Cognitive Psychology/Information Processing Case Study Analysis

Post your responses to the following questions on your blog.

Case 1: Mr. West wants his students to truly understand Civil War battles. He engages the help of a local Historical Re-enactment Society and assigns each of his students to the Union or Confederate side. His students join the re-enactors from 7:00am-7:00pm for a full day of activities which include a long march (complete with rudimentary battle gear), setting up camp, cooking over campfires, scouting territory, and engaging in a historically representative battle.
1. After participating in this activity, what do you think the students will remember? How might those memories differ from those students would have if they only read about the Civil War in their textbook?
The students will likely remember getting up at 7:00am to march all day and be forced into activities which they may remember, but will not likely have an emotional connection with unless the teacher had given them an emotional connection or an interest beforehand. The students will vaguely remember the activities, but mostly remember the more intriguing parts or things they form a connection with. These memories differ from the other students who would've just read about the civil war in that they can better visualize the experience, understand certain objects or parts of history associated with stories from the civil war, and more effectively remember the things the teacher or historical society teaches them. It would be more exciting and intriguing way to learn about the civil war. However, I would not do this activity with younger students. High school students would be able to empathize and see the emotional and psychological side of the civil war, and not just remember facts and how it impacts them.

2. How does Mr. West’s use of a Civil War re-enactment engage students’ emotions? What is the relationship between emotions and learning?
It would engage the students emotions because they would empathize with the soldiers situations of having to walk all day and have sore muscles, eat crappy food, be close to death every time battles drew near, and having to fight or oppose people you knew. The relationship between emotions and learning enable 'meaningful learning' and 'elaboration.' It helps to register on Higher Order Thinking Levels where students can evaluate their experiences and create mental scenarios of what the experience would be like for an 1800's civil war soldier.

3. Based on the principles of dual-coding theory, what activities would be effective for Mr. West to use as a follow-up to the re-enactment?
Mr. West may want to have the students write an essay or hold a discussion reflecting on their experiences. This would help students "rehearse" their knowledge and to use their sensory memories from their experiences to recall important information for their dialog. They could also recreate their experience in projects such as producing a small movie, a youtube video featuring the facts they learned, creating a scrapbook, writing a small pretend "civil war" journal, or read literature associated with the civil war and write a response on it. These would be effective because students would make text to world connections, apply their knowledge using what they learned and what they've experienced, and create or synthesize based on their knowledge.

Case 2: Mr. Dunkin and Mr. Richards, teachers at the same school, are debating in the teacher’s lounge about who provides the best type of organization for the students’ learning. Mr. Dunkin lectures and assigns reading and chapter problems Mondays through Thursdays. On Fridays he gives a short answer exam. In Mr. Richards’ class the students never know what will take place on any given day until they arrive in class and look at a detailed outline of the hour’s activities on the chalkboard. His class engages in mix of role-plays, lecture, videos, group projects and demonstrations. Mr. Richards occasionally gives surprise quizzes and his unit tests can include true/false, multiple choice, short answer, or essay.
4. Who do you think provides better instruction for his students? Support your answer from an information processing perspective.
Mr. Richards. He provides visual, kinesthetic, and auditory stimulation for his students, helping them have sensory memory to build from. It also sounds like Mr. Richards class requires a lot more engaging effort which forces students into fairly unfamiliar territory, experiencing, thinking about what they've experienced, and later with the quizzes and tests- metacognition. The class seems organized and the "unexpected" lesson plan helps the students stay on their toes. It makes learning more fun and involving than lectures.

5. How would you expect the students’ learning outcomes to differ depending on which teacher they had?
Mr. Richards' class would probably have better recall of what they learned because Mr. Richard's is tuning into all learning types and senses. Because his tests require metacognition (essays and short answer) and also factual recall on things such as dates or places, students will be able to analyze the information they've learned. It will help the development of their mind and give them good, more involving experiences.
Mr. Dunkin's class wouldn't remember what he had taught nearly as well, and would only view it as simple facts to remember and later barf up that weekend. All the effort required to pass Mr. dunkin's boring class would be to study the night before his test and regurgitate the information gained. As a student, I've learned that more often then not, short answer is something that I can easily BS my way through. If I get something wrong, I can take it to the teacher and explain my 'reasoning' and associations. More than half the time, the teacher gives me the credit. I remember less with those classes, whereas classes like Mr. Richard's I remember a lot more and are more fun to study for mainly because I can more easily see the practicality of it.