Cluster 8: Cognitive Views of Learning

Understanding the brain is important for cognitive views of learning because:

changes in the brain underlie changes in thinking skills.

When we listen to music and interpret the sounds of "make meaning of the stimuli," we are engaging in the process of:

perception.

Scripts and productions are two components of:

procedural memories.

Ms. Fought does not give out study guides in her classes, but she encourages students to create their own. Ms. Fought's strategy suggests that she understands:

the principle of desirable difficulty.

Rachel practiced her multiplication tables for weeks before her yearly standardized test. She knew all of her facts completely. This type of knowledge that Rachel attained does not require attention of concentration. This process is known as which of the following?

Automaticity

Elaboration occurs when one adds meaning to new information by connecting with already existing knowledge. In other words, we apply our schemas and draw on already existing knowledge to construct an understanding. Which of the following is NOT true of elaboration?

Elaboration can limit the number of links to stored knowledge.

Miss Campbell wanted to ensure that her driver's education students were safe under all circumstances. In order to ensure this, she had her students drive in the rain and snow. She also made sure they had adequate practice for driving in traffic and on the highway. Miss Campbell was demonstrating which of the following strategies?

Domain-specific

Emily consistently doodles on her geography homework. While her answers are often correct, she seems distracted. Which of the following strategies for helping Emily demonstrates a cognitive approach?

Find activities for Emily that encourage her to use her artistic skills to help her learn geography.

Cognitive load is a term that refers to the amount of mental resources, mostly working memory, required to perform a particular task. Of the four types of cognitive load, which can instruction support by asking students to explain the material to each other or to themselves, to draw or chart their understandings, or to take useful notes?

Germane cognitive load

Maria is trying to remember all of the objects in her locker at school. "Let me think... pens, pencils, markers... um, math book, science book, notebooks... my coat, hat, and gloves... I can't remember any more." What learning strategy does Maria's response illustrate?

Organization

Researchers who believe that we have only one memory storage system argue that working memory:

is the part of long-term memory that processes currently activated information.

At the beginning of the year, in his eighth grade mathematics class, Mr. Noel assigned one group a project on triangles and another a project on circles. Toward the end of the year, he began teaching some basics of trigonometry, which relies on an understanding of triangles. In this lesson, he noticed that students in the triangle group learned the material more quickly. The best explanation for their achievement is that:

students in the triangle group had acquired more domain-specific knowledge.