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Learning, Motivation, And Theory

Junwei. Li

COGNITIVISM

If you had asked me what cognitivism is before I edited this blog, I would have answered that I don’t know, and I’m sure many people like me have no idea what cognitivism is.

So…..What is cognitivism?

We can get results by reading literature and searching the Internet; Cognitivism is a psychological and philosophical approach that studies the internal mental processes involved in human cognition. It emphasizes understanding how individuals perceive, process, and interpret information from their environment. Cognitivists view the mind as an information-processing system, investigating mental functions such as thinking, memory, perception, and problem-solving. They emphasize concepts like representation, information processing, and cognitive architecture and use experimental methods to study cognition. Cognitivism has significantly impacted fields like psychology, cognitive science, education, linguistics, and artificial intelligence.

The relationship between cognitivism and learning

In cognitivism, there is a point of view that learning is achieved by feeling and perception and is realized by the subjective organization of the human brain and that learning is realized by insight rather than by trial and error.

WhY?

How do children transform information and get new cognition under the guidance of teachers – time is a cycle.
  • Teacher: The pictures of the teacher telling the time are put in this order: twelve o ‘clock, one o ‘clock, two o ‘clock…… 11 o ‘clock; ask children: Is there an order?
  • Children: There is an order.
  • Teacher: Change the position of the photo: 11 o ‘clock, 12 o ‘clock, 1 o ‘clock…… 10 o ‘clock; ask children: Is there an order?
  • Children: Yes
  • Teacher: Change the photo position: 10 o ‘clock, 11 o ‘clock, 12 o ‘clock….. 9 o ‘clock; ask children: Is there an order?
  • Children: Yes
  • Teacher: Look at the clock. What is the secret of time?
  • Children: Time goes on and on.
  • Teacher: Since time is circular, any photo can be placed in the first or the last one.

From the above example, it can be seen that the teacher did not directly tell children that time is a cycle, but explored the secret of time by showing the facts and letting them think and summarize by themselves. And this kind of active learning is very useful for them to construct new knowledge structure.