The Nature of Cognitive Strategy Instruction - Essay Example

Instructional approaches help educators of social sciences to choose the best approach which meets students’ needs, age differences and development. Instructional design is a field of study concerned with improving student learning. As a field of study, it provides a theoretical foundation to principles of instructional design, a research base confirming the theoretical foundations, and a direct involvement in the application of those principles. Instructional design theory is often referred to as a prescriptive theory in that the variables and conditions of instructional design theories are predictable to given learning outcomes. Instructional design practice on the other hand provides the methods and techniques for developing and producing learning environments based on the instructional design theory. The articles selected for analysis reflect different instructional approaches and illustrate different methods and techniques used in social sciences. The article “Literary Studies and Cognitive Science: Toward a New Interdisciplinary” by M. Th. Crane and A. Richardson discuss a new interdisciplinary approach applied to literary studies and social sciences. In this article, a special attention is given to cognitive learning approach and its application. the authors underline that building on earlier theories of learning, researchers working toward interactive technologies perceived limitations in earlier methods. By developing theories that emphasize synthesis and integration of sets of knowledge and skills, researchers hope to address such limitations as an emphasis on components instead of integrated wholes, a closed system that made incorporation of new knowledge difficult, which resulted in essentially passive instruction and labor intensive practice in design and development of instruction. The authors state that the teacher provides modeling of the metacognitive strategies necessary for beginning the task, and, when problems are encountered, assistance is provided by the teacher or group. One learning procedure reflecting this stance, complex dynamic simulations, structures collaborative group work in sharing a complex problem-solving task. This approach is based on theories about the social genesis of learning in which the learner is characterized as being motivated to seek explanations through exploration. The article “Using Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development to Understand the Construction of Healing Narratives” by C. P. Cook-Cottone analyses instructional approaches and learning theories in terms of the Narrative Process. The Healing Narrative Model is based on the structured approach. It means that one is that learning should be contextual and a process of active application of knowledge toward specific problem-solving goals. Also, the article pays a special attention to experiential (or sensorimotor) level and early relationships (or Preoperational) level. An initial authoring activity in instructional design is a clarification of the learning goal for the instruction and/or curriculum. The specification of the goal(s) will help prescribe the format of the instruction. For example, if the goal is the learning of new information, there are basically possibilities. Second is the general agreement regarding the importance of modeling problem-solving strategies as well as the role of conflict or failure in providing an impetus toward new learning. The research by Harris and Pressley, M. (1991) describes bad illustrates the cognitive strategy instruction:. The authors underline that in contrast to the behaviorist view of the learner as shaped by the environment, cognitivebased researchers are investigating the ways that the learner actively shapes the environment to facilitate learning. His research indicates that the knowledge of novices is organized around the literal aspects of a problem statement, whereas the experts' knowledge is organized around principles and abstractions not apparent in the problem statement. Knowledge is not an end in itself, nor is it static and unchanging. It is assembled for use when necessary -- for example, if researchers want to dance -- and it has to be kept ready for use by useful storage. “Previous knowledge and experiences are the starting point for new learning; instruction is best when it takes place within the zone of proximal development” (Harris and Pressley 1991, p. 392). The use of knowledge can be internal (through the process of thinking) or external. The use of knowledge requires stored knowledge. The storage of knowledge can be -- like the use of knowledge -- internal (human memory) or external (in print media or other symbol systems). The use of knowledge often requires acquisition of knowledge that is lacking in order to achieve a particular goal. The research study by Pankratius and Young (1995) analyses a constructivist approach to education ad learning. The authors state that all these theoretical concerns share education as topic and have many interrelations and overlapping outcomes. Therefore instructional theory in our view describes only an aspect of education. By "knowledge" researchers mean all information that is created and/or stored internally or externally by humans. Knowledge usually is not stored as an end in itself but for the purpose of using it. “Constructivist learning principles provided the course framework; students were encouraged to examine and evaluate their beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about teaching” (Pankratius and Young 1995, p. 365). This article underlines that instructional approaches can concern all potential actions of a person, it can be conscious or unconscious, innate or learned, and it comprises, for example, facts, statements, processes, strategies, behavior, social actions, motor skills, motivations, volitions, and emotions. For example, a person "owns" knowledge to interact with oneself and with his or her environment. In our dance example, a person has conceptual, audiovisual, motoric, and emotional knowledge of a certain dance. The article underline that instructional approaches are based on decision-making and cognitive learning theories. Both the structured approach (discussed by Pankratius and Young 1995) and the discovery approach (mentioned by Cook-Cottone 2004) share several underlying