MindMap-Educational Psychology

MindMap-Educational Psychology

• About The Book
  • Title: Educational Psycholgy
    • ~ http://education.purduecal.edu/Vockell/EdPsyBook/index.html
  • Author: Ed Vockell
    • ~ http://education.purduecal.edu/faculty/vockell/
• Generative Teaching Model
  • To teach students that learning with understanding is a generative (active) process.

    To teach students that success in school begins with a belief in themselves, in their abilities, and in the value of effort.

    To teach students to attend to the processes of constructing meanings for instruction and for subject matter.

    To teach students to generate meaning for what they are studying. Teachers can do this by first learning what models, preconceptions, learning strategies, attitudes, and beliefs the students possess that are relevant to what the teachers are trying to teach; designing instruction that will enable the students to generate relationships among subject-matter concepts and between their models, knowledge, etc. (from Step a) and subject matter; and teaching students metacognitive or self-control strategies that are useful for directing their own cognitive and affective thought processes.

• 8 Phases of Learning
  • 1. Attention: Alertness
    • learning is not likely to occur in the absence of attention. Attention is essential for getting information into the working memory and keeping it active there. Therefore, the first phase in the learning process is that the learner must focus attention on the learning activity. Although this is listed as the “first phase,” attention must be maintained throughout the other phases as well
  • 2. Expectancy
    • During this phase, the learner develops an expectancy that something desirable will happen as a result of the proposed learning process. The result is a motivation to engage in the subsequent phases of the learning process.
  • 3. Retrieval to Working Memory
    • Retrieval of Relevant Information to Working Memory. The learner retrieves from long-term memory the structures that will be helpful in learning new information or solving problems that have been encountered.
  • 4. Selective Perception
    • Selective Perception. During this phase the learner focuses attention on the essential features of the instructional presentation. It is not always possible for teachers to ascertain by simple inspection where students are focusing attention; and learners often fail to learn because they have focused on the wrong information. Failures at this selective perception can occur either because the presentation inadequately draws attention, because the learner fails to direct attention, or because of a combination of both of these reasons. A frequent source of faulty selective perception is a fundamental misconception about the topic under consideration: the learner may think he/she is focusing on the correct information, when in reality this is a mistake.
  • 5. Encoding: Entry to LTM
    • Entry of Information into Long-Term Storage. During this phase the learner encodes the information – that is, transfers the information into longterm memory by relating it to information that is already stored there.
  • 6. Responding
    • During this phase the learner retrieves and actively uses the information that has been stored in long-term memory. The learner demonstrates through an active performance that the learning has taken place.
  • 7. Feedback
    • During this phase the learner determines the degree to which the performance during the previous phase was satisfactory. When the feedback indicates acceptable performance, this usually serves as reinforcement to the learner. Students who evaluate themselves negatively or extrinsically are likely to develop an orientation toward extrinsic motivation, which is likely to interfere with achievement.
  • 8. Cueing Retrieval
    • During this phase the learner practices recalling or applying the information after it has been initially learned in order to enhance retention of the information or to transfer the learning beyond its original context to a new application.
• Examples of Failures
  • Student ignores teacher.
  • Student is falling asleep.
  • Teacher doesn’t specify objectives
  • Student’s culture doesn’t value stated goal.
  • Student not ready to receive information from lesson.
  • Attention deficit disorder causes failure to attend.
  • Discipline problems cause distractions.
  • Teacher or materials fail to direct attention.
  • Student fails to encode.
  • Student’s background does not supply necessary structures.
  • Student’s misconception causes faulty acquisition.
  • Student fails to practice a skill or concept.
  • Subsequent information interferes with earlier learning.
  • Learning disability interferes with response
  • It’s unrealistic to expect learner to perform.
  • Teacher fails to provide feedback.
  • Student doesn’t recognize or like feedback.
  • Student receives no direction from feedback.
  • Student gets feedback on wrong task.
  • Student cannot find key to trigger recall.
  • Student learns, but then forgets
  • Student is restricted to original context.
  • Student relies on rote memory rather than understanding.
• Solutions for Failures
  • Change stimuli.
  • Call for attention.
  • Increase level of arousal
  • State objectives.
  • Employ principles of motivation.
  • Understand culture and individual differences.
  • Review prerequisite knowledge.
  • Teach missing skills
  • Treat disorder.
  • Use effective management and discipline techniques.
  • Use Media to direct attention.
  • Use long-term memory strategies.
  • Teach culture or adapt to student’s culture.
  • Confront and clarify misconceptions.
  • Provide practice opportunities, wait time, learning probes, etc.
  • Prevent retroactive interference.
  • Treat disability.
  • Have a model perform the behavior and receive feedback
  • Provide feedback.
  • Teach self regulation.
  • Make sure reinforcement is reinforcing.
  • Use corrective feedback – not just negative feedback.
  • Make sure tests are valid.
  • Use distributed practice.
  • Use overlearning.
  • Use variety of examples during instruction.
  • Teach metacognitive strategies.
• Ignoring the developmental levels of learners
  • Mathematics
    • children simply memorize and misapply algorithms instead of understanding the process
  • Science
    • most science textbooks abound with concepts that are too abstract for their intended audiences, absolutely all major science organizations and nearly all science educators vehemently preach against such nonsense
  • Discipline
    • teachers or parents continue to use these techniques long past the time when the children have developed the appropriate cognitive structures to deal with their behavior problems in a more mature way. With self-discipline, as with any other type of learning, it is important to take into consideration the existing structures and the level of thinking of which the child is capable
  • Behavior Modification
    • As cognitive structures and levels of thinking change, learners will revise what they consider to be pleasant or unpleasant situations. Many educators make the mistake of over-generalizing what they think they know about consequences that will reinforce or punish the learners they deal with.
  • Motivation
    • An important aspect of modern motivation theory is that learners devise attributions for pleasant and unpleasant consequences that follow their behavior. What learners assimilate and accommodate from their environment influences their attributions, and hence their motivation. For example, a child who possesses a cognitive structure of himself as “bad at arithmetic” may assimilate a simple high grade on a paper as an indication of luck. On the other hand, if the grade were accompanied by feedback specifically tailored to that child, this may lead to an accommodation that may revise this negative cognitive structure and lead to higher levels of motivation
  • Early Education
    • Parents and educators are mistakenly taking childhood away from children. They are removing play from preschool and early education experiences and emphasizing academic topics instead. While this pressure toward academic achievement may initially sound beneficial, it could actually backfire – not only by causing emotional stress (as many people suspect) but also by making it less likely that young children will lay the proper foundation of cognitive structures for subsequent academic growth. In other words, the active involvement inherent in play enables children to assimilate numerous objects, ideas, and activities into their existing structures and to make appropriate accommodations to form new schemata. Reducing opportunities for play may result in either very few cognitive structures available for future use or very superficial structures that have been applied to very few concrete examples.
• Development of Social Skill
  • learners must also develop social and affective skills.

    social skills enable students to get along together

    to communicate ideas

    inappropriate communication and lack of social skills were the most frequently cited reasons for failure of persons with mental retardation to obtain, perform, and maintain good jobs

• Models of social knowledge acquisition
  • Environmental
    • cultures, sanctions, other environmental factors
  • Physiological
    • short attention span would get different information
  • Information Processing
    • encoding of social information
  • Social Knowledge
    • influence and be influenced by what he/she already knows
  • Motivation
• What Moves You? p271
  • 1. If you can pass a simple, ten-item, multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, we’ll refund the entire cost of this textbook – and let you keep it besides!

    2. If you can pass a simple ten-item multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, you’re about average.

    3. If you cannot pass a simple ten-item multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, you’re really pretty stupid.

    4. If you can understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you’ll be able to motivate your students more effectively.

    5. If you can understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you’ll be able to motivate those students who have been thus far so impervious to your efforts.

    6. If you cannot understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you’ll never really be much good as a teacher.

