Cognitive Psychology

We learned about cognitive psychology and the components of a memory model. We learned about the sensory register, working memory, long term memory and everything in between. Everything we learn about memory and cognitive psychology is just a maybe or a probably because we do not know for certain.

It is important to know about memory and the best ways to remember so we can teach our students this way and also teach them skills so they can try out the best ways of remembering.

I will remember the best ways of encoding, meaningful learning, organization, elaboration, and visual memory and try to use them for myself now to help me remember things better but also i can use these techniques when i am a teacher and try to teach using these so the information will be embedded into the students memories. These are just better ways of teaching and learning new information.

Social Development

In class we learned about Erikson's psychological development and the eight stages that go with it. We got in groups an acted out the major crisis for each stage. It was a great way to get thinking about what they really mean. It also helps with remembering. We also talked about moral development. There are three levels with two stages in each. It is very interesting to think that I was at the first stage once. I really liked the Peg system thing we learned to remember Erikson's stages in order. I learned about the peg system in student success but it never made sense to me! I totally understand now and it does help.

Piagetian Tasks

Over the weekend, I did three tasks with my niece who is 3 1/2 years old. She was very excited to participate.

First I did the water task with her. When I asked if they had the same amount of water, she said yes. Then I poured it into another cup and asked the same question. She said yes again. I asked her why and she said, pointing to the taller cup, "this is a bigger cup" (moving her finger up and down the cup) I dont know if it is coincidence that she got it right but she did try explaining it to me. If she truly understood that they had the same amount of liquid it would be in the concrete operations stage.

The next task I did the stick task. I asked if they were the same length. She said yes. Then I moved one to the right. When I asked her if one stick was longer than the other, she said yes and pointed to the stick I did not move, the one directly in front of her. This response is in the preoperational stage.

The last one I did was the penny one. She agreed that they had the same amount of pennies but when I spread the one row apart, she said that the row I changed had more pennies. This is also preoperational thinking.

This was a lot of fun to do. My niece wanted to test me afterwards!