ACTIVITIES IN THE CLASSROOM
In education so as in English Language Teaching, activities and materials play an important role. It is well known nowadays that we as teachers must improve our practices through designed those items that help us to reach our purposes. Thus, we must take into consideration the learning styles and the interests of our students. As we can see the use of different materials and activities in the classroom really impacts the motivation and the effort of the students. This paper will try to provide a wider view about the different kind of activities that are based on the cognitive theory and the metacognition, the influence both have in teaching practices, and the way in which we as future teachers can improve our classes..
First of all, it is necessary to understand better the term “cognitivism”. According to Carretero (1998, p.78) The cognitivism is “a theory that defines learning as an internal, active, creative process” .It emphasizes the critical role that memory plays in helping us translate new information into a form that is meaningful and will allow us to retrieve it and be able to use it. Memory involves three processes: attention, encoding and retrieval. The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and understood. The learner is viewed as an information processor (like a computer). There are many authors who contribute to this topic, but the most important are: Jean Piaget, Lev Vigotsky and J. Anderson.
On the other hand one of the most important characteristics about cognitivism is that it also takes into consideration the social interaction, it means, it is focused in the culture and in the social environment. Another important element in order to understand better this approach is the aim for education, that according to Piaget, is to make individuals who are critical, creative and inventive discoverers. So the major part of the child’s learning relies on active experimentation and discovery. The active classroom has been associated with the term progressive teaching, where pupils are in active role, learning predominantly by discovery techniques, with emphasis on creative expression. Subject matter tends to be combined, with the teacher performing as a guide to educational experiences and encouraging cooperative work. External rewards and punishments are seen as being unimportant, and there is not so much concern with traditional academic standards and testing (Spencer, 1994).
Having defined this theory and obtained a wider view about cognitivism, it is important to define a cognitive activity. Drisoll ( 2000, p.365) defines it as an “ activity that is the private mental process for someone. Such as change from childhood to adulthood in mental images of the world outside, or how children learn right from wrong”.In other words, it is referred to how we as teachers notice the way of learning of our . It is an unconscious process and once we have realized the way students learn, we use specific activities according to their learning styles.
As a third element in cognitive activities is memory; but why? Learning new information or skills requires the use of two special terms, cognitive load and working memory. Cognitive load is the demand placed upon working memory to process a certain task or concept. Working memory is the space where learning occurs. In this way, an important aspect to consider of cognitive psychology incudes meaningful learning, organization, and elaboration. Some examples of cognitive activities are memory games, songs and CUE learning.
Although cognitivism has had extreme influence in the education last decades, there has surged another high level: metacognition. Taylor (1999) defines metacognition as “an appreciation of what one already knows, together with a correct apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and skills it requires, combined with the agility to make correct inferences about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and reliably.” Metacognition, or the ability to control one's cognitive processes (self-regulation) has been linked to intelligence (Borkowski et al., 1987; Brown, 1987; Sternberg, 1984, 1986a, 1986b). Sternberg refers to these executive processes as "metacomponents" in his triarchic theory of intelligence (Sternberg, 1984, 1986a, 1986b). Metacomponents are executive processes that control other cognitive components as well as receive feedback from these components. According to Sternberg, metacomponents are responsible for "figuring out how to do a particular task or set of tasks, and then making sure that the task or set of tasks are done correctly" (Sternberg, 1986b, p. 24). These executive processes involve planning, evaluating and monitoring problem-solving activities. Sternberg maintains that the ability to appropriately allocate cognitive resources, such as deciding how and when a given task should be accomplished, is central to intelligence.
Another definition of metacognition is provided by AlleyDog (2004, p.87) as “ the act of thinking about thinking, or the cognition of cognition”. It is the ability to control one’s own thoughts.
“Metacognitive strategies include changing behaviors based on the successes or lack of successes of those behaviors. Within formal learning situations, learners who were able to use metacognitive strategies would be able to adjust study techniques, activities within learning areas, and assignments based on past performance.Instructors typically create heavily structured learning environments. They regulate learner behaviors” Clark (2003,p183)
In other words, metacognition has to do with being conscious about our own learning process, this is, once a student realized with which activities he or she learn better he or she will try to look for those activities by himself/herself. In this way, Effective learning involves planning and goal-setting, monitoring one's progress, and adapting as needed. By teaching students these skills - all of which can be learned - we can improve student learning.