    7. This chapter includes humor and some very practical examples.

• Motivation
  • getting someone moving

    motivation is concerned with the factors that stimulate or inhibit the desire to engage in a behavior

    motivation is strongest when the urge to engage in a behavior arises from within the learner rather than from outside pressures

    The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise

    The will to learn becomes a “problem” only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students are confined, and a path fixed. The problems exist not so much in learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning…

    extrinsic motivators may lead to merely short-range activity while actually reducing long-range interest in a topic.

    it is essential that extrinsic motivators be backed up by intrinsic motivators or that the extrinsic motivation become internalized

    if this does not happen, the result is likely to be a reduction in the very behavior we want to promote.

    intrinsic motivation-what people will do without external inducement

    intrinsic motivation-will engage for no reward other the interest and enjoyment

• Factors that promotes intrinsic motivation
  • Challenge
    • People are best motivated when they are working toward personally meaningful goals whose attainment requires activity at a continuously optimal (intermediate) level of difficulty.
      • Set personally meaningful goals.
      • Make attainment of goals probable but uncertain.
      • Give enroute performance feedback.
      • Relate goals to learners’ self esteem.
  • Curiosity
    • Something in the physical environment attracts the learner’s attention or there is an optimal level of discrepancy between present knowledge or skills and what these could be if the learner engaged in some activity.
      • Stimulate sensory curiosity by making abrupt changes that will be perceived by the senses.

        Stimulate cognitive curiosity by making a person wonder about something (i.e., stimulate the learner’s interest).

  • Control
    • People have a basic tendency to want to control what happens to them.
      • Make clear the cause-and-effect relationships between what students are doing and things that happen in real life.

        Enable the learners to believe that their work will lead to powerful effects.

        Allow learners to freely choose what they want to learn and how they will learn it.

  • Fantasy
    • Learners use mental images of things and situations that are not actually present to stimulate their behavior.
      • Make a game out of learning.
      • Help learners imagine themselves using the learned information in real- life settings.
      • Make the fantasies intrinsic rather than extrinsic.
  • Competition
    • Learners feel satisfaction by comparing their performance favorably to that of others.
      • Competition occurs naturally as well as artificially.
      • Competition is more important for some people than for others.
      • People who lose at competition often suffer more than the winners profit.
      • Competition sometimes reduces the urge to be helpful to other learners.
  • Cooperation
    • Learners feel satisfaction by helping others achieve their goals.
      • Cooperation occurs naturally as well as artificially.
      • Cooperation is more important for some people than for others.
      • Cooperation is a useful real-life skill.
      • Cooperation requires and develops interpersonal skills.
  • Recognition
    • Learners feel satisfaction when others recognize and appreciate their accomplishments.
      • Recognition requires that the process or product or some other result of the learning activity be visible.

        Recognition differs from competition in that it does not involve a comparison with the performance of someone else.

• Reinforcement and Punishment
  • 1. It is far better to use intrinsic (natural) rather than extrinsic (artificial) reinforcement and punishment. This is because intrinsic, natural reinforcers will always be available to learners, whereas extrinsic, artificial consequences may disappear once the learner leaves the instructional setting.

    2. When natural reinforcers are not available, it is often necessary to use artificial consequences to motivate learners. But when artificial, extrinsic motivation is employed, it should always be backed up by natural, intrinsic motivation. Otherwise, the motivation is likely to be only temporary, and the long-range impact may be an actual loss of motivation.

    3. Only consequences that the learner himself or herself perceives to be reinforcing will motivate that learner.

    4. There are numerous incentives and consequences competing for a learner’s attention at any given time. The factors that the learner perceives to have the strongest combined influence will usually determine the learner’s course of action.

    5. Many of the factors that motivate students lie largely beyond the direct control of the teacher and others in the educational system.

• Affective Components of Motivation
  • People will engage more often and more eagerly in behaviors related to topics, people, and events toward which they have approach tendencies.

    People will engage more often and more eagerly in behaviors related to topics. people, and events that have high positive valence.

    People will engage more often and more eagerly in behaviors related to topics. people, and events regarding which they have positive attitudes.

• Physical Aspects of Motivation
  • Motivation is not entirely a psychological concept. In addition to an intellectual and emotional interest, a person’s tendency to engage in a behavior is at least partially determined by the person’s physiological state

    A major physiological factor is level of arousal, which refers to the overall readiness of the human organism to engage in activity.

    Increase Levels of Arousal

    • 1. introduce topics in an interesting manner;

      2. use humor during lectures;

      3. avoid talking in a monotone;

      4. encourage numerous different students to participate in class discussions;

      5. call on students in an unpredictable rather than predetermined order;

      6. raise questions to which students are eager to learn or discover answers;

      7. vary the style or order of presentation – avoid doing everything in thesame order every day;

      8. give tests or quizzes at appropriate intervals, so that students feel constantly accountable for what they learn;

      9. move around the room rather than standing stiffly behind a podium;

      10. give breaks during long class sessions

    Decrease Levels of Arousal

    • 1. talk in a monotone;

      2. lecture from a text of which the students already have an exact copy;

      3. give the entire presentation themselves, without letting anyone ask questions or contribute insights;

      4. do the same thing in the same order every day;

      5. skip breaks when students need them;

      6. give students the impression that they will not be held accountable for their learning until some time in the vaguely distant future.

    Factors Affecting the Levels of Arousal

    • Eating, too much sugar can raise the levels of arousal too high to learn effectively
    • Sleeping habits can interfere the levels of arousal
      • too much tv viewing
      • students have to work, less sleep
      • students has to commute in long hours
      • neighborhood is too noisy
    • Evening classes, teachers are already tired of teaching
    • Weather, summer is too hot and winter is too cold
    • Classroom furniture is uncomfortable, provokes fatigue or too comfortable-induces sleep

    White Line Fever in the classroom

    • 1. Sit in the front of the classroom. This has a couple of benefits:
      • Being right under the eyes of the teacher is likely to stimulate your urge to stay alert.
      • You won’t be able to see the other students behind you, whose drowsiness could become contagious.

      2. Ask questions during class (or answer them).

      3. If the teacher reads directly from the book, don’t read it yourself prior to the class.

      4. Take notes.

      5. Find something interesting to do. Play a game, if necessary, by focusing partly on the teacher’s mannerisms.

      6. Sit near an open window. Brush the snow off your desk, if necessary.

      7. Stretch your legs once in a while to get the blood circulating.

      8. Avoid any of the following:

      • sitting near other students who are likely to give external signs of their own low level of arousal.

        focusing on the teacher’s most hypnotic mannerisms.

        ingesting food or drinks that induce relaxation.

        sitting in a seat that is too comfortable (if there are any such seats in your classroom).

        sitting in a seat that is very uncomfortable (an uncomfortable seat can raise level of arousal for a short class, but fatigue will lower your level of arousal during a long session).

      9. Most importantly, try to find something interesting about the subject matter. Then you can rely on yourself and the subject matter (instead of the teacher) to stimulate your level of arousal.

• Cognitive Aspect of Motivation
  • teachers should make important ideas as interesting as possible
  • contain surprising information,
  • are related to personal goals of the readers, and
  • contain human interest elements.
• Needs and Motivation
  • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
    • Basic Needs
      • Physiological needs-food, clothing, shelter, water
      • Safety needs
      • Belonging
      • Self esteem
    • Growth Needs
      • Need to know and understand
      • Aesthetic needs
      • Self-actualization needs

    Human behavior is stimulated by the urge to satisfy basic and growth needs

    Maslow lists four basic needs and three growth needs

    These needs are hierarchical

    lower level needs must be at least temporarily satisfied before learners can be motivated by higher needs.

    • a hungry person is not likely to be motivated by esteem needs

      a person with very low self esteem is not likely to be motivated by the need to know and understand.

      a child whose parents are going through a painful divorce is likely to feel oppressed by esteem needs, belongingness and love needs, and even safety needs that are likely to be more important than the ordinary classroom motivations

    Basic needs are essential to physical and psychological well-being.

    Once these needs are satisfied, the motivation to satisfy them diminishes, or even vanishes for a while.

    Growth needs, on the other hand, can never be satisfied completely.

    When these needs are partly fulfilled, the need to fulfill them may become even greater.

