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Cognitive Processes and Educational Practice
EDEP 6114 @ Virginia Tech
Course Information Instructor Information
EDEP 6114: Cognitive Processes and Educational Practice Peter Doolittle
1750 Kraft Drive (Rm 2013) 1750 Kraft Drive (Rm 2039)
Tuesdays, 7:00 pm - 9:50 pm pdoo@vt.edu
Download the Syllabus
Course Information
EDEP 6114: Cognitive Processes
1750 Kraft Drive (Rm 2013)
Tuesdays 7:00-9:50 pm
Instructor Information
Peter Doolittle
1750 Kraft Drive (Rm 2039)
pdoo@vt.edu
Course Purpose
student reading
How do we think and learn?
student reading
What evidence do we have?
student reading
How should we design and teach?
student reading
How do we research learning and teaching?
Course Description
Learning
Cognitive psychology addresses the processes of how people learn, remember, and think about knowledge, information, and experiences. This course focuses on a subset of these elements and areas; specifically, the relationship between cognitive processing, working memory, and metacognition, with special attention paid to their involvement in educational practice.
Knowledge
Learning is the result of attention, processing, retrieval practice, and meaning making over time and through the application of knowledge to situations and problems of relevance. This learning results from an experiencing brain — an integrated complex of distributed memory, processing, and control structures with an opinion of how the world works.
Application
Human learning is an applied endeavor. The brain works to achieve, attending to the shifting world with purpose and intent. Research of over 100 years addresses the relationship between processing and performance, especially in the classroom, the synthesis of experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy.
Course Goals
Goal 1

Students will understand the role that cognitive processing plays in learning, memory, and cognition.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to explain the role of cognitive processing and memory to learning and instruction.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to analyze learning and instruction for the roles that processing and memory play.

Goal 2

Students will understand the relationship between cognitive processing and memory and the design of effective instruction.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to analyze instructional outcomes for the processing needed to foster the outcomes.

Outcome 2: Students will be able to create instructional strategies by applying cognitive psychology tenets.

Goal 3

Students will understand the research methods used in the empirical studies that support the role of cognitive processing and memory in learning and instruction.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to explain the research methods used in empirical studies of human learning, memory, and cognition.


Course Pedagogy
Course Readings
student reading

The course, in pursuit of its primary questions, is structured in several parts:

  1. The Course, Students, & Instructor
  2. Cognitive Psychology
  3. Learning Effects
  4. Processing Theories
  5. Emotions, Learning, & the Brain
  6. Active Learning
  7. Metacognition
  8. Instructional Strategies

There are typically two articles or chapters to read each week. Consult the Syllabus to see all of the readings. The articles themselves are available online once you Log-In.

Course Login
When you log-in you will have access to the readings, tasks, notes, scores, and more. If this is your first time, then you will need to Sign-Up. If you have forgotten your password, click on Password?.
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Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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