More recent studies demonstrate that metacognition can be taught and learned. We as teachers can improve our classes by:
Step 1: Teach students that the ability to learn is not a fixed quantity: The key to a student's ability to become a self-regulated (i.e., metacognitive) learner is understanding that one's ability to learn is a skill that develops over time rather than a fixed trait, inherited at birth. Students who believe that the ability to learn can improve over time earn higher grades, even after controlling for prior achievement (Henderson and Dweck, 1990). These students set reasonable learning goals for themselves and have the self-efficacy to choose and use productive learning strategies. These strategies then result in learning gains. Moreover, students can be taught that their ability to learn can improve over time; those who learn this simple lesson show increased motivation to learn and improved grades (Aronson et al., 2002; Blackwell et al., 2007).
Step 2: Teach students how to set goals and plan to meet them: Many students don't set explicit learning goals for themselves, or make plans to meet any goals they might have. Yet students who received as little as half an hour of training (in the form of one-to-one tutoring) on the process of self-regulated learning outperformed students who did not receive the training in several important ways. First and foremost, they learned more. In addition, they planned how they would spend their time in the learning task, spent more of their time in goal-oriented searching, and periodically reminded themselves of their current goal (Azevedo and Cromley, 2004).
Step 3: Give students opportunities to practice self-monitoring and adapting: Accurate self-monitoring is quite difficult. Many first-year college students, in particular, are over-confident. For example, first-year students at Carnegie Mellon University were asked what grades they anticipated earning in their science and math courses. While results varied somewhat by subject area, more than 90% of students in biology, chemistry, physics and calculus courses expected to earn A's or B's. These expectations were clearly not realistic and suggested some problems on the horizon for these students.
Finally, some examples of skills and activities are provided for developing metacognition:
Monitoring and adapting strategies can be taught as learning habits. A wrapper is one tool for teaching self-monitoring behavior. A wrapper is an activity that surrounds an existing assignment or activity and encourages metacognition. For example, wrappers can be used with lectures, homework assignments, or exams. Wrappers require just a few extra minutes of time, but can have a big impact. They are effective because they integrate metacognitive behavior where it is needed - when the student is in a learning situation where self-monitoring can be helpful. Students can also get immediate feedback on the accuracy of their perceptions, thus alleviating the problem of over-confidence. Finally, wrappers require minimal faculty time.
Example: lecture wrappers
Prior to beginning the day's lecture, the instructor gives students some tips on active listening. In particular, students are encouraged to think about the key points of the lecture as they listen and take notes. At the end of the lecture, students write what they think the three most important ideas of the lecture were on an index card. After they hand those in, the instructor reveals the three most important ideas from the lecture. This immediate feedback allows students to monitor their active listening strategies. After three successive lecture wrappers (with successively less faculty support, from a mini-lecture on active listening to no advance warning), student responses increasingly matched the instructor's: 45% the first time, 68% the second time, and 75% the third (Lovett, 2008).
Example: homework wrappers
Before beginning a homework assignment, students answer a brief set of self-assessment questions focusing on skills they should be monitoring. Students complete the homework as usual, and then answer a follow-up set of self-assessment questions. For example, for a homework assignment about vector arithmetic, a student may be asked (beforehand) "How quickly and easily can you solve problems that involve vector subtraction?" and (afterward) "Now that you have completed this homework, how quickly and easily can you solve problems that involve vector subtraction?" Student reports from the homework wrappers ranged from noting that the practice exercises were helpful to them to commenting that they were probably overconfident before doing the homework problems.
Example: exam wrappers
When graded exams are returned (as soon as possible after the exam was given), students complete an exam reflection sheet. They describe their study strategies, analyze the mistakes they made, and plan their study strategies for the next exam. These reflection sheets are returned to students before the next exam, so that they can make use of the ideas they had when the previous exam was still fresh in their minds. Students identified several new approaches they would use in future exam preparation.
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