Evolution of Cognition

Evolution of Cognition
Date: 12th Feb 2020/Wednesday

This was a challenging reading yet extremely important because this provided an insight into how are we actually using the education technology in schools or universities currently. The tasks teachers usually design end up in rote learning experiences requiring low cognitive demand and low element interactivity in the working memory. I could think and map apps and tasks that either lead to cognitive engagement or decrease cognitive engagement. The article begins by looking into the cognitive architectures, the different elements of the cognitive architecture that include  working memory, long term memory,schemas, automation and coalescing of isolated cognitive structures. Before this it explains the concept of high interactivity between elements in the working memory and low interactivity. My understanding of high interactivity is where the elements need to interact simultaneously for understanding to occur. For example when we read a sentence, " word order is important in English", so the word order matters here. The learner has to take into account all the words in the sentence. The interaction of the words among each other is also important. When we fail to understand a concept that is related with understanding and that requires high level of interactivity, for example learning a second language. On the other hand learning names of pupils, symbols , vocabulary of a second language can be be difficult to learn but this has nothing to do with the cognitive load, because each element can be learned in isolation. 

Human cognitive architecture as described in the previous article talks about the manner in which the cognitive structures are organized. Short term memory or working memory was considered a holding store, which is actually the processing engine of the cognitive system. Tough it has its limitations, limited capacity and holding data for limited duration. Similarly, long term memory has its own significance, it holds schemas in an hierarchical structure, which help in problem solving. Everything that is learned can become automated with practice. For example it might be difficult to find a route to a new place, but once the route is understood , the next time when you drive, its automatic. This processing of information takes place in the schemas and results in new learning , creation of high order schemas. It further says that information interacts with the cognitive architecture occurs in a continua form beginning with learned and unlearned material, controlled to uncontrolled schematic function, need for problem solving, random to ordered combination of elements and working memory limitations. It is easy to process well learned material and far difficult to process new material, think of the driving example a novice and a trained driver would have varying difficulty while finding or locating a place. 

Think about a person who has to go from point A to point B. Someone can explain them the routes, share the google map, use a road map and so on. All these activities have instructional consequences. For example using a map requires learning to use the map. But if the person has learned the map reading skills they could move to the right side of the continua, because now they would have developed schemas for map reading.

The important concepts that need to be understood were the effects of the specific instructional designs, these included the goal free effect (when a conventional problem with a specific goal is replaced with a problem with no specific goal and how this effects the abilities of the kids who have higher understanding of the taught concepts. For example students being asked to find the measure of an angle in  a triangle, or students being asked to calculate all angles in a triangle, the first will demonstrate superior learning outcomes. Similarly worked example effects reduce the cognitive load as they aid the learner in the learning process, they define the process step by step. Khan Academy is one such example, where students can skim through the examples and the clues to solve the problems. This could be followed by a problem that the learners are required to solve based on their previous understanding and learning. Rather then presenting the learner with fully worked example they could be given partially solved problems and ask them to solve the problems, this requires cognitive load, though ensuring learners remain motivated and receive feedback concerning their understanding of the problem they solved.

Similarly the split attention affect occurs when the learners splits the attention between the various sources of information for example looking at the text, visuals, audio etc. For learning to take place, learner must process all information. This could be achieved by integrating the text with the diagram. Often teachers use power point presentations where the text is either too much to comprehend, a diagram could have made the explanation more comprehensible. Modality effect is similar to split attention but provides an alternate way to comprehend the information, diagram and spoken text could be used. Similarly the element interactivity effect looks into the interactivity among the elements (element is something that needs to be learned or processed). So, when we say rain occurs as a result of the water cycle, there is low interactivity among the elements but when start explaining all parts of the water cycle and how they function together and cause rain, requires high element of interactivity among the elements. While designing lessons teachers need to take this into account. 

The imagination effect requires the learners to go through the procedures in the working memory. The imagination techniques should assist in automation. learners that are provided instructions to imagine a set of procedure performed better than learners given conventional instructions. The expertise reversal effect occurs when detailed textual explanations with diagrams become essential for novice learners but redundant for experts. The last effect is the guidance fading effect, which says that guidance diminishes when the learner grows or acquires the skills or becomes an expert. But it does require the teacher to take account of the individual differences of the learners, all learners may not require same level of guidance.

An interesting read, which gave me an opportunity to think of some of the tools and apps we have been using in classrooms and schools, and how enhancing the tasks the cognitive demands could be increased. For example an app about word search may require recognition and remembering of words and letters but has nothing to do with cognitive loads which require understanding. Similarly students who appear for their Applied ICT exams, are supposed to provide a solution to a business problem a fictitious company is facing, they have some data available in the form of a data base and they create a solution using the data base for the company, they are free to explore online. So this might involve the imagination effect (imagine a new solution to the problem) and the split attention effect. Though students are  required  to complete the problem at hand.

A little more reading and exploration required but this was a different way of looking at how students comprehend the learning.

Enjoy reading.

Regards and prayers

Sheeba Ajmal

References

1. Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive Load Theory. New York City, NY: Springer.
Retrieved online https://theeffortfuleducator.com/2018/10/14/eiitc/