    Needs related to personality development and self-actualization

    Strategies for dealing withe needs

    • 1. Understand these needs as thoroughly as possible and either work around them or take them into consideration when developing motivational strategies and lesson plans.
      • For example, by knowing that a child feels threatened by gangs in his neighborhood and understanding the severity of the child’s concern about safety, a teacher can be more empathetic toward that child and better able to help him learn, even though the teacher is unable to alleviate the child’s obsessive concern about safety.

      2. Help satisfy these needs. This is the logic behind giving breakfasts and lunches to hungry students. In some cases, it is impossible to satisfy the need completely, but a partial solution may still enable the student to be motivated by higher motives.

      • For example, if a teacher or school system can make the classroom a truly safe and secure place, then a child who has sincere and serious concerns about his safety outside the school can still have his safety needs temporarily satisfied within the walls of the school and be motivated by higher needs while in school.

      3. Show how learning the subject matter of school can help satisfy the learner’s needs.

      • If hungry people can learn to grow food, this will satisfy an important need. A child whose safety is threatened will be motivated to learn verbal skills if she believes that these skills will enable her to escape from or avoid the dangers that lurk in her environment.
• Self-Efficacy
  • Self-Efficacy
    • Efficacy-Capacity or power to produce a desired effect

      People are likely to engage in activities to the extent that they perceive themselves to be competent at those activities. With regard to education, this means that learners will be more likely to attempt, to persevere, and to be successful at tasks at which they have a sense of efficacy.

      When learners fail, this may occur because they lack the skills to succeed or because they have the skills but lack the sense of efficacy to use these skills well.

  • Factors that are likely to reduce students’ feelings of positive selfefficacy:
    • 1. lock-step sequences of instruction that may cause some children to get lost along the way,
    • 2. ability groupings that further diminish the self-efficacy of those in lower ranks, and
    • 3. competitive practices in which many students are doomed to failure from the start.
  • Increase Self-Efficacy
    • 1. helping learners set specific, attainable goals;

      2. modeling cognitive strategies that include statements of self-efficacy;

      3. helping the students focus feedback on the successful application of effort to achieve useful subskills;

      4. supplying positive incentives; and

      5. encouraging students to verbalize effective task strategies.

• Attribution Theory
  • Attribution-Assigning some quality or character to a person or thing; assigning to a cause

    emphasizes the idea that learners are strongly motivated by the pleasant outcome of being able to feel good about themselves

    it emphasizes that learners’ current self-perceptions will strongly influence the ways in which they will interpret the success or failure of their current efforts and hence their future tendency to perform these same behaviors

    the explanations that people tend to make to explain success or failure can be analyzed in terms of three sets of characteristics:

    Attribution Theory Explanations:

    • 1. the cause of the success or failure may be internal or external. That is, we may succeed or fail because of factors that we believe have their origin within us or because of factors that originate in our environment.

      2. the cause of the success or failure may be either stable or unstable. If the we believe cause is stable, then the outcome is likely to be the same if we perform the same behavior on another occasion. If it is unstable, the outcome is likely to be different on another occasion.

      3. the cause of the success or failure may be either controllable or uncontrollable. A controllable factor is one which we believe we ourselves can alter if we wish to do so. An uncontrollable factor is one that we do not believe we can easily alter.

    An internal/external factor can be

    • 1. controllable (we can control our effort by trying harder) or

      2. uncontrollable (most people cannot easily change their basic intellectual ability or change from being an introvert to being an extrovert).

      3. external factor can be controllable (a person failing a difficult course could succeed by taking an easier course) or uncontrollable (if calculus is difficult because it is abstract, it will still be abstract no matter what we do).

    An important assumption of attribution theory is that people will interpret their environment in such a way as to maintain a positive self-image.

    They will attribute their successes or failures to factors that will enable them to feel as good as possible about themselves.

    When learners succeed at an academic task, they are likely to want to attribute this success to their own efforts or abilities

    When they fail, they will want to attribute their failure to factors over which they have no control, such as bad teaching or bad luck.

    The basic principle of attribution theory as it applies to motivation is that a person’s own perceptions or attributions for success or failure determine the amount of effort the person will expend on that activity in the future.

    4 Factors Related to attribution theory

    • 1. Ability is a relatively internal and stable factor over which the learner does not exercise much direct control.

      2. Task difficulty is an external and stable factor that is largely beyond the learner’s control.

      3. Effort is an internal and unstable factor over which the learner can exercise a great deal of control.

      4. Luck is an external and unstable factor over which the learner exercises very little control.

    Students will be most persistent at academic tasks under the following circumstances:

    • 1. if they attribute their academic successes to either:
      • internal, unstable, factors over which they have control (e.g., effort)

        internal, stable, factors over which they have little control but which may sometimes be disrupted by other factors (e.g., ability disrupted by occasional bad luck); and

      2. if they attribute their failures to internal, unstable factors over which they have control (e.g., effort).

    Motivation Guidelines

    • 1. If we want students to persist at academic tasks, we should help them establish a sincere belief that they are competent and that occasional imperfections or failures are the result of some other factor (such as bad luck or a lack of sufficient effort) that need not be present on future occasions.

      2. It is not beneficial for students to attribute their successes entirely to ability. If they think they already have all the ability they need, they may feel that additional effort is superfluous. The ideal attribution for success is, “I succeeded because I am a competent person and worked hard.”

      3. When students fail, they are most likely to persist and eventually succeed if they attribute their failure to a lack of appropriate effort. Therefore, it is extremely important that when students perceive themselves as unsuccessful teachers help them develop the conviction that they can still succeed if they give it their best shot. (Note that it is important to define effort appropriately, as in guideline 5.)

      4. It is extremely hazardous to motivational health for students to fail repeatedly after making a serious effort at academic tasks.

      • When this happens, they will either
        • (a) stop believing they are competent, or
        • (b) stop attributing their failure to lack of effort.

        Both of these outcomes are likely to reduce persistence at the academic tasks. It is important, therefore, to arrange tasks so that students who work hard are able to perceive themselves as successful.

      5. It is important to define effort correctly and for the learners to internalize an accurate concept of effort. In practical terms effort is most usefully defined as devoting effective academic learning time to the task. Just trying harder or spending more time doing ineffective activities does not constitute effort. It is extremely important to make this distinction. If we use another definition of effort, when we tell children that their failures are a result of a lack of effort, we run the risk of leading them to believe that they have an internal, stable characteristic called laziness, over which they have no control. This will reduce motivation. Another way to say this is that it is possible and desirable for students to believe that even though they have “worked hard,” they have not yet put forth their best effort. If we can show students ways to improve their efforts – and there are almost always ways to channel their energies more effectively – then we can enable them to have an accurate perception that increased effort is likely to pay off.

      6. Excessively competitive grading and evaluation systems are likely to impair the learning of many students. Competition will encourage students to persist only to the extent that they believe additional effort will enable them to succeed within the competitive atmosphere. In many instances, success in competition is completely beyond the learner’s control – no matter how hard a learner works, another more competent and equally energetic competitor is likely to win.

      7. It is useful to evaluate students at least partly (but not exclusively) on the basis of their effort. This does not mean that the weakest students in a class should receive the highest grades simply because they may spend more time trying to master the subject matter. Ideally, course assignments should be arranged so that diligent work actually leads to academic success, and the teacher’s evaluation should help students see this connection.

      8. In general, it is best for students to believe that it is their own behavior rather than external circumstances that leads to success or failure. Researchers refer to this as having an internal locus of control. While it is good for students to have a realistic understanding of what’s happening around them, research shows that the most successful students have a tendency to overestimate the degree to which their own behavior leads to success or failure 9. When students have a conviction that they lack ability, it is necessary to take steps to circumvent or overcome this conviction. Such students are likely to repudiate successes. For example, when they do well, they are likely to have a sincere conviction that they were “just lucky.” It is difficult to alter this conviction. Changing this conviction is tantamount to altering the learner’s self-concept, and this cannot be accomplished in a short time. There are many approaches available to teachers, including the following:

      • a. Find areas in which the learner perceives himself or herself as successful, and show connections between that area and the topic currently under consideration.

        b. Use guidelines discussed in chapter 8 to enhance the learner’s self-concept.

        c. Focus heavily on effort as the factor critical to success.

