Cognitive Theories

What?
The human memory is like a set of stores in which information is stored, and in addition a set of processes acts on these stores. The 3 different stores include: The Sensory Information Store in which information is entered from eyes, ears, etc. and is either ignored or paid attention to. It is critical to pay attention at this stage so that you will be able to get the information to the Short Term Memory. There are two major ways of transforming the information, interesting features or known patterns. The Short-Term Store or working memory has a limited storage capacity consisting of five, plus or minus two, items that decay and become inaccessible after an estimated time period of 15 to 20 seconds. There are two major concepts in short term memory, either organization (Chunking) or repetition (Maintenance rehearsal). The Long-Term Store can maintain information for very long periods of time. The two processes that are most likely to move the information into long term are elaboration and distributive practice. Long term memory holds many different kinds of information including: facts, events, motor skills, knowledge of laws, and others. The 3 processes include: Encoding (putting information into a store), Maintenance (keeping it alive), Retrieval (finding encoded information).

So What?
Now that I have processed this information from my short term memory to my long term memory I will be able to use this in my teaching skills. This allows me to help my students to access their prior knowledge and organize what is being taught. My students will be in a cognitive learning environment which focuses on putting information into their long term memory, where it will be easy to retrieve and use it in their spiral learning process.

Now What?
Throughout my classes, I plan on catching the students' attention by using cues and moving around the room. We will have open discussions to review the previous day's lesson. I will point out the most important information first and provide handouts so the students can visualize the information. By presenting information in an organized manner shows a logical cycle to concepts and skills. I will start with the simple topics and then move on to the harder, new material. In showing students how to categorize (chunk) related information, it will provide opportunities for students to connect new information to something they already know. Students’ stating important principles several times in different ways makes the information maintenance rehearsal for their short term memories. To reach the long term memory we will have items in each day's lesson to recognize or recall from the previous lesson.