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I have to say that these activities although very interesting (as are the readings), are provoking a bit of an internal conflict for me when I go to relate them to my \u2018work\u2019.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m transitioning into a more behind the scenes – curriculum and instructional design focus, and away from teaching.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m actually planning to move in the next month, and will be leaving my job.\u00a0 <\/span>Alas, although mentally I\u2019m checking out a bit, this has proven to be really illuminating, as I can see how I could be better preparing my students in the way I design the learning environment!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For the purpose of this post, I will be relating Cognitivism, and Ertmer and Newby\u2019s interpretation of it, to my present work as a LINC language instructor with adult newcomers to Canada. \u00a0 <\/span>I will also attempt to bring in elements of Merrill\u2019s problem-centred instruction, and the 4 phases within:\u00a0 <\/span>Activation, Demonstration, Application and Integration, as they can be directly linked to my own practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cognitivism in LINC<\/span><\/p>\n First off, Ertmer and Newby mention language (and perhaps its acquisition) directly in their description of cognitivism (2013).\u00a0 <\/span>When students learn a new language, they are required to access prior knowledge schemas in order to inform their ability to complete a task or know what language to utilize in certain situations.\u00a0 <\/span>The building blocks of language form a foundation for how students can interact with a new world, and a design approach which takes into account how \u201cinformation is received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind\u201d (p. 51) is essential to successful language application.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The LINC program\u2019s focus is tasks not knowledge, and language for life not for academic pursuit.\u00a0 <\/span>Many learners struggle with things like understanding real speed explanations, as well as being able to interpret tone in written messages like email.\u00a0 <\/span>By creating \u2018skill building\u2019 activities that activate prior knowledge (and language), and then incorporate teachers modelling and demonstrating (phases identified by Merrill) appropriate language and tone etc., students can \u201cfocus on the mental activities\u2026 that lead up to a response\u201d (Ertmer and Newby, 2013, p. 51).\u00a0 <\/span>This gives students a safe environment to codify new language, as well as to organize and store it for appropriate contextual use.\u00a0 <\/span>Even just knowing how to change writing from formal to semi formal when addressing a colleague as opposed to a supervisor can take a lot of demonstration and building before it can be applied and integrated (Merrill, 2002).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I also relate to the cognitivist concept that examples and feedback can help learners to compare how they are being taught to approach a situation to their prior stored understanding.\u00a0 <\/span>This, coupled with a focus on real world contexts, can help to eliminate wasteful cognitive overloading that can result from being forced to learn information that isn\u2019t useful to the learner\u2019s own needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One aspect of feedback that I see leaning more towards behaviourism rather than cognitivism though is how feedback is ultimately used.\u00a0 <\/span>As outlined by Ertmer and Newby (2013), behaviourist feedback is used to direct or modify behaviour.\u00a0 <\/span>This is a very common approach for language instructors. I can also though see some application of the cognitivist approach for higher level learners, which shares knowledge of results to lead to appropriate mental connections (adapting or adding to already established schemas).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Utilizing needs assessments in LINC also follows the cognitivist approach, as we attempt to ascertain \u201cwhat consequences are most desired by the learner\u201d (p. 53), making knowledge acquisition a meaningful experience.\u00a0 <\/span>This can assist in the \u2018application\u2019 and \u2018integration\u2019 phase outlined by Merrill, as I would like to think that by focusing on real world tasks, learners can see how to incorporate the skills they\u2019ve learned directly into a context in their own lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image taken from\u00a0https:\/\/thecognitiveapproach.wordpress.com\/<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013). Behaviorism,Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective.\u00a0erformance Improvement Quarterly<\/em>, 26(2), 43-71.<\/p>\n Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction.\u00a0Educational Technology Research and Development<\/em>, 50(3), 43-59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have to say that these activities although very interesting (as are the readings), are provoking a bit of an internal conflict for me when I go to relate them to my \u2018work\u2019.\u00a0 I\u2019m transitioning into a more behind the… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[36,37,21],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523","category-uncategorized","tag-cognitivism","tag-linc","tag-rrumalat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}