    Other Motivation Guidelines

    • 1. Learning goals are set by individuals who seek to increase their competence.
      • People who emphasize learning goals are likely to seek challenges, if they believe the challenges will lead to greater competence; and they tend to respond to failure by increasing their effort

        It is good to encourage students to set and pursue learning goals rather than performance goals.

      2. Performance goals, on the other hand, are set by individuals who seek to gain favorable judgments or to avoid unfavorable judgments in the eyes of others.

      • People who emphasize performance goals are likely to avoid challenges unless they are certain they can succeed, and they tend to respond to failure with feelings of learned helplessness and self-handicapping

        It is often undesirable to emphasize performance goals; but schools, parents, and society often overemphasize them to the detriment of learners.

      3. Learned helplessness refers to the expectation, based on previous experience, that one’s actions cannot possibly lead to success.

      • Performance goals are much more likely than learning goals to lead to ability rather than effort attributions and to result in feelings of learned helplessness.

        Recommend encouraging students to focus primarily on learning goals, while keeping performance goals in perspective by enjoying recognition without letting it become an overriding concern.

        Teachers can accomplish this by focusing on learning rather than normative comparisons when reinforcing students

      4. Self-handicapping occurs when learners create impediments that make good performance less likely.

      • Impediments
        • Something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progress
        • Any structure that makes progress difficult

        Examples of impediments include

        • drug and alcohol use,
        • refusing to practice, study
        • reporting excessive symptoms, and reducing effort.

        These impediments may sound just plain foolish, but they are very real and actually serve to protect the person’s sense of self-competence.

        If the self-handicapping person does poorly, his explanation for this failure lies in the impediment.

        If the person does well, his success is exalted, because he overcame the impediment.

        Since the impediments interfere with learning, they have the overall effect of reducing motivation and performance.

        Self-handicapping is likely to become prominent during adolescence. Since it occurs most often among persons with an overriding concern with their competence image, this problem can best be minimized by focusing on effort attributions and by helping learners develop secure feelings of self-efficacy

        Self-handicapping may be imposed or at least supported by a learner’s culture or subculture or by the atmosphere of the school.

        For example, adolescents may handicap themselves by reducing their effort because they feel that studying hard will be viewed as an undesirable form of competition with their peers.

        Likewise, African-American students may reduce their effort because they resist conforming to the norms of the oppositional culture

      Self-Handicapping Attributions

      • Students use the principles of attribution theory itself as a means of self-handicapping.

        For example, students who think they will fail a difficult test may be inclined to refrain from studying for that test. Their thinking goes like this:

        • 1. If I study hard but fail, I will look and feel incompetent. That is, if I give my best effort and fail, everyone will know that I don’t have the ability to do well on this test.

          2. If I study hard and pass, the hard work will reduce the glory of my success. People will think I had to work hard in order to succeed. If I were really smart, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

          3. If I don’t study but fail, I can explain this failure by noting that I haven’t even tried. If I haven’t tried, then I can have the internal assurance that I could have succeeded if I had really tried. I may fail the test, but at least no one will have evidence that I’m stupid.

          4. If I don’t study but still manage to succeed, then people will know that I’m a genius. The only explanation for my success would have to be that I have really high ability.

        This kind of reasoning is counterproductive, of course, because the objective reality is that a person who expends less effort is actually less likely to be productive.

      Expectancy-valence models

      • A person’s motivation to achieve a goal depends on a combination of the value of that goal (its valence) and the person’s estimation of the likelihood of success.

        The combination of expectancy and valence interacts with attribution theory in complex ways. For example, under certain circumstances, a high probability of success can actually reduce motivation.

        In most cases, a person will expend more effort when there is a moderate (rather than high or low) probability of success

      Self-worth theory Covington

      • Combines ideas related to self-efficacy, attribution theory, and learned helplessness.

        It focuses on the notion that people are largely motivated to do what it takes to enhance their reputation in various areas.

        Learners engage in objectively counterproductive activities such as setting goals that are far too high or too low, reducing effort, and procrastinating, in the often illusory hope that they will feel better about themselves if they refrain from putting forth their best effort and risking failure.

    Important Caution

    • 1. It is important to define effort clearly and correctly when helping students make effort attributions for their failures

      2. what we want to promote is not purely effort attributions, but rather strategic effort attributions – that is, learners need to believe that working hard in a particular way is what leads to success

      3. consistently helping students make strategic effort attributions, we can encourage them to view failures as problem solving situations in which the search for an improved strategy becomes the main focus of attention

• Self Motivation
  • 2 Types of People
    • 1. Seeking Success
      • motivation increases following failure
      • most strongly motivated by tasks that have a medium level of difficulty
      • more likely to set realistic goals
    • 2. Avoiding Failures
      • decrease their efforts after failing at a task
      • prefer either very easy or very difficult tasks
      • set goals for themselves that are unrealistically easy or difficult
  • Self-Motivated
    • refer to students who become easily motivated to learn, without much external persuasion

      likely to be the best learners

      Self-motivation is not an innate characteristic, but rather is learned in much the same fashion as the metacognitive skills

  • Characteristics of Intrinsically versus Extrinsically Motivated Learners
    • 1. If perceived ability is low, extrinsically motivated students are more likely to quit after failure.

      2. If the task is mundane or algorithmic, the extrinsically motivated student may be superior to the intrinsically motivated student.

      3. If the task is conceptual or requires higher level thinking skills, the intrinsically motivated student is likely to be superior to the extrinsically motivated student.

      4. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to apply effective metacognitive strategies and “deeper” study strategies.

      5. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to select problems and subgoals of moderate difficulty, whereas the extrinsically motivated student is more likely to select the easiest problems and subgoals.

      6. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to take risks and to explore freely.

      7. If the task is complex, the intrinsically motivated student is more likely to employ logical and efficient performance strategies.

      8. Students who have previously been extrinsically motivated to engage in a particular activity are less likely to engage in that activity when external incentives are no longer available.

      9. Intrinsically motivated students are more likely than extrinsically motivated students to be able to handle artificial rewards without experiencing negative consequences.

  • Strategies for Promoting Intrinsic Motivation
    • Control
      • Promote the learners’ sense of control over activities
        • 1. Minimize extrinsic constraints on the activity. (If an activity is of initial intrinsic interest, avoid adding superfluous extrinsic control. If an activity is of low intrinsic interest, use minimal sufficient external control.)

          1. Reduce extrinsic constraints over time. (If it is necessary to use external pressures or incentives, fade these over time.)

          2. Minimize the salience of extrinsic constraints. (Make the constraints seem logical; and embed them in the activity itself, if it is possible to do so.)

    • Challenge
      • Provide students with a continuously challenging activity.
        • 1. Help students set goals of uncertain attainment, and give feedback regarding current status of accomplishments. (Help students short-term and long-term goals at intermediate levels of difficulty. Also help students set multiple levels of goals, so that students at different levels will feel motivated and so that students can move on to new goals as they attain earlier goals. )
    • Curiosity
      • Provoke the learners’ curiosity.
        • 1. Highlight areas of inconsistency and incompleteness and focus on paradoxes or possible simplifications that will provoke the interest of the learners.

          2. Focus on activities, domains of knowledge, persons, and problems that are already of interest to the learners.

    • Contextualization
      • Highlight the functionality of the activity.
        • 1. Present the activity in a natural, interesting context.
        • 2. Present the activity in a simulation or fantasy context of interest to the student.
• Social Aspect of Motivation
  • Human beings do not act in isolation; their behavior is often strongly influenced by their associations with other people.

    The dynamics of classroom interactions is often an important feature in student motivation.

    Classroom goal structure – the reward structure prevalent in a learning situation.

    • 1. A competitive goal structure
      • is one in which learners perceive that they will be rewarded based on comparisons with other learners.

        One person can win in a competition only if another loses.

        The goal of students in a competitive classroom is to do better than their classmates.

    • 2. An individualistic goal structure
      • is one in which learners perceive themselves as working for their own rewards.
      • In this environment, students need not be concerned about what anyone else is accomplishing.
      • Their goal is to meet the standards which they or the teacher have established.
    • 3. A cooperative goal structure
      • is one in which learners perceive that they are working together with other students to gain rewards.

        In this environment, a student’s success depends on the comparable success of other students.

        An important goal of students in a cooperative classroom is to encourage and enable other students to succeed.

    Competitive environments

    • Take advantage of the apparently natural inclination of human beings to develop and enhance their own self-esteem by comparing their own performance to that of others.

      There is considerable evidence that especially for extremely high-performing students competitive environments stimulate higher levels of learning and performance than would be likely to occur in non-competitive environments. In the field of sports, it is a truism that teams are likely to improve when their competition improves.

      The role of competition is likewise obvious in business: competitors encourage businesses to provide their best products and services.

      Competition plays a comparable role in education: many students thrive on favorable comparisons to other students.

      Schools that introduce academic competitions (e.g., science bowls) that are similar to athletic events often find that students benefit tremendously from the motivation and recognition that accompany the competition.

    Problem with competition

    • We often tend to ignore the downside. When everyone is forced to compete, losers often lose more than the winners gain.

      In sports, the losers often simply quit the team or give up the sport; in business, the losers go out of business.

      In school, the losers are often required to keep on losing. Constant exposure to failure in competitions is likely to lead to learned helplessness – an extremely debilitating form of failure avoidance (discussed earlier). Therefore, it is important to be selective in the use of competition.

    Benefits

    In spite of its downside, competition has advantages which make it desirable for at least occasional use in instructional settings. The following guidelines are useful:

    Use competition only with those students who are likely to benefit from it. In general, this means to use competition only with students who have a chance to win. However, people vary in their attitudes toward winning and losing. I know of one person who became a state racquetball champion after losing nearly all his games for two years – he simply wanted to win and felt that the best way to become good was to play good competition. Likewise, many readers know people who were willing to be last in a “good” school because they knew that this would make them more successful “in the real world. The important point is that it is improper to use competition as a motivational tool when it is likely to backfire – and consistent losses at competitions usually do weaken motivation.

    Structure the competition so that all participants have a good chance of winning. There are many ways to do this: ask different questions to people of different abilities; arrange the students in teams so that abilities even out; or introduce an element of chance into the competition.

    Have students compete against themselves rather than against other students. By evaluating students on the basis of their own personal gains, we can give everyone an opportunity to succeed. In fact, since the weakest students have the most room for improvement, this procedure can even give an advantage to the very students who are usually at a disadvantage.

    Combine competitive environments with cooperative environments in order to derive the benefits of both. Have students work together on a team to compete against other teams. If a competition will reward combined group scores on a test, then a weak student who raises his score from 60% to 80% can contribute more to a team than a strong student who raises her score from 90% to 100%. (Cite Slavin, 19xx)

    Reward effort and improvement as well as pure performance. This does not mean to reward effort and improvement instead of performance – reward effort and improvement as well as performance.

• Motivation Pointers-Teachers
  • 1. Focus as much as possible on intrinsic rather than extrinsic factors to motivate learners.

    2. Look at motivation from the perspective of the person being motivated, not from your own or from some other perspective.

    3. Take steps to understand the motivational perspectives of learners by communicating with them, by establishing rapport, by understanding their individual and group needs, and by learning about their cultural heritage.

    4. Be aware that learners may be motivated by many goals in addition to the objectives of the instructional unit, and adjust instruction accordingly.

    5. Don’t guarantee success. Rather, make it clear that students are likely to succeed if they put forth appropriate effort.

    6. Communicate goals clearly to learners, so that learners themselves can direct their own motivational energies toward attaining these goals.

    7. Set up learning situations with an optimal degree of discrepancy. For example, a learner should already know enough about a topic to see that it would be enjoyable to lean a little more.

    8. Help learners see clear cause-and-effect relationships between their own actions and obtaining desired benefits.

    9. Arrange events so that learners feel that they have freely chosen to perform productive activities – not that they have been coerced into doing so.

    10. Create environments in which learners can vividly fantasize using academic skills in realistic or enjoyable settings.

    11. Use competition in such a way as to help those who succeed at it, while minimizing negative impacts on those who lose.

    12. Use cooperation rather than competition in situations where it would be more productive.

    13. Use recognition to motivate learners by making their successful activities or products visible to others.

    14. Present learning opportunities in an environment that is likely to evoke positive feelings and emotions. Most importantly, avoid conducting learning activities in settings that are likely to evoke negative feelings.

    15. When physiological arousal is too high, take steps to lower it.

    16. When physiological arousal is too low, take steps to increase it.

    17. Help learners satisfy their basic needs, so that they can be motivated by higher needs.

    18. Encourage learners to attribute both their academic successes and failures to effort, which is an internal, unstable factor over which they have control.

    19. Encourage students to be motivated by the urge to master important skills rather than by achieving favorable comparisons with other students.

    20. Encourage students to put forth effort, but define effort properly. Effort refers to the productive use of time. Putting in more hours does not necessarily reflect greater effort. Sometimes students need to learn to make proper effort.

    21. Focus as much as possible on achieving success, as opposed to avoiding failure.

    22. Have realistic, positive expectations for your students.

    23. Be aware of the possibility of negative stereotypes and avoid letting these influence your expectations or the goals you set for students.

    24. Promote self-motivation among learners.

• Motivation Pointers-Parents
  • 1. Encourage your child to look for intrinsic benefits that will arise from learning a certain subject matter. If necessary, go and find out what these benefits are, and then communicate them to your child.

    2. Realize that your child is likely to look at life differently than you (no matter how wonderful your values are), and you can help motivate your child only to the extent that you can see life from his or her perspective.

    3. Don’t try to motivate your child by saying things like “This is easy!” or “Anyone can do this!” Say something like, “You can do it, if you work at it.”

    4. Help your child come to the belief that honest effort will almost always pay off. Honest effort means using time productively. Sometimes it is necessary to learn how to use time productively. That’s part of effort.

    5. Avoid saying, “You’re not trying!” Instead, say, “Is there anything you can do to help improve your performance?” Then help the learner find ways to spend additional time productively.

    6. Help your child understand the goals of every unit of instruction, so that he or she can direct personal motivational energies toward attaining those goals.

    7. Help your child see clear cause-and-effect relationships between his or her own actions and obtaining desired benefits.

    8. Help your child set competitive goals wisely. Avoid having him or her rely on the failure of other children in order to feel successful. Encourage competition with his or her own past performance.

    9. Encourage your child to set cooperative as well as competitive goals. Help your child realize that contributing to the success of a group is a worthwhile goal.

    10.Recognize the successes of your child by finding ways to make his or her successful activities or products visible to yourself and to others in your family.

    11.Minimize negative competition among the members of the family.

    12.When your child is excessively excited or anxious about something in school, take steps to lower physiological arousal.

    13.When your child is excessively bored, sleepy, or unconcerned about something in school, take steps to increase physiological arousal.

    14.Help your child satisfy basic needs (e.g., hunger and safety), so that he or she can focus on higher needs.

    15.Avoid calling attention the intelligence or basic ability of your child. It is good that your child should believe that he or she is competent, but complacency is harmful. A child’s conviction that he or she is incompetent is even more destructive.

    16.Encourage your child to attribute his or her academic successes and failures to effort.

    17.Focus as much as possible on achieving success, as opposed to avoiding failure.

    18.Have realistic, positive expectations for your child.

    19.Be aware of the possibility of negative stereotypes and avoid letting these influence your expectations or the goals you set for child.

    20.Promote self-motivation by your child.

• Motivation Pointers-Students
  • 1. Know why it is worthwhile to study a unit of instruction. If it’s not obvious what you can do with the information, ask someone. When you find reasons, relate them to things you care about. You can study any subject more effectively if you have a personal intrinsic interest in it.

    2. If you cannot find an intrinsic reason to study a unit of instruction, find an extrinsic incentive. For example, make a game out of it or find a way to relate it to some other goal.

    3. Be aware that a subject matter doesn’t have to be the most important thing in the world to make it worthwhile.

    4. Admit the possibility that the intrinsic value of some subject matter may become obvious later in your life. What you work for extrinsically now may become intrinsically useful later in life.

    5. Make it easier for your teachers to do their part in motivating you. Do this by communicating with them, by establishing rapport, and by helping them understand your individual and group needs.

    6. Find out exactly what the goals are for a unit of instruction, so that you can direct your own energies as efficiently as possible toward reaching those goals.

    7. Look for cause-and-effect relationships between your own actions and attaining success. Then repeat in the future what has worked in the past.

    8. Vividly fantasize using academic skills in realistic or enjoyable settings.

    9. Don’t overemphasize competition. It is unreasonable for everyone to expect to be the winner in every competition. Usually, for one person to win, many have to try to win, but lose. Often it is better to compete with your own past performance than with the performance of other students.

    10.Realize the value and pleasure of cooperation in learning situations. Sometimes it is more fulfilling to help your group reach a goal than to surpass the other members of the group at attaining that goal.

    11.Try to learn in a setting that is likely to arouse positive feelings and emotions. Most importantly, avoid conducting learning activities in settings that are likely to evoke negative feelings.

    12.When your physiological arousal is too high, take steps to lower it.

    13.When your physiological arousal is too low, take steps to increase it.

    14.Try to satisfy your basic needs (such as hunger and safety), so that you can focus on higher needs when its time to study.

    15.Focus primarily on how your effort pays off at academic activities. Resist attributing your success or failure either to your basic ability (or lack of it) or to luck.

    16.Define effort properly. Effort refers to the productive use of time. Putting in more hours does not necessarily reflect greater effort. Sometimes you may need to learn useful techniques that enable you to make the proper effort for a task.

    17.Focus as much as possible on achieving success, as opposed to avoiding failure.

    18.Have realistic, positive expectations for yourself.

    19.Be aware of the possibility that teachers may have negative stereotypes about you or people like you, and avoid letting these influence your own expectations or goals.

• Principles of Motivation and Problems
  • 1. It is better to rely on intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation.
    • Only consequences that the learner himself or herself perceives to be reinforcing will motivate that learner.
      • Work to understand the perspective of the learner through communication and rapport.

      Teacher may not have control of intrinsic motivators.

      • Understand and apply principles of personality and developmental psychology.

      Intrinsic motivator may not currently be of interest to the learner.

      • Work to gain control through communication and rapport.
      • Seek help from others who do control intrinsic motivators.
      • Promote self motivation.
      • Clarify and demonstrate the intrinsic value of the outcome.
      • State learning outcomes in specific, behavioral terms.
      • Use prestigious models.
      • Foster affective attachment to the outcome.
      • Understand and promote developmental principles.
      • Use artificial incentives until intrinsic incentives become possible.

    2. When natural consequences are not available, it is often necessary to use artificial consequences to motivate learners.

    • Artificial motivators run counter to the previous principle.
      • Use artificial reinforcers that are as close to natural as possible.
      • Back up artificial reinforcers with natural reinforcers.
    • Teacher may not know of or have control over effective artificial reinforcers.
      • Work to gain control of natural reinforcers through communication and rapport.
      • Seek help from others who do control extrinsic motivators.
      • Promote self-motivation.

    3. Human beings have brains and personalities that make their motivations extremely complicated.

    • Teacher may not understand the complexity of the thoughts and feelings of students.
      • Foster understanding through communication and rapport.
      • Develop cultural and multicultural familiarity.
    • Various aspects of intellect and personality conflict with one another and with desired outcomes.
      • Understand and apply principles of attribution theory.
      • Understand and apply principles of achievement motivation.
      • Seek input from experts who do understand more than you do.

    4. There are numerous incentives and consequences competing for a learner’s attention at any given time.

    • Competing outcomes may distract learner from desired outcome.
      • Remove competing outcomes.
      • Reduce incentive value of competing outcomes.
      • Increase incentive value of desired outcome.
      • Remove competing outcomes.
    • Learner may actually be motivated more by a competing, undesirable outcome.
      • Apply disincentives for competing outcomes.
      • Increase incentive value of desired outcome.

    5. Social interactions with others influence the motivation of learners.

    • Interactions with other students may detract from motivation.
      • Understand and apply the principles of group dynamics.
      • Develop positive group atmosphere through communication and rapport
      • Solicit help from other students.
      • Employ cooperative learning.
      • Use competition and recognition effectively.
      • Communicate and establish rapport with the family of the learner.
    • Interactions with environment outside learning situation may detract from motivation.
      • Develop cultural and multicultural familiarity.
    • Interactions with teacher may detract from learning.
      • Avoid accidental misapplications of principles of behavior modification.
      • Avoid negative expectancies.
      • Develop positive expectancies.

    6. Physiological factors influence motivation.

    • Excessively low level of arousal may interfere with tendency to learn.
      • Use variety in presentations.

        Use high interest material in presentations.

        Use humor in presentations.

        Avoid psychological states related to low levels of arousal (tiredness, digestion after meals, warm rooms, etc.)

    • Excessively high level of arousal may interfere with tendency to learn.
      • Emphasize familiar routines and elements that are constant.
      • Refrain from introducing topics or information that may arouse anxiety.
      • Use desensitization or other techniques to reduce anxiety.
      • Avoid information overload.
• Factors of Motivation
  • Individual Factors
    • challenge
      • where the learner is motivated to attain a goal
    • curiosity
      • where the learner is motivated by a physical stimulus or by a cognitive discrepancy
    • control
      • where the learner is motivated by the need to be in control of his/her environment
    • fantasy
      • where learners are motivated by mental images of situations not actually present
  • Interpersonal factors
    • competition
      • where the learner is motivated by comparisons with other learners
    • cooperation
      • where the learner is motivated by an urge to help others perform productively
    • recognition
      • where the learner is motivated by having others appreciate his/her accomplishments
• Meaning of Effort
  • Effort can be defined as the degree to which one schedules and allocates sufficient time to master a topic or solve a problem and employs strategies to use that time as productively as possible in order to maintain a high rate of engagement and a high rate of success or understanding.
• Memory/Info Processing-#6
  • Short Term Memory Process
    • (1) continuously rehearse it, so that it stays there;
    • (2) move it out of this area by shifting it to long-term memory; or
    • (3) move it out of this area by forgetting it.
  • Information Processing
    • 1. Receive Information
    • 2. Store information
    • 3. Integrate information
    • 4. Retrieve information
    • 5. Use information
  • short-term memory-working memory
    • limited capacity
    • we can attend to only about seven items at a time.
  • long-term memory-stores information for a long time.
    • The advantage-we do not have to constantly rehearse information to keep it in

      no restrictive limit on the amount of information we can store

      information stays there for a long time – perhaps permanently!

      To make use of this information in long term memory, we must move it back to our working memory, using a process called retrieval.

  • ADD-learning problem (the attention deficit disorder)
    • occur when learners are unable to screen out irrelevant information and admit to working memory only input that is potentially productive
  • current focus of attention
    • occurs when we are able to devote a minimal amount of attention from our working memory to select what is important from the sensory register, while merely monitoring the context for other key information
  • two problems that can occur as information moves from the sensory register to working memory:
    • 1. Not enough input may move forward
      • (that is, information may be forgotten before it has ever had a chance to be remembered). This problem is solved by training the senses to register information accurately and by having meaningful related information actively available in working memory and easily accessible in long-term memory.
    • 2. Too much input may move forward
      • (that is, the working memory may be overwhelmed by excessive input that it cannot handle). This problem is solved by screening information effectively.
  • Help the Learner Transfer Information Correctly from the External Source into the Sensory Register.
    • 1. Make sure the information is clearly available in the first place. (Don’t use faulty materials that render information partially unintelligible. Speak clearly. Draw diagrams that the students can see. Speak in a language that the students can understand.)

      2. Minimize factors that will interfere with the proper reception of information in the sensory register.

      3. Repeat the presentation more than a single time. It’s actually unlikely that any information will be perfectly received, and redundancy will reduce errors. (Repetition is also useful for other reasons.)

