Cognitive Learning Strategies

Cognitive strategies for virtual learning environments

Souza, Bruno Carvalho C. and Bolzan, Regina F. F. de A. and Martins, Janae G. and Rodriguez, Alejandro M. (2000) Cognitive strategies for virtual learning environments. In Proceedings International Conference on Information Society in the 21 Century: Emerging Technologies and New Challenges, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Japan.

Abstract

Learning can be considered as a conjunction of a number of factors, both of internal and external origins. This paper offers a reconcilement of these factors in an interdependent unity, building a “total learning environment”, adding up emotional, sensorial, motivational and intellectual aspects. It also approaches the use of this reconcilement in virtual learning environments, seeking for technological tools for a permanent and renewing quest of knowledge, in contrast with the behaviorist model of repetition of content and stimulus-response conditioning.

COGNITIVE STRATEGIES FOR VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Bruno Carvalho Castro Souza

brunoc@solar.com.br

Regina F. F. de A. Bolzan, M.Eng.

regina@led.ufsc.br

Janae G. Martins, M.Eng.

janae@eps.ufsc.br

Alejandro M. Rodriguez, Dr.

martins@eps.ufsc.br

Federal University of Santa Catarina; Post-Graduating Program in Production Engineering,

Technological Center – Campus – Trindade, P.O Box 476 – ZIP Code 88040-900 – Florianópolis, SC, Brazil.

University of Vale do Itajaí – Itajaí, SC, Brasil.

University of Brasília, UNEB – Brasília, Brasil.

Overview

Learning can be considered as a conjunction of a number of factors, both of internal and external origins. This paper offers a reconcilement of these factors in an interdependent unity, building a "total learning environment", adding up emotional, sensorial, motivational and intellectual aspects. It also approaches the use of this reconcilement in virtual learning environments, seeking for technological tools for a permanent and renewing quest of knowledge, in contrast with the behaviorist model of repetition of content and stimulus-response conditioning.

Key words:Virtual Learning, knowledge, Cognitive Strategies.

Introduction

Historically, the educational process has always been linked to the social evolution of humanity itself (Gadotti, 1999). Therefore, to understand it in its plenitude, it would be necessary a detailed analysis of the cultural, social, economic, technological and political aspects, present in society. This is not the intention of this paper. Rather, the focus is on the interactions between the individual-pupil and the possible technological learning environments, analyzing the factors that influence the efficiency of such learning and suggesting alternatives to improve the effectiveness of the process. Therefore, it is imperative to acknowledge some cognitive learning strategies, including some virtual environments and the interactions between apprentice and master.

Cognitive Learning Strategies

The history of the psychology of learning retraces, pertaining to the study in question, to the IV century a.C., specifically to the school of philosophy established by Plato to spread out the ideas of Socrates. In the book VII of "the Republic", Plato displays the myth of the cave, an alegory according to which the world that we know is nothing but a shade in a wall of the cave of reality projected by the pure ideas that are planted, since birth, in our soul. In other words, knowledge is always the projection of our innate ideas (Pozo, 1999). This doctrine resurged in the racionalist and idealistic thoughts of Descartes, Leibniz or Kant, being revisited by authors representing the current cognitivist movement, like Fodor and Chomsky. Aristotle, disciple of Plato, developed another doctrine: the tabula rasa, according to which the knowledge comes from the senses that endow the mind with pictures, interlinked according to three laws: proximity, similarity and contrast. Aristotle’s influence will be felt in the psychology of learning through its consequences in both the estruturalism and, mainly, in the behaviorism of Skinner. Regarding behaviorism, it is a form of response to subjectivism. For the behaviorists, the study of higher mental processes for the understanding of human behavior is unnecessary: one learns through conditioning and repetition (Pozo, 1999). The impulse given by diverse external factors to psychology, especially the technological evolution, the new theories of communication, linguistics and cybernetics, brought a new paradigm, represented by information processing, that enables the study of the mental processes denied by behaviorism. These new studies, supported in technological bases and searching an interdisciplinarity in such fields as philosophy, computer science, medicine and psychology itself, had generated the cognitive school. The relevance of these two doctrines to the learning process is significant. Historically, as well as in the present, there is a predominance of the behaviorist approach in educational methodologies used in schools of practically all levels. Theorists like Chi and Rees (1983), Gagné Glaser (1987), Mandler (1985), Shuell (1986), among others, support that there are reasons enough to believe in the possibility that the cognitive approach may be adopted as the model of learning in a near future. Actually, some experiments are already being carried out in such direction, but they are embryonic studies and do not really represent a clear movement towards the adoption of the cognitive psychology of learning (Pozo, 1999). Lakatos (1978) developed an application of the behaviorist theory of learning which attempts to conciliate the issues of conditioning and repetition as bases for scientific research as a learning factor (fig. 1).

