Lab 4: Cognitive Processes & Strategies

Welcome to Lab 4! Today’s lecture focused on learning processes such as the 5 main ones: Activating prior knowledge (reviewing what you already know to make connections with new information) Selecting key information (recognizing key information from all the extra details), Organizing and structuring information (recognizing or imposing structure on information) Generative processing & elaborating (making connections), Rehearsing (going over information multiple times) Today’s lab gives you a chance to to experiment and apply these concepts.
Just like last week, today’s lab activities help you to apply the SRL cycle in your own learning, think about and evaluate how well you go about self-regulating your learning when you study, Today we will start by looking back at the solution to As well as how well your mnemonic strategy worked We’ll to the weekly PPT Then we’ll do some activities that helps you take what you learn about leanring processes and see how they apply to your real work And we’ll end important information about Collaborative Challenge 1 and what needs to be done before that class.
Learning Styles theory suggests there are 3 kinds of learners: Those who learn visually (by seeing thigns) Audiory Learners (those who learn by hearing information or saying informaiton) and Kinesthetic Learners (those who learn through action or doing it). Do you identify yourself as a visual learner, auditory learner, or kinesthetic learner? Lots of students have heard of this theory and students commonly identify themselves as one of these types. Last week you watched a video about Learning Styles and then answered a critical thinking question. Learning styles is a really popular theory and a lot of you indicated you had previously thought of yourselves as visual learners, auditory learners, or kinesthetic learners. And after watching the video, most of you correctly answered the question. The point was to recognize that When students use learning style to guide strategy use (i.e., use concept maps for studying because they learn well visually), they are neglecting to take into account the other two factors - what the task requirements are (maybe concept maps will not help students learn in the way needed for the task) and what their goals are for learning the information (i.e. if they set a goal to compare and contrast 5 features, a concept map may not help them do this efficiently)
Under this section for memorizing simple information - it provies you with mnemonic strategies. In the final activity in today’s lab, your job is to … 2) Click on Mnemonic Strategies 3) Read the introduction to Mnemonic Strategies (how, when, and why they work). 4) Read about each of the mnemonic strategies thoroughly. In activity 4 Choose some simple material that you need to memorize for one of your courses and one mnemonic strategy to try in today's lab. Then actually use the strategy to memorize your course informtation. And answer the questions provided in Activity 4.. Once you have posted, you will be able to see what others in the class tried (and posted).
Today’s lab starts with the 4rd PPT. Weekly PPTs guide you in engaging in the self-regulated learning cycle by thinking about… PPTS Should be -thoughtful/reflective, TASC goals, 10-15 Mins -Are you running into the same problems each week accomplishing your goals? If so, change things up. Start the PPT… When you are finished click 'submit all and finish’ You can also save your work by clicking “save without submitting” and return to it at any time.
The next activity is to Use a strategy for activating your prior knowledge Activating prior knowledge is a fancy way of saying you’re thinking about and reminding yourself about what you arleady know about a particular topic. That way, you’re able to connect or FIT new information you’re trying to learn to what you already know. When you do this it makes information you’re trying to learn more meaningful to you and you’re more likely to remember it. Just a reminder that strategies for each learning process are located in your personal strategy library - which is customizable (meaning you can edit it and add your own thoughts, experiences, notes).
For this activity, Open the strategy library and locate the strategies for activating prior knowledge Read them and look at the examples. In this activity, choose a course other than ED-D 101 Pick a task you ned to do in this course (so maybe an upcoming lecture, or a reading or an assignment you have) 3) Choose ONE of the activating prior knowledge strategies in the strategy library you think would BEST help you to activate what you already know about the material 4) Actually USE the strategy. 5) Show how you used it by adding an example in the Strategy library wiki. To Edit the strategy, click the Edit button at the top middle tab on the strategies wiki page. Make sure you are using firefox. An Example isn’t JUST a description of how you used it. An example is the actual PRODUCT that you produced when you used the strategy. So if by using the strategy you produced a Table or a concept map, You add the table or the concept map to the strategy library. To do this you can take a photo on your iphone and upload it to the wiki, or copy and paste something from a word document. Or if you upload it somewhere else, you can put the link into the wiki. 6) Next create 2-3 questions you can ask yourself to evaluate whether or not the strategy worked for you. Ask questions that help you to figure out if this specific strategy is doing what it is supposed to be doing They could be things like: Did it help me to anticipate what would be in the /lecture/reading? Did it help me to recognize how new ideas fit in with what I/we had already learned? Did it help to recognize ideas that did not fit with what I already knew or thought? Did it help me to understand what I was learning? Did it help me to understand how ideas and concepts fit together?
Pretty much all of the readings you're assigned in your university courses are organized into common information structures (e.g., compare/contrast, classification, sequence, etc.). Recognizing the kind of information structures in your texts will help you to be strategic in choosing your active reading strategies. Complete the Text Structures Group Activity together with your group. How well did you do? If you realize you might need to know more about information structures CLICK HERE to learn more! COORECT ANSWERS IN LAB MODULE
Collaborative Challenge - this week in lab, we introduce the preparation for the collaborative challenge. The collaborative challenge will take place in their lecture during week 6 (Oct 17/18). The challenge will consist of a scenario of a student (Charles) who is struggling with his learning. In groups of 4, the students will pull out which elements of SRL that we've covered are in the scenario & explain what the root of Charles' problem is & how he could improve his learning. There are a few things that are important to know if students ask: Groups are assigned. There are no switches. The collaborative challenge product (what they create as a group during lecture) is worth 10%. There will be another 5% for thoughtfully completing a reflection on their group work (this will be done in Lab 6). They MUST attend the lecture for which they are registered. If they miss the lecture, they miss the assignment. As I mentioned, the collaborative challenge will be completed in groups of 4 (assigned). Each individual is responsible for being an expert on one topic/area - these coincide with the lecture topics (1 - task understanding; 2 - goal setting & monitoring; 3 - memory; 4 - learning processes). The task this week is to answer a few questions on their expertise area on a forum. They will then have access to all of the answers for students in their expertise area. As part of week 5's online lab, they will review the answers for their area of expertise and complete a cheat sheet (1 page single-sided). They must submit the cheat sheet in their moodle drop box AND bring a hard copy of their cheat sheet to the collaborative challenge. In order for this to go smoothly, they all need to complete their expert forum post by Friday, let's say 7pm. That way when students go to do their week 5 online lab, all of the expertise posts should be up. Students should only be able to access the discussion forum for their assigned expert group. If there are any problems please contact Lindsay, Mariel, Steph or Lizz ASAP to get it fixed smile
In the collaborative challenge you are working in groups of 4 - One member of each group is assigned to a topic on which they are considered the group expert. This table tells you which topic is your area of expertise. These are not your collaborative challenge groups. Locate the discussion forum appropriate for your lecture day & topic of expertise. Monday Lecture SRL & Task Understanding SRL & Goal Setting SRL & Memory SRL & Learning Processes Tuesday Lecture SRL & Task Understanding SRL & Goal Setting SRL & Memory SRL & Learning Processes Post a reply & answer the discussion questions. THIS IS TO BE COMPLETED BY FRIDAY OCTOBER 7th. Next week as part of your online lab, you will review all answers to your forum & prepare a cheat sheet on your expertise topic.
That concludes Lab 3 Here is an overview of this weeks lab activities to help you keep track of what you have submitted. Remember all lab activities are due Friday. And have a great week!