Cognitivism in Practice

As a physical education teacher, I understand the adversities students face in various learning environments. This week I was introduced to several concepts that can enhance my students cognitive learning to process information and store for a long period of time. Note-taking should be designed to effectively aide in student learning. Although this is not something I have a great deal of practice with, I did value in creating a concept map for my students. Concept maps are great for taking an idea and breaking it down into several smaller ideas to organize and process information. I can do this on many different sport units, as well as individual competitions. "Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge" (Novak 2008). Like the high school students that I now teach I see the significance of "learning how to learn" because for some it does not come naturally. These cognitive, 21st century tools would have greatly benefited me in my undergraduate studies had someone taken the time with me to teach me these skills.





Novak, J. D. & Cañas, A. J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 01-2008. Retrieved from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Web site: http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf