Complex cognitive processes

What are concepts?

Concepts group objects, events, and characteristics on the basis of common properties. Concepts also aid the process of remembering, making it more efficient. Students form concepts through direct experiences with objects and events in their world. Some concepts are relatively simple, clear, and concrete, whereas others are more complex, fuzzy, and abstract.

Promoting concept formation

Learning About the Features of Concepts

An important aspect of concept formation is learning the key features, attributes, or characteristics of the concept. Th ese are the defining elements of a concept, the dimensions that make it different from another concept.

Defining concepts and providing examples

An important aspect of teaching concepts is to clearly defi ne them and give carefully chosen examples. The rule-example strategy is an eff ective way to do this. The strategy consists of four steps: 1. Define the concept. In addition to identifying the concept’s key features or characteristics, link it to a superordinate concept,which is a larger class into which it fits. 2. Clarify terms in the definition. Make sure that the key features or characteristics are well understood. 3. Give examples to illustrate the key features or characteristics. 4. Provide additional examples. Ask students to categorize concepts, explain their categorization, or have them generate their own examples of the concept.

Hierarchical Categorization and Concept Maps

Categorization is important because once a concept is categorized it can take on characteristics and features
from being a member of a category. A concept map is a visual presentation of a concept’s connections and hierarchical organization. Getting students to create a map of a concept’s features or characteristics can help them to learn the concept

Hypothesis testing

Students benefit from the practice of hypothesis testing in
order to determine what a concept is and is not. Hypotheses are specific assumptions and predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy.

Prototype matching

In prototype matching, individuals decide whether an
item is a member of a category by comparing it with the most typical item(s) of the category. The more similar the item is to the prototype, the more likely it is that the individual will say the item belongs to the category; the less similar, the more likely the person will judge that it doesn’t belong in the category.

Steps in problem solving

Step 1. Find and frame problems

Before you can solve a problem, you must recognize that it exists.

Step 2. Develop good problem-solving strategies

Once students find a problem and clearly define it, they need to develop strategies for solving it. Among the effective strategies are setting subgoals and using algorithms, heuristics, and means-end analysis.

Step 3. Evaluate solutions

Once we think we have solved a problem, we might
not know whether our solution is effective unless we evaluate it.

Step 4. Rethink and redefing solutions over time

Obstacles to solving problems

Fixiation. It is easy to fall into the trap of becoming fixated on a particular strategy for solving a problem. Fixation involves using a prior strategy and failing to look at a problem from a fresh, new perspective.

Lack of Motivation or Persistence. Even if your students already have great problem-solving abilities, that hardly matters if they are not motivated to use them.

Inadequate Emotional Control. Emotion can hamper problem solving. Good problem solvers are not only highly motivated but also able to control their emotions and thus concentrate on a solution to a problem.

Developmental changes

Young children have some drawbacks that prevent them from solving many problems effectively. Especially notable is their lack of planning, which improves during the elementary and secondary school years. Among the reasons for the poor planning skills of young children is their tendency to try to solve problems too quickly at the expense of accuracy and their inability to inhibit an activity. Older children and adolescents also are more likely than young children to have eff ective strategies that help them solve problems

Problem-based learning and project.based learning

Problem-Based Learning. The emphasis in problem-based
learning is on solving authentic problems like those that occur in daily life. The general flow of problem-based learning consists of five phases: (1) orient students to the problem, (2) organize students for study, (3) assist with independent
and group investigations, (4) develop and present artifacts and exihibits, and (5) analyze and evaluate work

Project-based learning. Project-based learning environment are characterized by five main features:
1. A driving question. The learning process begins with a key question or problem that needs to be solved. 2. Authentic, situated inquiry. As students examine the key question, they learn about the problem-solving process engaged in by experts in the discipline in relevant contexts. 3. Collaboration. Students, teachers, and community participants collaborate to find solutions to the problem. 4. Scaffolding. Learning technologies are used to challenge students to go beyond what they normally would in a problem-solving context. 5. End product. Students create tangible end products that address the key, driving question.

What is thinking?

Manipulating and transforming information in memory, which often is done to form concepts, reason, think critically, make decisions, think creatively, and solve problems

Reasoning

Inductive reasoning

Reasoning from the specific to the general is
inductive reasoning. It consists of drawing conclusions (forming concepts) about all members of a category based on observing only some of its members. An important aspect of inductive reasoning is repeated observation.
Through repeated observation, information about similar experiences accumulates to the point that a repetitive pattern can be detected and a more accurate conclusion drawn about it.

Deductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning is reasoning from the general to the specific. Deductive reasoning is always certain in the sense that if the initial rules or assumptions are true, then the conclusion will be correct

Critical thinking

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a key to critical thinking. Mindfulness means being alert, mentally present, and cognitively flexible while going through life’s everyday activities and tasks. Mindful students maintain an active awareness of the circumstances in their lives.
Mindful students create new ideas, are open to new information, and are aware of more than one perspective.

Critical thinking in schools

Here are some ways teachers can consciously
build critical thinking into their lesson plans:
● Ask not only what happened but also “how” and “why.”
● Examine supposed “facts” to determine whether there is evidence to support them.
● Argue in a reasoned way rather than through emotions.
● Recognize that there is sometimes more than one good answer or explanation.
● Compare various answers to a question and judge which is really the best answer.
● Evaluate and possibly question what other people say rather than immediately accepting it as the truth.
● Ask questions and speculate beyond what we already know to create new ideas and new information.

Critical thinking in adolescence

Adolescence is an important transitional
period in the development of critical thinking. Several cognitive changes occur during adolescence that allow improved critical thinking, including the following:
● Increased speed, automaticity, and capacity of information processing, which frees cognitive resources for other purposes.
● More knowledge in a variety of domains
● An increased ability to construct new combinations of knowledge
● A greater range and more spontaneous use of strategies or procedures such as planning, considering alternatives, and cognitive monitoring

Subtopic

An increasing number of technology applications are available to improve students’ critical thinking skills. David Jonassen (2006, 2010) argues that one of the best uses of technology in education involves computer applications that encourage students to think critically about the content they are studying.

Decision making

Biases and Flaws in Decision Making

Confirmation Bias. One type of bias is confirmation bias, the tendency to search for and use information that supports our ideas rather than refutes them.

Belief perseverance. Is the tendency to hold on to a belief in the face of contradictory evidence.

Overconfidence bias. Is the tendency to have more confidence in judgments and decisions than we should have, based on probability or past experience

Hindsight bias. Is our tendency to falsely report, after the fact, that we accurately predicted an event.

Decision making in adolescence

Most individuals make better decisions when they are calm rather than emotionally aroused, which may especially be true for adolescents. Thus, the same adolescent who makes a wise decision when calm may make an unwise decision when emotionally aroused. One proposal to explain adolescent decision making is the dual-process model, which states that decision making is influenced by two cognitive systems, one analytical and one experiential, which compete with each other

Creative thinking

Steps in creative process

The creative process is often described as a five-step sequence:
1. Preparation. Students become immersed in a problem issue that interests them and their curiosity is aroused.
2. Incubation. Students churn ideas around in their head, a point at which they are likely to make some unusual connections in their thinking.
3. Insight. Students experience the “Aha!” moment when all pieces of the puzzle seem to fit together.
4. Evaluation. Now students must decide whether the idea is valuable and worth pursuing. They need to think, “Is the idea novel or is it obvious?”
5. Elaboration. This final step often covers the longest span of time and involves the hardest work.

Teaching and creativity

An important teaching goal is to help students become
more creative

What is transfer?

Transfer occurs when a person applies previous experiences and knowledge to learning or problem solving in a new situation

Types of transfer

Near or Far Transfer. In near transfer the classroom learning situation is similar to the one in which the initial learning took place. Far transfer means the transfer of learning to a situation very different from the one in which the initial learning took place

Low-Road or High-Road Transfer. Gabriel Salomon and David Perkins (1989) distinguished between low-road and high-road transfer. Low-road transfer occurs when previous learning automatically, often unconsciously, transfers to another situation. This occurs typically with highly practiced skills in which there is little need for reflective thinking. By contrast, high-road transfer is conscious and eff ortful. Students consciously establish connections between what they learned in a previous situation and the new situation they now face. High-road transfer is mindful—that is, students have to be aware of what they are doing and think about the connection between contexts. High-road transfer implies abstracting a general rule or principle from previous experience and then applying it to the new problem in the new context. d backward-reaching transfer. Forward-reaching transfer occurs when students think about how they can apply what they have learned to new situations.
For forward-reaching transfer to take place, students have to know something about the situations to which they will transfer learning. Backward-reaching transfer occurs when students look back to a previous (“old”) situation for information that will help them solve a problem in a new context.

Cultural practices and transfer

Cultural practices may be involved in how easy or difficult transfer is. Prior knowledge includes the kind of knowledge that learners acquire through cultural experiences, such as those involving ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. In some cases, this cultural knowledge can support children’s learning and facilitate transfer, but in others it may interfere