Ch. 6 BLOOOOOOG

Andrew Hogan

10/8

Ch.6 Blog

This weeks readings all revolve around the way the human brain process and stores information. This is quintessential to learning as it discusses the way in which each individual person learns, and consequently the way they adapt their knowledge to form original thoughts or ideas.

The comparison between behavioral psychology and early forms of cognitive psychology made early on in the chapter was particularly interesting to me. I can’t believe there was a time when scientists believed that learning could be attributed simply to the response of the patience to different stimuli. It may be true that scientists of the time had not learned the working of brain synapses and neurons, but to attribute learning to something so simple as cause and effect implies that no person ever thinks or chooses the way they react to any stimulus, but instead that every person is only subject to their own urges.

Another part from the chapter that I found useful to my career as a future educator is the chart on page 188 of the text. This chart helps to illustrate examples of the cognitive process and the way in which it could be used in the classroom. While all of the examples may not be particularly relevant to my history classroom, it does provide me with different ways to engage my students, particularly those who may not be responding to one type of teaching method.

In addition to this idea of cognitive psychology, I also thought the section entitled "Why learners forget" was very interesting. This was a great section for helping me understand not only why certain upper level students forget, but it was great at helping me understand students with learning disabilities, and why they are not always able to process information. It is applicable to me, because although the text did a fine job at explaining how memory works, it didn't help to explain how the brain prioritizes one set of information over the other to be remembered.