Views on Modern Cognitive Science

In their essay The cognitive perspective on learning: Ten cornerstone findings, Michael Schneider and Elsbeth Stern introduce the topic on cognitive science with a story on how a motivated teacher teaches the concept of the earth unsuccessfully. The teacher is well prepared and the students are motivated; however, learning doesn’t occur as expected. Modern cognitive science has explained this situation well with a series of findings.

Cognitive science assumes that once a piece of information is learned, it can be accessed later under different environments for different purposes. And further studies show that the cognitive perspective on learning overlaps with other perspectives.
If it were the case, then after the teacher taught the concept of the earth, the students should be able to complete the assignment and drew correct pictures of the earth. Nevertheless, these students are creative and have given quite a variety of contradictory concepts. Modern cognitive science explains this situation by assuming that it is the type of structure of knowledge that determines whether a person can solve relevant real-life problems instead of the amount of knowledge. In other words, these students get the idea that the earth is a sphere moving through space, but they have never applied this piece of knowledge in a picture, or in a video, which is another type of structure of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge structures are playing important roles in learning.

The authors introduce ten cornerstone findings from cognitive research on learning. As a master student in Spain, I have also experienced the educational system in China and the higher education system in the United States. I would like to share my personal experiences on these findings.  

The authors mention that it is the learner who will access the knowledge and apply it in his/her life: it is the learner who learns. In other words, the learner is the most important one in a lecture or a class instead of the teacher. When I was in primary school in China, I was discouraged to ask questions during the class or interrupt the teacher whenever I had questions. At that time, I did not think there was something wrong with it, because I was supposed to listen carefully and memorize everything the teacher said. I might have some questions, but was afraid to ask. Initially, I forgot to ask questions, and then I stopped having questions. At the end, I might stop thinking, or was too lazy to think about any questions. After I got into the university, I started to be encouraged to ask questions from time to time. I have to say it might be a little bit late because I am too used to being quiet in the class. If the “learner-centered” or “student-centered” concept is applied, it needs be applied earlier instead of in the university. Will this explain why the Chinese kids are usually quieter than the Spanish kids?

As to the teachers, it is important for them to address the learners’ prior knowledge when teaching new concepts during the learning process: optimal learning builds on prior knowledge.  Prior knowledge comes from different resources such as other classes, parents, hobbies, media, etc.; therefore, the learners sitting in the same class possess vastly different knowledge. Especially those thirty students sitting in a classroom of a community college might come from fifteen different countries. The professors cannot assume too much or too little. Sometimes, a prerequisite course is necessary for some students to be qualified to take the course Calculus.  When it comes to an important concept, it is still important for the calculus instructor to refresh the students’ memory to pull the prior knowledge out. Though some concepts look easy and clear for the teachers, the same concepts might be chaotic from the students’ point of view. Prior knowledge comes to the professor naturally when it needs to but not to the students: learning requires the integration of knowledge structures.  For example, we learn that the symbol X² means X times X before we learn the Pythagorean theorem. When the teacher shows the equation a² + b² = c², he might assume that the students understand the concept of power completely and know how to apply it in a specific question.

Here comes another problem. Though the equation a² + b² = c² is given, it doesn’t mean that the student knows when and how to apply it when needed: optimal learning is about acquiring concepts, skills and metacognitive competence in a balanced way. Though personally I do not think it happens to me quite often, I have to admit that I do forget to link concepts and procedures under pressure for example in a final exam. What’s more, the equation is usually not given and must be accessed from my prior knowledge. On one hand, I need to link the specific equation to the procedures that have to be done for this question; on the other hand, the related concepts must come to me from prior knowledge. It would be easier if a big question were broken into several smaller ones. In this way, some basic procedures can lead me step by step: optimal leaning builds complex knowledge structure through the hierarchical organization of more basic pieces of knowledge.  If the first question of a big exam problem were to find the length of a side, I would think of those equations and concepts related to sides and lengths instead of areas and volumes.

No matter it is about the learner, the teacher, the prior knowledge, the concepts and procedures, or the basic pieces of knowledge, all these factors are found to be mostly asked questions related to the effective learning.