COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Teaching should be aligned with the way people think rather than with the subjects that have always been taught. There are 12 cognitive processes that must be mastered by all students no matter what careers they choose. |
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Conceptual Processes |
Analytic Processes |
Social Processes |
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Prediction Modeling Experimentation Evaluation |
Diagnosis Planning Causation Judgment |
Influence Teamwork Negotiation Describing |
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Proficiency at all the cognitive processes depends on discovery and being able to extrapolate from one’s experience about what has been discovered. These processes depend strongly on prior cases, and prior cases are best learned slowly in childhood. They also depend on an analysis of those cases, which is best done with help from a teacher. Discussion, reflection, and analysis of prior cases make one better able to deal with new cases. New cases must be compared with old ones in a way that helps one reason better from them. |
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Knowledge is experience, but it is experience that has been analyzed so that it can be retrieved again just in time as needed. This happens only if we have thought about what we have experienced. A teacher’s job, therefore, is to provide the experiences and to help the student reflect upon the significance of those experiences. Good parents do this naturally. Good teachers would do it naturally as well, if they were allowed to do so. |
Roger Schank Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Save Our Schools Teachers College, Columbia University, 2011 |
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