Cognitivsm in the Classroom

Possible Cognitivst Pedagogical Practices

Cognivist theory sees learning to read and write as a process, one to be approached with a specific skill set. Cognivist pedagogies would have teachers "activating" student schema before reading and writing assignments:

• Teachers may give lectures on background information to activate the "appropriate" schemata. 
• Teachers might lay out specific readings in an order that increasingly builds up student schemata and increases their understanding (easy readings before more challenging texts).
• Students might be asked to hypothesize about a text before, during, and after their reading: demonstrating how their hypothesis changed, and when their inferences are either reinforced or revised during reading.

If the cognitivst theories are combined with a socio-cultural understanding of student difference, pedagogical practices may consist of:

• Building on student background knowledge before beginning a reading (incorporating their diverse experiences to inform the reading).
• Brainstorming possible interpretations during and after reading a text, based on students inferences. 
• Holding group discussions about the meaning of a text, seeing how different groups of students have interpreted a text and allowing that to further construct classroom meaning. 

Cognitivsm and the Discovery of Facts

Cognivist theories would fit with some (not all) of the activities within the books The Discovery of Competence and Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts. 

In DOC, cognitivst theories are at work in the tent pole idea that all students arrive in the composition classroom already "competent," or full of schema to activate. The major difference between cognitivsm and DOC pedagogical practice is the socio-cultural factor. DOC is majorly influenced by socio-cultural theories: student schema are activated through academic discourse communities, not seen as something the teacher or text activates.

In FAC, the course theme relies on students' personal backgrounds and autobiographies as a source for theorizing and analyzing adolescent theories. The course activates students shemata in order for them to better understand and interpret the course readings. 

A major difference lies in their more expressivist modes of understanding, using personal autobiography as a tool in understanding adolescent theory, waiting until mid-course to bring in actual academic articles and theories. A more cognitive-based approach may have them introducing those texts sooner.