Topic: The construction of a multi-round teaching model of cognitive structure
Author: Hu Jifei (Professor, Guangdong Second Normal University).
*: Teaching and Management, 2011 (12).
The construction of a multi-round cognitive structure teaching model
The teaching model is a strategic system composed of teaching procedures and their implementation methods, and intermediation is its most important feature, which can build a "two-way" bridge between teaching theory and teaching practice. As early as 2001, we tried to use the deductive method to construct a "teaching model of multi-round cognitive structure" suitable for biology disciplines, referred to as "multi-round teaching model" or "MRCS teaching model" [1] . After further theoretical thinking and practical exploration in recent years, "multi-round cognitive structure teaching" has developed into a teaching mode suitable for multiple subjects in secondary schools. Theoretical basis, teaching objectives, teaching process and teaching strategy are the basic components of the teaching model, and this paper will theoretically explain and construct the multi-round teaching model from these aspects, and provide a lesson design for the application of the model.
1. The theoretical basis of the multi-round teaching model
The theoretical basis and guiding ideology of the multi-round teaching model mainly come from the theory of cognitive construction and the theory of concept map teaching. Cognitive constructivism is not only a theory of learning, but also a philosophy of knowledge. Cognitivism, although it has a tradition of objectivism, has focused on the cognitive process within the learner, and believes that teaching is to internalize the external knowledge structure into the internal cognitive structure of the learner. In his famous book The Educational Process, Bruner emphasized the need to "express the concept of knowledge according to structuralism", and advocated that teaching should allow students to grasp the basic structure of the subject. Constructivism, a further development of cognitivism, is a vast and complex theoretical system that has been labeled as "constructivist" from philosophy close to dialectical materialism to agnosticism of extreme idealism [2]. Modern constructivism believes that the world exists objectively, but the understanding and meaning construction of the objective world is determined by the individual, that is, the learner obtains the facts and understands the meaning of the facts according to his own knowledge and experience.
The concept map as a teaching strategy and theoretical enhancement is the work done by Novak, an education scholar at Cornell University in the United States, in the 60s of the 20th century. Concept map is an external representation tool of knowledge structure and cognitive structure, which is to search for as many important concepts or propositions as possible related to a certain topic, and then connect the related concepts and propositions with lines and relative words to form a conceptual system or proposition network. Novak emphasized that the concept map is a hierarchical structure, but later researchers found that there is no class-genus relationship between some concepts, and Postlethwaite et al. proposed a concept map without hierarchy [3]. The research on educational practice in Western countries also shows that conceptual composition has multiple cognitive functions, and the use of concept maps is helpful for students' cognitive learning activities such as selective attention, memory, organization, refinement, metacognition, and creative thinking.
Based on the above teaching theories such as cognitivism, constructivism and concept map strategies, the multi-round teaching model believes that, on the one hand, teaching is a process in which learners internalize the knowledge structure external to books and the objective world into the internal cognitive structure of the brain, and it is a dynamic process in which the cognitive structure is transformed many times. On the other hand, due to the individual differences in learners' cognitive style, cognitive structure and cognitive ability, learners' understanding of the external world may also be different, so learning is a process in which learners actively construct cognitions with personal significance, and the cognitive structures in the human brain can be visualized by concept maps, which provides operational convenience for the transformation of cognitive structures. In short, learning is a process in which students construct knowledge based on external objective facts and their inherent knowledge structure, through the personal transformation of the original experience and psychological structure, and promote the continuous improvement of students' cognitive structure with the help of the representation tool of concept map.
2. The structure and function of the multi-round teaching model
There are two main ways to construct a new teaching model, namely inductive and deductive. In view of the fact that cognitive constructivism and concept map teaching strategies are widely recognized in theory and widely used in practice, we are fully qualified to directly deduce a number of new teaching models under the guidance of their theories, without the need to repeat the long-term and complex process of empirical induction. The multi-round teaching mode is established through theoretical deduction, and its basic teaching process is as follows: first understanding the knowledge structure of the new course, examining the original cognitive structure, breaking the original cognitive structure, establishing a new cognitive structure, and consolidating the new cognitive structure. The teaching link and its sequence are allowed to be used in different variants according to the different teaching contents, teaching objects and teaching hours.