premises. These principles and abstractions are derived from knowledge of the subject matter and rely on the tightly connected schemata that experts are able to use in the application of knowledge to specific problem solutions. The researchers use the term discover here to convey the concept of high-level employment of the differentiation and integration cognitive processes, especially the latter process where learners are attempting to restructure information from their knowledge base. In this situation, the learner is presented both problem-oriented and complex-dynamic instructional prescriptions. In our example here, the simulation requires the student to try and discover principles of management within specific complex problems. After attempting to solve the complex problems (within each module), feedback is provided to ensure that they have the correct content information. Crane and Richardson (1999) and Harris and Pressley (1991) underline that the students proceed to the complex-dynamic simulation to engage in employment of their new knowledge. In this format, students have the responsibility to construct the necessary declarative and procedural knowledge from their existing knowledge base. Through the feedback given following each problem-oriented module, the learner is provided with the appropriate label for principles presented in that particular module. Am approach to knowledge acquisition is where the learner is totally in control of both creating the tool for learning and constructing the knowledge to perform at a high level of cognition. The approach here is cognitive construction. The goal is for the student to directly construct the principles of management necessary to run a factory that produces a commercial product. This approach assumes that the learner has background knowledge in the general area of business administration and that the learner has sufficient time to explore and create the necessary learning environment. The main difference is that Pankratius and Young (1995) underline beenfitsand advantages of decision-making models while Crane and Richardson (1999) and Harris and Pressley (1991) pay more attention to benefits of cognitive models of learning. Harris and Pressley’s (1991) model departs from the standard linear model, which they characterized as attempting to include all possible variables and conditions of instructional development, regardless of the instructional problem. Borrowing from the field of system dynamics, their model uses a situational evaluation to determine instructional needs, followed by a recommendation for problem resolution. The situational evaluation determines the author's situation, based on the assumption that each author will have a different need or problem, depending on the given situation. Researchers proposed two important areas of research and theory for the future automation of instructional systems -- content organization and problem-oriented strategies. Research in cognitive science suggests that the acquisition and employment of knowledge can be improved through the organization of the content presented to the learner. Problem-oriented strategies require the learner to use procedural and declarative knowledge to solve problems. Cook-Cottone (2004) base their model on Piaget's Theory and stipulate that “behavior and associated narrative may be somewhat repetitive, lacking a deliberate or reflective quality. This type of narrative representation of experience would be considered the experiential, or sensorimotor, level of narrative representation” (p. 177). The preceding examples focused on the learning of new information and improvement of specific cognitive processes. Our fourth example represents those situations where the goal is direct improvement in cognitive abilities. In this case, the instructional goal is for improvement in decision making. In such situations, the students need to have the necessary knowledge (e.g., the principles of management) to perform in a complex environment. In our example, the instruction consists solely of the complex-dynamic simulation. Students can be monitored here but it is not as important as in the examples because the learning of new information is not an objective. For example, this instructional format has been shown to be effective in improving quality of decision making with corporation executives In sum, the article illustrate that the selection of the instructional prescription(s) was determined by both the learning objectives and the learners' existing knowledge. Another important variable in the selection process was the necessary element of instructional efficiency. Each of the examples would provide long-term retention of the knowledge as well as improvements in cognitive processing. The linking model represents a flexible approach to instructional design because the learning model is founded in complexity theory. As a nonlinear model of learning, the instructional prescriptions can likewise be viewed as nonlinear. In this way, they would see that their lack of knowledge results in nonsuccess. The level of description refers to the whole set of theoretical concepts that are behind different, more or less complete models of instructional design. This theory consists of the principles relevant for these models and is here called "instructional theory." Such an instructional theory should prescribe the relevant concepts to analyze and describe instruction and instructional design. Besides instructional theory, there are other theoretical concerns in the field of education, such as theories of educational psychology, the philosophy of education, and theories of educational sociology. Instructional theory investigates problems of instructional design. Reference List Crane, M. Th., Richardson, A. (1999). Literary Studies and Cognitive Science: Toward a New Interdisciplinarity. Mosaic (Winnipeg), 32 (2), 123. Cook-Cottone, C. P. (2004). Using Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development to Understand the Construction of Healing Narratives. Journal of College Counseling, 7 (2), 177. Harris, K. N.,, Pressley, M. (1991). The Nature of Cognitive Strategy Instruction: Interactive Strategy Construction. Exceptional Children, 57 (5), 392. Pankratius, W.J., Young, M.W. (1995). Perspectives on Education: A Constructivist Approach to an Introductory Course. Education, 115 (3), 363. Read More