      4. Check to verify whether the information has been received correctly.

• Working Memory
  • Human beings do all their active thinking and problem solving in working memory. The quality of the input into working memory and of the operations that go on there determine the quality of learning and problem solving

    Three critical phases in the effective use of working memory

    • (1) getting information correctly into this short-term area

      (2) handling the information appropriately while it is there

      (3) moving information correctly from working memory to long-term storage, and using the information in working memory to generate some kind of output.

    Five ways to deal with limitations in the capacity of working memory:

    • 1. Feed into the working memory only small amounts of new information at a time. Learners can do this by focusing their attention effectively.

      2. Clear unneeded, old information out of the working memory to make room for the new information. Our brains perform this service for us automatically – almost as soon as we stop focusing tention on the information.

      3. “Chunk” several pieces of information together, so that several individual pieces comprise a single chunk. This strategy will be discussed later in this section.

      4. Efficiently and rapidly shuttle information into and out of working memory.

      5. Use additional devices to supplement human memory. For example, if we record a phone number on a piece of paper, we don’t have to store it in memory. If a teacher projects a map or a diagram on a screen, then it takes little effort for the learners to bring it into working memory – they can just look at any part of the image in front of them.

    What to Do to Help the Learner Transfer Information Correctly From the Sensory Register to the Working Memory

    • 1. Point out specifically the important elements in the presentation.

      2. Minimize factors that will interfere with attention.

      3. Repeat the presentation more than a single time. It’s actually unlikely that any information will be transferred perfectly on a single occasion, and redundancy will reduce errors. (Repetition is also useful for other reasons.)

      4. Check to verify whether the information has been attended to and transferred correctly.

    What to Do to Help the learner accurately retain the information in working memory as long as it is needed to work with it.

    • 1. Keep the number of pieces of information small enough to work with. Either present information in small segments or employ chunking to convert larger amounts into smaller number of pieces of information.

      2. Keep attention constantly focused on the information under consideration. For example, if the information is projected onto a screen or written on a page in front of the student, this minimizes the demand on working memory.

      3. Rehearse the information often while the student is working on it. Rephrase key points often enough to keep them active in working memory.

      4. Allow the learner to have access to the information whenever it is needed. If the information is not in long-term memory or cannot be retrieved, it is foolish to deny the learner access to this information.

      5. Move the information to long-term memory as soon as possible, and help the learner retrieve the information to working memory whenever it is needed. Help the learner retrieve the information easily so that it is almost as good as present in working memory.

• Long Term Memory
  • A major goal of education is to help learners store information in long-term memory and to use that information on later occasions in order to effectively solve problems. There are actually three different types (or aspects or parts) of long-term memory

    Three Different Types of Long Term Memory

    • Episodic memory
      • 1. Episodic-Of writing or narration; divided into or composed of episodes; Occurring or appearing at usually irregular intervals

        2. Refers to our ability to recall personal experiences from our past.

        3. When we recount events that happened during our childhood, a ballet we saw last week, or what we ate for breakfast, we are employing our long-term episodic memory.

        4. As its name suggests, this aspect of memory organizes information around episodes in our lives.

        5. When we try to recall the information, we attempt to reconstruct these episodes by picturing the events in our minds.

        6. Episodic memory enables us to recall not only events, but also information related to those events.

    • Semantic memory
      • 1. Semantic-Of or relating to meaning or the study of meaning

        2. Stores facts and generalized information.

        3. It contains verbal information, concepts, rules, principles, and problem-solving skills.

        4. While episodic memory stores information as images, semantic memory stores information in networks or schemata.

        5. Information is most easily stored in semantic memory when it is meaningful – that is, easily related to existing, well-established schemata.

        6. When we retrieve information from schematic memory, we mentally follow paths.

        7. By using information on numerous occasions after it has been initially learned, we solidify the connections among elements of information, make it easier to retrieve when we need to use it, and make it more likely that this information will be available to help us accept and store additional information in the future.

    • Procedural memory
      • 1. Procedural-Of or relating to procedure

        2. Refers to the ability to remember how to perform a task or to employ a strategy.

        3. The steps in various procedures are apparently stored in a series of steps, or stimulus response pairings.

        4. When we retrieve information from procedural memory, we retrieve one step, which triggers the next, which triggers the next, etc.

    Two major problems related to the use of long-term memory:

    • 1. to transfer the information accurately to long-term memory
    • 2. to retrieve the information accurately.

    Encoding or elaboration

    • primary strategy for transferring information from working memory into long-term memory

      refer to the process of relating information to other information that is already stored in long-term memory.

    Enhance Long Term Memory

    • 1. Meaningfulness
      • 1. Key ingredient that facilitates long-term storage

        2. This term refers not to the inherent interest or worthiness of information, but rather to the degree to which it can be related to information already stored in our long-term memory.

        3. One concept or piece of information is more meaningful than another if the learner can make a larger number of connections between that piece of information and other information already in long-term memory

        4. Critical factor in storing information, one of the most important strategies for promoting long-term storage and retrieval of information is to have the student learn it in a meaningful context

        5. Refers to the number of connections between new and old information

        6. One of the best ways to promote meaningfulness is for the learner to have an abundance of information related to a topic already well organized in longterm memory.

        7. Example, a person with ten pieces of information in long-term memory related to a topic will have a better chance of treating the topic meaningfully than will a person with only one related piece of information stored in memory. In other words, this is another case of “the rich getting richer.”

        8. For example, a student who has recently viewed West Side Story, who has a friend who has been recently involved in a romantic attachment against the objections of his parents, who has already read three other Shakespearean tragedies, and who has a rich vocabulary will find it much easier to understand and retrieve information about Romeo and Juliet than an equally intelligent peer with no background knowledge related to the play.

        9. Possessing information related to a topic will not help students learn and retain new information unless they activate this information and bring it to bear on the topic at hand.

      2. Advance organizers

      • 1. An advance organizer is an introductory statement about a topic that supplies a structure for the new information and relates it to information already in long-term memory.

        2. For example, while introducing a unit on the Civil War, a teacher might say, “Remember that we have found that wars usually occur because of a combination of political and economic factors….”

        3. Likewise, when teaching adult students how to use an electronic database management program, a teacher might say, “An electronic database is very much like a system of index cards….” or “A telephone directory is one type of non-electronic database.

        4. Imagine that the phone directory could easily be searched by either name, phone number, or address….”

        5. These introductory comments enable the learners to activate information that may not otherwise be available during the learning process and therefore to make connections that they would not have been likely to make had they not received the prior advice to activate this information.

      3. Orienting Question

      • 1. alternative to the advance organizer

        2. the teacher (or textbook writer) asks questions to stimulate the learner to think about information that is likely to be helpful in understanding and organizing the information the learner will encounter.

        3. To be effective, the stimulus to generate prior, related knowledge has to be perceived as worthwhile by the learner

      4. Elaborative Interrogation

      • 1. requires learners to give explanations or to in some other way expand upon the information they have been examining

        2. For example, I could first explain elaborative interrogation to you and then ask you, “Why do you suppose it works?” If you would invent an answer of your own, you would be more likely to remember what this concept is than if I simply gave you the answer. Why do you suppose this is the case?

        3. learners should learn to ask their own questions or search their own minds for related knowledge, even when they are engaged in learning activities that are otherwise highly unstructured.

      5. Analogies

      • 1. often serve as informal but effective advance organizers.

        2. Sometimes the analogy is conveyed very informally.

        3. For example, simply telling students that what they are looking at is a pie graph may be enough to activate in the minds of young math students what they already know about dividing pies and to apply this to interpreting pie graphs.

        4. In other cases, the teacher will find it useful to present the analogy more systematically.

      6. Diagrams and models

      • 1. Offer another way to help learners to organize information and relate it to existing information.

        2. Diagrams and models often serve this useful purpose, it is often useful to help learners interact with them

        3. It is also very useful for students to diagram information themselves, in order to see the relationships more clearly and thereby transfer the information more adequately to long-term memory.

        4. Outlining the key concepts of a unit of instruction can provide similar benefits.

      7. Elaboration

      • 1. Students elaborate on material by connecting it to material already in their own minds.