According to the proposition of the multi-round teaching model, subject teaching is an active construction process based on objective facts and transformed by the individual's original cognitive structure, and this process can be visualized externally through the concept map. According to the principle of unity of structure and function, we believe that the multi-round teaching model has the following functions and characteristics:
First of all, the core value of this model is to guide students to continuously optimize their cognitive structure. Cognition is the sum of mental processes such as perception, memory, thinking, and problem solving, while cognitive structure is the sum of all the knowledge or concepts of a student and how they are organized. The multi-round teaching mode takes the optimization of students' cognitive structure as its own responsibility, starting from the cognitive structure and ending with the cognitive structure, and promotes the continuous optimization of students' knowledge structure, ability structure and psychological process through multiple rounds of continuous transformation of cognitive structure.
Second, the teaching model echoes the requirements of quality education. This model is not concerned with the acquisition, recall, or reproduction of a single piece of knowledge, but with a structured and transferable body of knowledge and its mental processes. The process of knowledge organization and formation requires the participation of multiple learning abilities, the active construction of meaning by students, and the integration of teaching elements such as autonomy, cooperation and excellence. At the same time, the model follows the concept of "learning to teach", highlights the subjectivity of students, and attaches importance to the effectiveness of teaching.
Third, the teaching model is obviously multidisciplinary and has a clear application object. Any teaching mode has its own scope of application, and the multi-round teaching mode is a discipline teaching mode with wide applicability, which is suitable for those disciplines with more concepts and nouns, and strong structural and logical knowledge. Specifically, it is more suitable for the teaching of all knowledge-based course content at the secondary school level and above, especially for most of the course content of physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, politics and other subjects. However, it is not suitable for the primary school curriculum, because the content of the primary school curriculum is relatively simple, and the structure and logic of knowledge are not very strong.
Fourth, the teaching mode is highly operable. The teaching model is different from the teaching theory in that the former is closer to the teaching practice and has obvious prescription and operability. On the one hand, the multi-round teaching model establishes a relatively stable strategic system of teaching procedures and implementation methods. On the other hand, in view of the fact that optimizing cognitive structure is an implicit mental process, the multi-round teaching mode externalizes students' "invisible" internal psychological states and their change processes through concept map strategies, so that the cognitive process of "mind" has the basis of "materiality".
Fifth, the teaching model has the value of independent existence. Looking at the existing teaching models, whether it is teaching structure, implementation strategies or goal orientation, the multi-round teaching model has its own independent value. The multi-round teaching model is a constructivist teaching model, which is more suitable for the characteristics of China's curriculum and teaching behavior than the existing constructivist teaching models such as scaffolding, anchoring and random entry, so it is also more valuable for promotion.
3. Teaching strategies for multi-round teaching mode
There is an important learning strategy that runs through the whole process of teaching and learning activities using the multi-round teaching model, and that is the concept map strategy. In teaching, students should learn to make and use concept maps, and let students learn to use concept maps to represent the knowledge structure in books and the cognitive structure in their minds. At the same time, this model advocates the use of unit teaching, and the teaching unit can strictly implement the established arrangement of the teaching materials, as little as one textbook as a unit, and more as several consecutive textbooks as a unit; It is also possible to disrupt the original arrangement of the textbook and formulate a new teaching theme to select and reorganize the content of different chapters of the textbook. Specifically, the students' receptivity, the logical relevance of the content, and the capacity of knowledge should be considered.
(1) Initial understanding of the knowledge structure of the new course
Knowledge structure and cognitive structure are two concepts that are both distinct and related. The former is a knowledge system constituted through a certain connection, where knowledge includes both declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and strategic knowledge; The latter manifests itself in cognitive activities as mental processes and individual differences. The development of students' cognitive structure is based on knowledge structure, and at the same time, it affects the formation of students' knowledge structure.
After determining the teaching unit, you should first have a preliminary understanding of the knowledge points of the unit textbook, its presentation and logical structure. The method is to study and break down the requirements of the curriculum standards and the content of the unit textbook, especially to know what basic materials are included in the unit textbook, such as: What factual materials are there? What are the methodological materials? What are the concepts and principles? What are the application materials? What is the intrinsic connection between the above materials? What are the teaching requirements of the curriculum standards? Wait a minute.
(2) Examine the original cognitive structure
On the title page of his famous book, Educational Psychology: A Cognitive Perspective, Ausubel wrote: "If I had to reduce the whole of educational psychology to a single principle, I would say that the single most important factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows." "There is no doubt that the original knowledge is the basis for acquiring new knowledge, and the starting point of teaching is to find out what the students already know and what they do not yet know, and then implement the teaching of the new lesson on this basis.
