cognitive processes

1. COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN
LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION
Shane Pearl Lae Espanol
King Irol Espanol
Sonia Belarde
Xernick Felipe

2. Memory and Information
Processing
King Irol Espanol & Shane Pearl Lae Espanol

3. Memory
 Memory is an information processing system that we often compare to a
computer. Memory is the set of processes used to encode, store, and
retrieve information over different periods of time.
 Encoding involves the input of information into the memory system.
 Storage is the retention of the encoded information.
 Retrieval, or getting the information out of memory and back into
awareness, is the third function.

4. ENCODING
 We get information into our brains through a process
called encoding, which is the input of information into the
memory system.
 Encoding information occurs through both automatic
processing and effortful processing.

5. Automatic Processing
 If someone asks you what you ate for lunch today, more than
likely you could recall this information quite easily. This is
known as automatic processing, or the encoding of details like
time, space, frequency, and the meaning of words. Automatic
processing is usually done without any conscious awareness.

6. Effortful Processing
 Recalling the actual material you studies is an example of effortful
processing. It probably required a lot of work and attention on your part
in order to encode that information. This is known as effortful processing.

7. Three types of encoding
Semantic Encoding
The encoding of words and their meaning is known as semantic
encoding. It was first demonstrated by William Bousfield (1935) in an
experiment in which he asked people to memorize words. The 60
words were actually divided into 4 categories of meaning, although
the participants did not know this because the words were randomly
presented. When they were asked to remember the words, they
tended to recall them in categories, showing that they paid attention
to the meanings of the words as they learned them.

8. Visual Encoding
Visual encoding is the encoding of images.

9. Visual Encoding
To see how visual encoding works, read over this list of words:
car, level, dog, truth, book, value.

10.  Acoustic Encoding
Acoustic encoding is the encoding of sounds, words in particular.

11.  Acoustic Encoding (e.g)
 You are driving in your car and a song comes on the radio that you
haven’t heard in at least 10 years, but you sing along, recalling
every word.
 In the United States, children often learn the alphabet through
song, and they learn the number of days in each month through
rhyme: “Thirty days hath September, / April, June, and November; /
All the rest have thirty-one, / Save February, with twenty-eight days
clear, / And twenty-nine each leap year.”

12.  Acoustic Encoding
 These lessons are easy to remember because of acoustic encoding.
We encode the sounds the words make. This is one of the reasons
why much of what we teach young children is done through song,
rhyme, and rhythm.

13. STORAGE
 Once the information has been encoded, we have to retain it. Our
brains take the encoded information and place it in storage. Storage
is the creation of a permanent record of information.
 In order for a memory to go into storage (i.e., long-term memory),
it has to pass through three distinct stages: Sensory Memory, Short-
Term Memory, and finally Long-Term Memory.

14.  These stages were first proposed by Richard Atkinson and
Richard Shiffrin (1968). Their model of human memory, called
Atkinson-Shiffrin (A-S), is based on the belief that we process
memories in the same way that a computer processes information.

16.  Sensory Memory
 In the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, stimuli from the environment are
processed first in sensory memory: storage of brief sensory events,
such as sights, sounds, and tastes. It is very brief storage—up to a
couple of seconds. Sensory information about sights, sounds,
smells, and even textures, which we do not view as valuable
information, we discard. If we view something as valuable, the
information will move into our short-term memory system.

17.  Short-Term Memory
 Short-term memory is a temporary storage system that processes
incoming sensory memory; sometimes it is called working memory.
 Short-term memory takes information from sensory memory and
sometimes connects that memory to something already in long-
term memory. Short-term memory storage lasts about 20 seconds.

18.  Long-term Memory
 Long-term memory is the continuous storage of information. Unlike
short-term memory, the storage capacity of long-term memory has
no limits. It encompasses all the things you can remember that
happened more than just a few minutes ago to all of the things that
you can remember that happened days, weeks, and years ago.

19. RETRIEVAL
 The act of getting information out of memory storage and back into
conscious awareness is known as retrieval. Our ability to retrieve
information from long-term memory is vital to our everyday
functioning. You must be able to retrieve information from memory
in order to do everything from knowing how to brush your hair and
teeth, to driving to work, to knowing how to perform your job once
you get there.
 There are three ways you can retrieve information out of your long-
term memory storage system: recall, recognition, and relearning.

20.  Recall
 Recall is what we most often think about when we talk about
memory retrieval: it means you can access information without
cues. For example, you would use recall for an essay test.

21.  Recognition
 Recognition happens when you identify information that you have
previously learned after encountering it again. It involves a process
of comparison. When you take a multiple-choice test, you are
relying on recognition to help you choose the correct answer.

22.  Relearning
 The third form of retrieval is relearning, and it’s just what it sounds
like. It involves learning information that you previously learned.

23. FORGETTING
 The forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention
over time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when
there is no attempt to retain it.

24. Key Takeaways
 Our memory has three basic functions: encoding, storing, and
retrieving information.
 The Atkinson-Shiffrin (A-S) model outlines three distinct stages of
memory: sensory, short-term, and long-term.
 Information stored in long-term memory can be accessed through
recall, recognition, and relearning.
 The forgetting curve illustrates that without exerting any effort to
remember information, we forget most of what we learn within 24
hours. Revisiting information soon after its introduction, and
occasionally thereafter, can dramatically increase recall.

25. Metacognition and
Self-Regulated Learning
Sonia Belarde

26. Self-regulation
 Self-regulation is about the extent to which learners are aware of
their strengths and weaknesses and the strategies they use to learn.
 Essentially, self-regulation is about the extent to which learners are
aware of their strengths and weaknesses and the strategies they use
to learn.
 It describes how they can motivate themselves to engage in
learning and develop strategies to enhance their learning and to
improve. It will look different for learners of different ages, and for
different tasks, but teachers will recognize these characteristics in
their most effective learners.
 Self-regulated learning can be broken into three essential
components that teachers need to know about to help their
students to develop into successful learners.

27.  Cognition
 Cognition is the mental process involved in knowing, understanding, and
learning.
 By cognitive strategies, we mean skills like memorization techniques or
subject-specific strategies like making different marks with a brush or
using different methods to solve equations in math.
 This is the bread and butter of good teaching; cognitive strategies are
fundamental to acquiring knowledge and completing learning tasks.

28.  Metacognition
 Metacognition is about the ways learners monitor and purposefully
direct their learning.
 For example, having decided that a particular cognitive strategy for
memorization is likely to be successful, a student then monitors
whether it has indeed been successful and then deliberately
changes (or not) their memorization method based on that
evidence.
 By metacognitive strategies, we mean the strategies we use to
monitor or control our cognition, such as checking that our
memorization technique was accurate or selecting the most
appropriate cognitive strategy for the task we are undertaking.

29.  Motivation
 Motivation is about our willingness to engage our metacognitive
and cognitive skills and apply them to learning. Motivational
strategies will include convincing oneself to undertake a tricky
revision task now – affecting our current well-being – as a way of
improving our future well-being in the test tomorrow.

30. What does a self-regulated learner look
like?
Zimmerman gives a helpful description of what a successful self-regulated learner
looks like. Effective learners use a number of strategies to help them learn well
independently:
 setting specific short-term goals;
 adopting powerful strategies for attaining the goals;
 monitoring performance for signs of progress;
 restructuring one’s physical and social context to make it compatible with one’s
goals;
 managing time-use efficiently;self-evaluating one’s methods;
 attributing causation to results and adapting future methods.

31. Summary of Recommendations
 Teachers should acquire the professional understanding and skills
to develop their students’ metacognitive knowledge.
 Explicitly teach students metacognitive strategies, including how to
plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning.
 Model your own thinking to help students develop their
metacognitive and cognitive skills.
 Set an appropriate level of challenge to develop students’
self-regulation and metacognition. Challenge is crucial to allow
students to develop and progress their knowledge of tasks
strategies and of themselves as learners.

32. Summary of Recommendations
 Promote and develop metacognitive talk in the classroom.
 Explicitly teach students how to organize and effectively manage
their learning independently.
 Schools should support teachers to develop knowledge of these
approaches and expect them to be applied appropriately

33. Problem Solving and Critical
Thinking
Xernick Felipe

34. What is Problem Solving?
 Problem solving can be defined as committing to an action or
judgement after evaluating the facts, data or possible learning from
a situation. Problem solving is used to develop alternative courses
of action that are based on logical assumptions and factual
information and that take into consideration resources, constraints,
and familiarity with situations.

35. The following outlines the knowledge and skills young people need to
develop to become problem solvers:
 Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional
and innovative ways.
 Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of
view and lead to better solutions.

36. What is Critical Thinking?
 Critical thinking can be defined as a mode of reasoning, about any
subject, content or problem in which the thinker improves the
quality of his / her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing and
reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-monitored
and self-corrective thinking.

37. The following, extracted from the P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning, outlines the
knowledge and skills young people need to develop to become critical thinkers:
 Reason effectively
 Use various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) as appropriate to the
situation
 Use systems thinking
 Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in
complex systems
 Make judgments and decisions
 Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims, and beliefs
 Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view
 Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments
 Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis
 Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes