Cognitivism

As an early elementary teacher, what a child brings cognitively to the classroom is important. Being a bilingual elementary teacher, I believe that activating a students prior knowledge is extremely important. Based on the information read, cognitive learning environments focus on helping students take in information in a meaningful way and put it into long-term memory so that it can be easily retrieved. I observed an example of this during a guided reading lesson. The students in a first grade bilingual reading class were about to read a story about shadows. To prepare the students for the story and implant the vocabulary needed to comprehend and decode the story the teacher brought the students outside and let them play with their shadows. While the students were playing and investigating their shadow shapes the teacher implanted and repeated specific vocabulary words that the children were going to find in their reading books. When the students began to read the story the teacher drew on their recent shadow experience. The students were able to comprehend the story because they now had a background experience to draw from.
There are many ways that technology could enhance this lesson cognitively. Instead of using the glossary to find the meaning to vocabulary words some textbook companies are creating etextbooks. These books may include a vocabulary page with mouse over graphics that help students associate the meaning a word with a graphic. Creative teachers can create the same type of resource for their students using an image annotation web 2.0 tool such as Flickr.com. Visual dictionaries, video clips, podcasts, and vodcasts are just a few other ways that teachers can use technology to enhance cognitive thought.
I attended a technology conference about visual literacy that said "We process visuals 60,000 times more than text." However flashing images or showing video clips are not enough to commit information into long term memory. It is through the combination of building background knowledge, getting students excited and involved in what they are learning, using technology and repetition that leads to cognition.