Teaching and Student Thinking

Abstract

In this article, Wittrock describes the varied research relating to student cognition and teacher behavior. Specifically, the author outlines how teachers influence studentthinking, which, in turn, influences student achievement. With a cognitive approach, the students' knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes are at the center of any attempt to explain achievement. Research relating to motivation, attention, comprehension and metacognition is discussed by the author. Implications for teachers and teacher educators are explicated.ince ancient times, when Plato taught his students with questions and dialogue, and Aristotle developed with questions and dialogue, and Aristotle developed his model of imagery and associations as the basis of learning and memory, teachers and researchers have tried to explain how students learn from teaching. To understand teaching and its effects upon learning, researchers have developed and used different ways to relate teaching to student achievement.One popular way to try to explain the effects of teaching upon student achievement is to relate the characteristics of teaching directly to student achievement. According to this procedure, we would study, for example, how the length of the instruction, or the number of periods of instruction in the school day, influences achievement of students. Or we would study how many rewards it takes to accomplish the learning of a fact, concept, or principle. From this approach to research on teaching have come important findings about teaching and its effects upon learning.In the last 25 years, an ancient but newly revived alternative way to study teaching has dominated research. This alternative way is to study how teaching influences student thinking, which, in turn, influences achievement. For example, using this approach, we would study how rewards influence student thoughts about their meaning. We would then study how these student-generated meanings influence achievement. With this &dquo;cognitive&dquo; approach, we put the students, their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes, at the center of our attempts to explain achievement. What the students do with the information presented by the teacher what sense they make of it, how they relate it to what they know and believeinfluences achievement.This cognitive approach to teaching revises some of our fundamental concepts about teaching and its effects upon learning. This paper briefly summarizes some of these findings and their contributions to knowledge about teaching. It is not intended to provide an adequate basis on which to base classroom teaching. Instead, it is intended to interest readers and encourage them to read and learn in detail about useful concepts growing out of recent research on cognition in teaching.

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“…As Wittrock (1987) notes, students do not come to the classroom as blank slates. Learning depends on the degree to which students build meaningful connections between new information and their prior knowledge and experiences.…”

“Everything is in Parables”: An Exploration of Students' Difficulties in Understanding Christian Beliefs Concerning Jesus

“…Given the primacy of the learner in the construction of knowledge in socio-cultural theories of learning (Wittrock 1987), any attempt to make sense of the learning process must take account of the way(s) in which that process is conceptualised by the learner. In other words, in order to talk meaningfully about how children learn in RE, we need to pay sufficient attention to how children themselves experience and comprehend that learning process.…”