COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY

 Cognitive School
– Information Theorists
– Constructivists
 Constructivist View – individuals are
actively involved in constructing their
personal understanding of their experiences,
more concerned with learning processes
than content

 Main Assumption – Learning results from
internal mental activity and not on externally
imposed stimuli
 Focus: the mental processes involved in
learning – observing, categorizing, making
generalizations to make sense of the input /
to work out how the language system works

 Role of learner: - Active participant in the
learning process, using various strategies to
process information

Jean Piaget
 Renowned for his model of child
development and learning. He identified 4
developmental stages and the cognitive
processes associated with each of them

Developmental Stages
 Sensori-motor - makes sense of his
environment through the basic senses
 Intuitive /Pre-operational - Thoughts more
flexible, memory and imagination begin to
play a part in learning, capable of more
creativity

 Concrete Operational – Can go beyond the
basic information given, but still dependent
on concrete material and examples to
support reasoning
 Formal Operational – Abstract reasoning
becomes increasingly possible

Assimilation, Accommodation and
Equilibration
 Accommodation – The process by which we
modify what we already know to take into
account the new information
 Assimilation – The process by which new
knowledge is changed / modified / merged in
our minds to fit into what we already know

 Equilibration – the balance between what is
known and what is currently being
processed, mastery of the new material
 Learning is the process of relating new
information with what was previously learnt
 Learning is cumulative

Jerome Bruner
 View of Learning
– Development of conceptual understanding,
cognitive skills and learning strategies rather than
the acquisition of knowledge
– Learners must be encouraged to discover
solutions via appropriate tasks which require the
application of relevant critical thinking skills

Bruner – Modes of Thinking
 Extended aspects of Piaget’s theory. He
identified three ways in which learners make
sense of input
 Enactive Level – learning takes place via
direct manipulation of objects and materials
 Iconic Level – Objects are represented by
visual images and are recognized for what
they represent

 Symbolic Level – Learning can take place
using symbols, objects and mental images.
Language is used to represent thoughts and
experiences

Application in the Classroom
 The importance of providing opportunities for
learners to be actively engaged in making
sense of the language input through
meaningful tasks
 Providing opportunities for learners to
develop the ability to analyze the language,
make generalizations about rules, take risks

in trying the language, and to learn from
errors
 Catering for interaction of learner with
curriculum material and the learning
environment
 Catering for the three modes of thinking
(Bruner)

 The need to organize and structure learning
activities. The requirements of the task must
be appropriate to the developmental stage
(Piaget, Bruner) and the conceptual stage
(Bloom) of the learner
 The cumulative nature of learning requires
frequent opportunities for reviewing
previously learnt material

David Ausubel
 Stressed the importance of active mental
participation in meaningful learning tasks
 Learning must be meaningful to be effective
and permanent
 Makes a distinction between meaningful
learning and rote learning

 Meaningful Learning – relatable to what
one already knows so it can be easily
integrated in one’s existing cognitive
structure
 Rote Learning – the material to be learnt is
not integrated / subsumed into an existing
cognitive structure but learnt as isolated
pieces of information

Implications for Classroom
 Teacher has to enhance the meaningfulness
of new material to increase the chances of its
being anchored to what is already known
 New material must be organized to be easily
relatable to what is already known
 New material must be appropriately
sequenced to facilitate integration

 Use of advance organizers. These facilitate
the learning process by providing ideas to
which the new knowledge can be attached
– Introductory material presented in advance of the
new material
– Information that activates relevant background
knowledge

– Material that orients learners to the subject matter
and relates new learning to what is already known
– Can take the form of textual material, pictures,
titles, topic summaries, questions