred conditions of learning – emotional, social, physical and environmental;
your preferred method of organising and processing information – dominantly left-brain or right-brain, analytical or global.
George Lozanov, an expert in accelerated learning discovered that stringed music from the baroque period had the affect of encouraging alpha and theta brain waves. It is believed that these type of brain waves give us greater access to long-term memory, insight and creativity as well as making us more receptive to information. The accelerated learning approach involves the use of baroque music, mind maps, visualisation, imagery, positive affirmations, relaxation exercises, brain gym and the power of suggestion either singly or in combination to enhance memorisation and learning.
Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner introduced the concept of multiple intelligences. He proposes that there are, at least, eight different ways of thinking. These are:
Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Spatial
Musical
Bodily-kinesthetic
Interpersonal (knowing how to deal with others)
Intrapersonal (knowledge of self)
Naturalist
Robert Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory of intelligence which includes three key aspects of intelligent behaviour. They are analytic, creative and practical. He made a clear distinction between academic intelligence that was more crystallised and fixed and successful or practical intelligence which was critical to succeed in life.
big grin Now is the time to read Rief, S., &Heimburge, J. (2006). Reaching all children through differentiated instruction.In How to reach and teach all children in the inclusive classroom. Practical strategies, lessons and activities (2nd ed.) (pp. 15-20). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fostering Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy and Self-Determination
Social cognitive theorist Albert Bandura observed, children and young people were not purely responding to the environment or a stimuli, but had personal agency that allowed them to understand and ‘regulate’ their learning. Thus the concepts of self-efficacy and belief in one’s self is critical for learning. He proved that children learnt vicariously by observing others, which indicated a social as well as cognitive aspects to learning. Bandura coined the phrase ‘reciprocal determinism’, which denoted that learning was mutually influenced by personal, external as well as behavioural factors, referred to as triardicreciprocality. Learners who have experienced difficulties and failure lose faith in themselves and their capacity to make sense of their world. They become anxious, fearful of error, and can be overtaken by a sense of failure and difference. Often parents, siblings and peers have insights into a student’s self confidence as well.
Extending your understandings
How do learners you are in contact with rate their own confidence level? Are there individuals who have uniformly low self confidence and low expectations of success? Does this confidence generalise across different activity areas or are there highs and lows?
The learner may be willing to talk about feelings and attitudes when various tasks are provided. “Escape” or avoidance behaviours are clear indicators of low expectations. These responses can be “acting out” like, “this work is dumb!”, lots of pencil sharpening or helping others to find things etc or they can be passive reactions like stomach aches, helpless looks and even just waiting patiently at the end of queues. Take some time to observe how tasks are approached and gauge the expectations of success.Observing their reactions to tasks gives clear indications.
Teaching involves imparting some form of content to another person and ways in which you do it becomes your instruction. That is, instructional tools perform the critical role in the way you engage with the learner, to enable them to know, understand and perform certain actions, which generally range from play based activities in early childhood to more formal reading/writing/computation, daily living skills etc., as children progress along their schooling. Since the way you provide instruction is vital, it involves careful planning. The more time you spend on planning for instruction with a thorough knowledge of the children and young persons in your class, the easier the rest of the process such as executing the instruction and monitoring it becomes easier. Equally important is the final phase of any teaching situation – that of reflecting upon and evaluating the purpose of your planning and teaching.
Planning for teaching of all children and young persons require considerable time and effort. It becomes even more important for children and young persons who require more support to access their learning in a range of situations. Often their needs are idiosyncratic and therefore the one size fits all approach will not work. You will need to know each child or young person’s strengths and difficulties to be able to plan the necessary instructional strategy. In addition you will need to be cognisant of contextual variables. For example, instructional strategies have to be varied depending on whether the task is indoors or outdoors, individual or group work, or whole class learning etc. Goals and materials to complement your instructional strategies must be carefully chosen. It is important that you always plan in ways that every child and young person has the opportunity to learn alongside their peers at their own pace. Studies have shown that the more you can involve students in their learning, better the outcome. However, the fact remains that often children and young persons with disabilities are excluded even in IEP meetings, let alone other learning situations.
By starting slowly, providing scaffolding and seeking increasing independence and student awareness of the way progress is being made, shared goals can be set and progress measured and shared. Initially it may be in the number of words read in a “story” but soon it can be lines, then paragraphs, pages and on to stories and books.
A key consideration here is to avoid comparisons or expectations drawn from other learners and to emphasise unique “special” effort and gains. Once children have experienced failure or difficulties their cognitive “style” is unlike other successful students because they are reacting to the differences they see and feel and this “dissonance” limits their strategies and confidence. Cognitive strategies work for the students by providing the means to learn, or relearn, the will to learn and the personal judgements that will further inform their own learning into the future.
The reading below provides strategies for older students. It contains suggestions for: teaching goal setting and problem solving; fostering self awareness; developing self-advocacy and leadership skills and promoting self-esteem.
big grin Read Salend, S. (2008). How can I help students develop self-determination? In Creating inclusive classrooms. Effective and reflective practices (6th ed.) (pp. 266-273). New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
The next reading relates specifically to children who have autism spectrum disorders. It provides evidence based strategies to alleviate some meta cognitive difficulties these children and young person can have. You will no doubt find that the strategies they suggest is useful for all learners in your class, a feature that if you recall Davis and Florian (2004) identified in their research report that was introduced to you at the beginning of the course.
smile Read: Classroom Structuring Methods and Strategies for Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders
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