The general procedure for examining the original cognitive structure is as follows: the first step is to infer what kind of original cognitive structure students should have based on the knowledge structure of the new course analyzed in the previous session, that is, what necessary prior knowledge students need to acquire before learning the new course. The second step is to find out what kind of cognitive structure students already have, which includes not only those necessary prior knowledge, but also those that are not necessary but still related to the learning of new knowledge, as well as the corresponding cognitive strategies. The main ways to understand the original cognitive structure are: teachers make judgments based on personal experience; Teachers organize pre-class preparatory testing; Students take the initiative to appeal before class; Teachers ask formative questions in the teaching process; Have your students draw a concept map of the relevant (you can use the Center Concepts Diffraction method). The third step is to further clarify what is and is not missing in the students' original cognitive structure through comparative analysis on the basis of the first two steps, so as to provide a basis for the next step of teaching.
(c).Break down the original cognitive structure
In order to develop a new cognitive structure, it is necessary to break the original cognitive structure, that is, the so-called "no break, no stand". Breaking the balance of the original cognitive structure is not a one-time thing, but should run through the whole process of teaching, especially in the introduction of new courses. There are two main methods, one is to find the "gaps" in the original cognitive structure, and one of the teachers' jobs is to expose the "gaps" in the students' original cognitive structure that need to be filled. The second is to create cognitive conflicts between the original cognitive structure and the new information. There are many ways to create cognitive conflicts, such as using life experience, production practice, teaching materials, scientific experiments, scientific theories, scientific hypotheses, scientific historical materials, natural scenes, simulated scenes, teachers' mistakes, teacher-student differences, etc., to create cognitive conflicts, so that students can show "difficult", "obstacles" or "incongruity" factors in the learning process. As a result of breaking the original cognitive structure, students develop a sense of dissatisfaction and a positive desire to acquire new knowledge.
(4) Establish a new cognitive structure
The purpose of breaking the old cognitive structure is to establish a new cognitive structure, how to build a new cognitive structure? The basic path is to use the original cognitive structure to absorb and integrate the new information obtained in the new lesson, but the specific method needs to be adjusted according to the situation of the above three teaching links. There are three main ways of behavior: first, concept formation, which mainly establishes primary concepts through students' direct perception and observation of scientific facts; The second is concept assimilation, using existing concepts to absorb new concepts. When the "gaps" in the original cognitive structure are exposed, the link points in the "gaps" (similar to broken chemical bonds in compounds) are also revealed, and we can integrate the new information into the gaps in the original cognitive structure through concept assimilation. Therefore, teachers should identify the connection points between the old and new knowledge, so that students can find out the commonalities and differences in the comparison of the old and new knowledge, and successfully complete the transfer of knowledge and thinking. According to Ausubel, there are three modes of learning for concept assimilation, namely, superordinate learning, subordinate learning, and juxtaposition learning. The third is the conceptual change, which is mainly a major change in the student's original knowledge and experience due to the influence of the new experience that is inconsistent with this, that is, what Piaget called "modifying the original cognitive structure through cognitive adaptation". After students acquire new concepts, they should integrate the old and new knowledge to form a new cognitive structure through refining strategies in a timely manner, and use concept diagrams to draw them out.
The new cognitive structure is the expansion of the original cognitive structure after obtaining new information in the new course learning, but this expansion is not a simple addition between the original cognitive structure and the knowledge structure of the new course, it is not only the spatial extension and expansion obtained after the increase in the number of knowledge, but also the structural reorganization and adjustment within the knowledge structure and cognitive structure.
(5).Consolidate new cognitive structures
Once a new cognitive structure is established, it needs to be consolidated in a timely manner. There are two main ways of behavior, one is the one.
It is the integration of knowledge and the solidification of structure, mainly to further refine the new cognitive structure established in the previous teaching link, to merge the small knowledge structure into a large knowledge structure, and to enhance the connection between knowledge, so as to establish a more solid conceptual system and knowledge network. The second is the application of knowledge in new contexts, mainly using newly established cognitive structures to solve new problems in new contexts, including scientific problems in written assignments and practical problems in production and life.
Finally, it should be noted that although the multi-round teaching model has been applied to classroom teaching by some middle school teachers and has initially achieved good teaching results, it has not yet been applied to scientific educational experimental research. In the next step, we will conduct a controlled experimental study on the teaching effect of this teaching model, and hope that more front-line teachers of different disciplines will apply this teaching model to teaching practice, so as to jointly promote the continuous improvement of this teaching model, including the creation of flexible and diverse model variants.
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