This article reflects the growing shift in interest from teaching to learning. We are more willing to accept that the best measure of teaching is the learning that results from it and to see the content as the means used to arrive at desired learning outcomes. This appeared in the April 1995 edition of The Teaching Professor.
"Learners are not simply passive recipients of information; they actively construct their own understanding." (P. 275). If you agree, you are ready to consider cognitive theory as the foundation for teaching.
Marilla Svinicki elaborates in an excellent article that distills cognitive theories of learning. From this vantage point,
The learner is at center stage. The instructor becomes a facilitator learning, rather than one who delivers the message…Cognitive psychology says that the learner plays a critical role in determining what he or she gets out of instruction (p. 275). Svinicki then draws six principles from cognitive theory that operationally define this perspective, with implications for applying the principles.
Principle 1: If information is to be learned, it must first be recognized as important.
The more attention effectively directed toward what is to be learned, the higher the probability of learning. This begins simply: instructors write key ideas on the board; textbooks highlight the most important point. It becomes more complicated as student within a given major must learn how a discipline determines what is important. They can do that more readily if instructors make those determinations explicit.
Principle 2: During learning, learners act on information in ways that make it more meaningful.
Instructor and students should use examples, images, elaborations, and connections to prior knowledge to make information more meaningful, to bridge the gap from what is known to what is unknown. This makes it very important for instructors to know what kinds of knowledge and experiences students bring to the new learning situations.
Principle 3: learners store information in their long-term memory in an organized fashion related to their existing understanding of the world.
The instructor can help students organize new information by providing an organizational structure, particularly one with which the students are familiar or by encouraging students to create such structures.
In fact, students learn best when they create their own structures. Without instructor guidance the students either impose their own structure (that often reflects an uninformed view and often leads to misperceptions) or memorize the material without any structure, which leads to fast forgetting.
Principle 4: Learners continually check understanding, which results in refinement and revision of what is retained.
Opportunities for checking and diagnosis aid learning. Instructors need to give students time and opportunity to check on their understanding.
Principle 5: Transfer of learning to new contexts is not automatic but results from exposure to multiple applications.
During learning, provision must be made for later transfer. The more (and more different) situations in which students see a concept applied, the better they will be able to use what they have learned in the future. It will no longer be tied to a single context.
Principle 6: Learning is facilitated when learners are aware of their learning strategies and monitor their use.
The application of cognitive theory implies a responsibility to teach both content and process. Students need to learn how to learn as much as they need to learn things.
In summary, Svinicki makes an interesting observation:
"There is a great deal of intuitive appeal to the cognitive approach to teaching. It echoes our own experience as learners and is easy to understand. Applying the approach is more difficult, however, because we must give up our illusion of control. The change shakes the foundation of content as the primary focus of our teaching. We are then faced with the task of adapting to the needs of learners, a varied and unpredictable group."
Summarized from: Marilla D. Svinicki, "Practical Implications of Cognitive Theories" in Feldman and Paulsen ed. Teaching and Learning in the College Classroom, Ginn Press, 1994.