Figure 1: behaviorism as a scientific research program. Source: Pozo (1999)

One of the main criticisms to behaviorism is its incapacity to produce original theoretical responses. As a consequence, new programs are being elaborated, whose basic difference consists of a release of the behaviorist conceptual core, eliminating, mainly, the rejection of cognitive processes and increasing information gathering (Pozo, 1999). The central concept of cognitive psychology, the basis of this new program, is broader than the concept of information processing itself. According to Rivière (1987), "the most general and ordinary things we can say of Cognitive Psychology refers to the explanation of behavior, mental entities, states, processes and definitions of mental nature, all which demand an unique level of speech". This means, therefore, that the actions of the individual are determined by his mental representations, according to some authors like Piaget and Vigotsky. Fig. 2, counter-pointing fig. 1, shows the strategy of scientific research according to cognitive psychology.

Figure 2: Information processing as a program of scientific inquiry. Source: Pozo (1999)

Thus, learning capacity would be determined by the way that the individual represents his knowledge, together with his memory capabilities and his causal cognitive processes. To acquire these representations, the human being uses his mechanisms of assimilation as channels, understood here "as a broad sense of an integration to the previous structures" (Piaget, 1967) and uses, therefore, his senses as a door towards the perception of the external world together with the mental processes of information handling. The greater or minor effectiveness of this assimilation depends on learning factors, varying from person to person, and constituting learning strategies. These strategies take in account emotional, motivational, sensorial, and intellectual factors (or, using a computer era terminology, logical-mathematical factors).

Emotional Factors

Goleman (1995), places the issue of emotional intelligence as a new type of ability, requiring a development of aptitudes natural to the "human heart". His theory appears in the context of a society with a rising increase of violence in practically all its forms (crime, suicides, drug abuse and other indicators of social distress); individualism, even as a consequence of social pressures, reaches an unprecedented exaggeration, causing, therefore, a growing competitiveness, mainly in the job market and academic fields. This conjunction of factors brings the isolation and deterioration of social relations, generating a slow disintegration of community life and the need for self-confidence.

Placing this scenario under a learning perspective, it is inferred that emotional education - or, in other words, emotional learning - urgently needs to be rethought. The human brain has mechanisms to deal with emotions, but such mechanisms come from a biological evolution that goes back to the origin of life itself (Pinker, 1998). Our mental apparatus is prepared to face "wild" situations, as the ones experienced in a forest, but it has little power to confront rush hour traffic. Under the educator's point of view, it is important to be in harmony with the student's emotions and work the totality of the emotional repertoire. "In our emotional repertoire, each emotion plays a specific function, as disclosed by its distinct biological signatures (...). Using the new technologies that allow the exploration of the brain and the body as a whole, the researchers are discovering physiological details that enable the verification of how different types of emotions prepare the body for different types of responses:

• In anger, the blood flows to the hands, making it easier to draw a weapon or to hit the enemy; the cardiac beats speed up and a wave of hormones, like adrenalin, among others, generate a pulsation, a strong enough energy for a vigorous performance.
• In fear, the blood runs to the muscles of the skeleton, like those in your legs, facilitating the escape; the face is livid, since the blood is taken from there (...). At the same time, the body is paralyzed, even if for a brief moment, to perhaps allow the person to consider the possibility of, instead of reacting, running away to hide. Existing circuits in the emotional centers of the brain trigger the torrent of hormones that puts the body in general alert state, making it uneasy and ready to act. The attention is focused in the immediate threat, to better calculate the response to be given.
• The feeling of happiness causes one of the main biological alterations. The activity of the cerebral center is triggered, inhibiting negative feelings and favoring the increase of existing energy, silencing those that generate concern thoughts. But no particular physiological change occurs, except for a sense of tranquility, which makes the body recoup quickly from the stimulation caused by disturbing emotions. This pattern gives the body total relaxation, as well as energy and enthusiasm for the execution of any task and to achieve a great variety of goals.
• Love, and the feelings of affection and sexual satisfaction, implies parasympathicstimulation, which constitutes the physiological opposite that mobilizes one to "fight-or- run away" which occurs when the feeling is of fear or anger. The parasympathic standard, called "relaxation response", is a set of reactions that cover the whole body, causing a general state of calm and satisfaction, facilitating recovery.
• The rising of eyebrows, in surprise, provides ampler visual sweepings, and also more light for the retina. This allows us to get more information on unexpected events, making it easier to perceive accurately what is happening, and to elaborate the best plan of action.
• Around the world, the expression repugnance is similar and sends the same message: some thing is unpleasant to the taste or smell, in actuality or metaphorically. The face expression of repugnance (...) suggests, as Darwin observed, a primeval attempt to cover the nostrils to prevent a harmful odor or to spit out deteriorated food.
• One of the main functions of sadness is to propitiate an adjustment to a great loss, like the death of somebody or some major disillusionment. Sadness causes a loss of energy and enthusiasm towards life's activities, in particular for diversions and pleasures. When sadness is deep, approaching depression, the metabolic speed of the body is reduced (...) It is possible that this loss of energy was caused to keep the vulnerable human beings in sadness state so that they remained close to home, where they felt safer."

This emotional diversity shown by Goleman demonstrates that there are moments and situations that propitiate more effective learning. An educational methodology that would provoke a feeling of happiness, or, at the very least, respect moments of sadness or anger, would have better conditions to form new mental structures and to more efficiently relate all acquired knowledge.