Cognition as an
Information Processing System
Cognition is a sequenced process made of many
components as:
Perception
A sensation enters our system through senses, we try
to mach it with patters we already have in our memories, “is a system of
interdependent relations” (Piaget)
Ethnic affiliation may affect perception due to value
differences between groups. The information held in sensory register is very
short, that might cause learning difficulties, because new information that
does not match existing squemas may not be perceived that easily.
Perception is improved by age since children have more
experience.
Attention
After perceiving something, if it is interesting for
us, we give attention to it. Some of the “interesting” things are: novelty,
movement, sound and visual effects, among others.
It’s recommended to take this on account when planning
learning environments.
Ethnic affiliation may affect the things that capture
attention.
Activities shouldn’t be too easy nor too hard, they
must match children level and be related to kids personal experience.
To help children keep attention its recommended that
teachers don’t talk too much but also listen to them, taking their interests
and concerns in acquaintance, use visual support and set a purpose in the
beginning of the activity.
Memory
Short-term memory takes place when a perception
identified is store for more processing, rehearsal can be used to enlarge the
time the perception is kept in short-term memory.
The longer data is kept in short-term memory the more
likely it is to go to long-term memory.
Long-term memory is a data base containing everything
that has been learned, there are two types, episodic which is the one record
with detail an event, and semantic which is the collection of all events
related to a meaning, it’s used for problem solving and decision making.
At early ages episodic memory larger that semantic
memory so children often miss the main idea due to its abstraction.
Problem Solving
Education now-a-days is focused on helping the child
be a decision maker, the development of problem-solving skills is very
important.
We can help children do it by giving him much open-ending
stuff to interact with. Benefits are that the kid can use more than one sense
ant the time, get to see why something works in a particular way and repeat the
process as many times as needed.
There are two approaches: directive and nondirective: Direct gives a set of steps: recognize a
problem exist, decide to solve it, analyze it, formulate alternative solutions,
test alternative approaches, problem is solved/not solved. Nondirective is more
child-centred, the child is the leader and adults are just there to help, it’s
recommended to answer questions with other questions.
Problem solving may help to organize data, summarize
material, make assumptions based on facts, hypothesize about results, and make
decisions.