        2. Any technique that enables the learner to connect current information to existing information is likely to increase its meaningfulness and hence the ease with which it can be transferred to and later recalled from long-term memory.

        3. Everyone involved in the instructional process – teacher, student, textbook writer – can facilitate the recall of information and its availability for use in problem solving by enabling learners to make information more meaningful – that is, to act upon the information in such a way as to see connections between what the learner is learning and what is already in the learner’s mind.

      8. Summaries

      • 1. Do these summaries help readers learn and later recall the information?

        2. Actually, many readers skip the summaries, because they “have already learned that information.”

        3. However, if these summaries are well written and properly employed by readers, they can serve as a basis for ascertaining that the information has been fully understood and properly related to other material. For these benefits to occur, the readers must actively look for connections between what the summary says and what is available in their long-term memories.

      9. Underlining/Highlighting

      • 1. Many college students underline or highlight key concepts while reading their textbooks.

        2. Does underlining stimulate effective learning and subsequent recall of information?

        3. The answer seems to be that underlining works if it is done properly – otherwise, it may actually inhibit learning.

        4. The right way is to underline very few sentences and ideas.

        5. The wrong way is to underline so many sentences and ideas that the pen or marker is really serving as a pointing device.

        6. By underlining a smaller amount of information, the learner is forced to actively process the ideas while selecting those most worthy of being underlined.

        7. It is this active processing that increases the meaningfulness of the text.

      What to Do To Help the Learner Transfer the Information Accurately from Working Memory to Long-Term Memory.

      • 1. Treat the information actively rather than passively. Interact with the information in meaningful ways: ask yourself questions about it, have the learner diagram it, outline it, etc.

        2. Look for relationships between the new information and other information that is already in long-term memory.

        3. Look for differences between the new information and other information that is already in long-term memory.

        4. Use mnemonic strategies.

      Enhancing Long Term Memory-Key Points

      • 1. The key point of this section is that information is stored in the long-term memory in a structured fashion – with elements of knowledge chained together or organized in schemata related to specific topics.

        2. Information is likely to be effectively entered into long-term memory (and available for subsequent retrieval) to the extent that the learner actively interacts with the information in working memory.

        3. It is impossible to actively interact with information without making connections with existing information, and these connections facilitate storage of information – even if the learner is unaware that information is being transferred to long-term memory.

        4. A large amount of permanent learning occurs automatically, without conscious effort on the part of the learner.

        5. In other instances, the learner may make deliberate attempts to transfer information to long-term memory, as by using the mnemonic strategies described later in this chapter, or by using the metacognitive strategies described in the next chapter.

• Recalling Information
  • Two problems that can occur with regard to making use of previously learned information:
    • 1. Transferring the information accurately to long-term memory. This problem is solved by encoding the information as efficiently as possible.

      2. Retrieving the information accurately.

      If the information has been encoded effectively, this problem is already partially solved.

      In addition, it is important to practice retrieving the information.

      Otherwise, fading or distortion may occur.

    What to Do to Help the Learner Retrieve Information Accurately From Long-Term Memory to Working Memory.

    • 1. Review or use the information frequently.
    • 2. Look for differences between current and past information.
    • 3. Restore the information as actively as possible.
    • 4. Use mnemonic strategies.

    Repeated practice

    • 1. An effective technique for enhancing both short-term and longterm memory, and if the information coming from working memory is more coherent, it is likely to fit in more smoothly with what’s already in long-term memory. 2. 2. Repeated practice is likely to result in overlearning, which makes the working memory more efficient, since less attention needs to be devoted to individual components of tasks that have become automatic.

      3. In addition, practice helps long-term memory by integrating information more effectively with other information and by minimizing the chances that it will fade from memory.

      4. Remember that the term practice does not refer merely to rote recitation.

      5. Using information in order to understand other concepts or to solve problems constitutes practice; and such practical applications make it more likely that useful information can be retrieved later, when it is needed.

      6. Practice while learning is part of phases 6 and 7 of learning (responding and reinforcement and the related feedback loops).

      7. Practice after learning is the major role of phase 8 (cueing retrieval).

    Review or Repition

    • Repeating the various steps in the transfer of information serves two major purposes:

      1. inaccuracies can be noted and corrected

      2. information can be overlearned and connections can be solidified.

      While repetition is important, the repeated practice need not consist of the boring duplication of identical activities.

      Varying the context or the wider picture not only increases interest, it also makes possible a greater degree of meaningfulness and transfer of learning.

• Forgetting
  • Forgetting/Reason
    • 1. The most frequent reason for forgetting information is difficulty in transferring it from working memory to long-term memory.

      2. In addition, we can forget because of an inability to recall information that is in long-term memory.

  • Fading
    • 1. Occurs when we can no longer recall information from our memory because of disuse.

      2. In short-term memory, fading can occur very rapidly – in some cases after just a few seconds.

      3. When information fades from working memory, it disappears because the short-term space was needed for other incoming information.

  • How to prevent Fading
    • 1. by continuing to focus attention on the information

      2. by constantly rehearsing it

      3. by transferring it to long-term memory

      4. by encoding the information as meaningfully as possible

      5. by frequently retrieving it

      6. by actively restoring it whenever we do retrieve it

      7. by using effective memory search strategies

      Once information has been transferred to long-term memory, most theorists believe that it is stored there permanently.

      When information fades from long-term memory, what really fades is the link; that is, we cannot find a way to retrieve it – it’s there, but we just can’t find it.

  • Interference
    • 1. Occurs when information gets confused with other information in our long-term memory.

      2. Interference can occur either retroactively or proactively

      3. Retroactive interference occurs when previously learned information is lost because it is mixed up with new and somewhat similar information.

      4. For example, if you learn the contents of this chapter today, new information presented to you tomorrow could cause you to become confused about the contents of this chapter.

      5. A history student could study the causes and events of the American Revolutionary War and understand these thoroughly.

      6. Several weeks later the student could study the causes and events of the American Civil War.

      7. If the student thereafter had trouble remembering the causes and events of the Revolutionary War, this would be an example of retroactive interference.

  • Retroactive interference
    • 1. Occurs when information works backwards to interfere with earlier information – just as a retroactive pay raise given in July might work backwards to influence pay days from January to June.
  • Proactive interference
    • 1. Occurs when current information is lost because it is mixed up with previously learned, similar information.

      2. For example, you could have trouble learning the contents of this chapter because it conflicts with preconceived notions in your mind regarding the same topic.

      3. Returning to the history example described earlier, if the student who had learned about the Revolutionary War thereafter studied the Civil War and had trouble remembering the events of the Civil War, this would be an example of proactive interference.

  • Distortion
    • 1. Refers to the misrepresentation of information that occurs when an imperfect image is recalled from long-term memory.

      2. It is not really a separate type of forgetting, but rather a combination of the previous three types.

      3. For example, when I returned to a high school reunion, I once discovered that many of my vivid recollections of my baseball career were distorted.

      4. I had clear memories of various heroic achievements, which I had dutifully narrated to my wife and children, and I firmly believed these to be true.

      5. Written and verbal evidence at the reunion repudiated my testimony.

      6. What seems to have happened is that some of the less pleasant aspects had faded from my memory.

      7. In addition, I apparently reconstructed a few situations in my post-game mental analyses, and when I tried to recall the incidents after several intervening years I tended to remember these more pleasant fantasies in place of the true accounts of the games.

      8. Likewise, although I passed a test on atomic fusion and fission a long time ago, when one of my children recently asked me a question about fusion, I gave an answer that blended the two concepts.

  • Suppression.
    • 1. This is a term derived from Freudian psychotherapy that refers to the subconscious urge from within our personalities to obliterate unpleasant or threatening information from our memories.

      2. For example, an adolescent who had been abused as a child may be unable to recall specific instances of abuse, even though these were numerous, because he had suppressed them.

      3. Suppression is not an important cause of forgetting in most classroom settings.

      4. If a student says she forgot her Spanish “because she hated the teacher,” her forgetting is probably because she has avoided contact with the subject matter rather than because of an emotional trauma.

• Compiled By:
  • Rigel Arcayan
  • blindcaveman.wordpress.com