Learners are Cognitive

The following is a brief example for teachers of how the steps in the teaching sequence address different stages of information processing.

A. Instructional sequence

Pre-teaching activities
	1	The teacher sets today teaching and learning goals.
	2	The students are invited to think of a story they like the most and consider why they like that story.
	3	In pair, the students share their favourite story.
Main teaching activities
	1	The students are asked to listen and write down several key words dictated by the teacher.
	2	The class volunteers are invited to write the dictated words on the whiteboard for gaining class feedback.
	3	Relied on the given words, in pair, the students are challenged to guess and tell what the story will be about.
	4	The teacher distributes the copies of the full story to the students and invites them compare with their prior guess.
	5	In small groups, the students are asked to examine the given story to find out 1) the general purpose and 2) the specific features of writing organisation.
	6	In turn, each group presents their findings to class.
	7	In powerpoint slides, the teacher gives feedback related to the given tasks.
	8	Individually, the students are asked to answer questions related to the set learning objectives.
Closing
	1	The students play ‘a chained-story’ game.
	2	The teacher informs the students about the next meeting teaching and learning objectives.

B. Teaching sequence and its cognitive considerations

At the opening of instruction, a set of activities are given to activate students’ existing knowledge relevant to the topic going to discuss. Adam reveals that “the prior knowledge directly influences perception, pattern recognition and the assignment of meaning” (as cited in Bruning et al., 2004, p. 22). As an initial clue, explaining the expected teaching and learning outcomes is intended to catch the learners’ attention to focus on the essential information throughout the instruction (Bruning et al., 2004). Moreover, to enrich the schema activation process, the learners also engage in story-telling activities in which they should recall, share with and justify their story preferences. A variety of activities given is to ensure that the learners have sufficient opportunities to recall the related information which is important for next instructional stages. Anderson (1996) informs that to activate learners’ existing knowledge, teachers may be required to provide a variety of pre-teaching activities since different students may need different hints or clues in order to activate their current knowledge.

In the main teaching session, it appears that the teaching activities are sequenced from the simple to the more complex activities such as having group discussions and answering the questions. In general, this teaching episode is devoted to help the learners manage their cognitive load which is crucial for their learning success (Bruning et al., 2004). In working with words and meanings, the learners engage in activities to overcome the language barrier and at the same time prepare them for more complex tasks. In this way, the teacher can reduce the complexity of the materials and eliminate the learners’ cognitive overload (Mayer&Moreno as cited in Bruning et al., 2004).

At the following stage, by using the given words, the learners are challenged to firstly predict what the story will be about and then compare their predictions with the original story. In predicting the story, the learners try to organize and link the given words to construct the most possible story. They are given opportunities to proceduralise their declarative knowledge (words and meanings) which is important to develop their procedural and conditional knowledge valuable for the next stage of learning (Bruning et al., 2004). In addition, when the learners compare their prediction with the original, they will more easily understand the content of the story, since their attention is drawn to focus on it.

As the learners become more familiar with the story, they are asked to answer the designated task. At this stage, the language barrier is not becoming a significant problem, so that, by integrating what they already know and the given task the learners can develop their procedural knowledge more easily. The teacher also believes that, at this point, the learners have been able to manage their attention and resources appropriately since they have gained sufficient information and knowledge related the story in the previous stages (Bruning et al., 2004). In addition, the learners are also split into several groups in order to help them solve the given problems. By working in a group, the learners have more chances to gain possible responses to the tasks and enrich their existing knowledge that represents a supporting instructional environment (Bruning et al., 2004). Likewise, the presentation session promote learners to have more comprehensive understanding and become more committed on the given task.

At the feedback and evaluation stage, the teacher directs the learners to engage in their essential cognitive processing. They are promoted to generate inferences, link their understanding with the teachers’ feedback and gain specific answers for the assigned task. In addition, through powerpoint slides the teacher also tries to integrate audio-visual aid in his teaching practice valuable to enhance students’ comprehension. Baddely (2000) reveals that new information will be more easily comprehended when it is distributed in the working memory properly both in the articulatory loop through teacher’s verbal explanation and in the visual-spatial sketch pad through images.

In the closing session, the teacher gives a more entertaining activity which directs the students to practice composing a collaborative story. In so doing, the teacher attempts to build the students’ cognitive automaticity process valuable for completing similar task in the following teaching session (Bruning et al., 2004). In the last activity, the teacher provides overview of the essential information in order to assist the students to prepare and activate their current knowledge for the next instruction.

References

Anderson, J. R. (1996). ACT: A simple theory of complex cognition, American Psychologist, 51, 355-365.

Anderson, J. R. (2005). Cognitive psychology and its implications (6th ed.). New York: Worth.

Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trend in Cognitive Science, 4, 417-423

Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., Norby, M. M., & Ronning, R. R. (2004). Cognitive psychology and instruction (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.