Fundamental Properties of Mental Activity

Memory Stores

This book presents two memory stores; short-term memory and long-term memory. More complete information processing models usually include the sensory memory. Sensory memory accepts input from sensory receptors and saves this input for a very brief period of time. Short-term and long-term memory are most relevant to the understanding of classroom learning and we emphasize these two stores here. 

Short-Term Memory

Short-term or working memory is often explained as conscious mental activity. If this is true, you should have personal insights into the properties of working memory and how it functions. Researchers have studied the storage duration and storage capacity of each memory store. What do personal observations reveal about storage duration and storage capacity? The classic example is what you experience when you look up a telephone number in the phone book and then try to remember it while you dial. What happens when the line is busy? Hopefully, you will recognize the limits of capacity and duration. When do these limits pose problems in educational situations? What do you do to work around the limits of working memory?

One example used in the book considers the difficulties of students with limited typing skills composing at the keyboard. When forced to turn in a typed or printed paper, students in this situation often first write the paper by hand and then use a word processor. It is probable that you or some students in your class may recognize themselves in this description and be able to offer personal comments.

Long-Term Memory

Our permanent store of knowledge and skills exist in LTM. The emphasis here is on the various long-term memory components and the organization of long-term memory.

Imagery. There seems to be good evidence that we have vivid memories for images (smells, sounds, pictures). Perhaps you can generate some personal examples. Since technology probably improves access to sounds and visual images, it is possible our ability to store images will be used to greater advantage.

Episodic Memory. Think of telling a story about a personal experience. A story is rich in detail, is situated in time and place, and has a particular sequence. Certain memories seem to have these characteristics. The book argues that episodic memories can be a mixed blessing. When would "personal stories" not be the desired form of memory representation? When would having a rich repertoire of personal stories be an advantage?

Declarative and Procedural Knowledge. Declarative knowledge represents our factual knowledge base and procedural knowledge represents the stored methods we use to do things. Both types of knowledge are required for most applied skills. Do our instructional methods adequately emphasize both knowledge domains? What about assessment techniques - is proficiency in both domains adequately evaluated? 

Organization of the Long-Term Memory as a Network

An understanding of the contents of long-term memory is not adequate to explain how the long-term memory functions. It is not enough to accumulate memory units. Useful learning requires that what we know be integrated and accessible. Understanding long-term memory as a network or a web seems consistent with what researchers know about memory function and is also an understandable metaphor. This representation also seems to fit with personal experience. What do you try to do when you know that you know something, but cannot remember it? Do you try to recall related information? Why recalling related information be helpful?

In network representation, units of knowledge (i.e., any of the forms of memory presented here) are characterized as nodes and the connections among nodes as links. These connections are very useful in retrieval as one unit of knowledge tends to bring related units of knowledge into our awareness. In this system, learning is not just the accumulation of units of knowledge, but learning also encompasses the connection of these knowledge units into memory representations we find to be personally useful. Many of the activities advocated in this book are designed to encourage and guide the work learners must do to create these links among stored knowledge units.

Cognitive Processes: Mental Tools

This book emphasizes the active role of the student in thinking and learning. We attempted to find a useful way to describe what some of these fundamental actions might be and decided to describe them as the employment of mental tools. The use of tools is a theme we come back to many times in the book. Here mental tools are a substitute for what information processing models of memory and thinking would label as processes. The four tool categories identified in the text (attend to, associate, elaborate, evaluate) are provided as examples of what fundamental cognitive actions might be. Your instructor may take a more traditional approach and use terms such rehearsal strategies, inferencing, etc. to delineate processes. We feel it is sufficient to make certain you appreciate that learning and thinking are the result of mental actions, but some instructors want students to become familiar with the original research and the terminology used in that work.

Metacognition

Metacognition is the mechanism proposed to account for the sophistication and flexibility of complex mental behavior. Skilled learners and problem-solvers control and adapt mental behaviors. They perform in a strategic manner to accomplish goals they set and they adapt when efforts to meet these goals are unsuccessful. Metacognition is described as a combination of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control functions. Our metacognitive knowledge consists of what we know about how specific tasks are accomplished, the circumstances that makes performance difficult or easy, and our personal capabilities in relationship to task requirements. Metacognitive control functions involve planning, regulating, and evaluating. Try specify how the metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control functions apply in performance of various academic tasks. They might consider how metacognition is involved in writing a paper, preparing for an examination, or attempting to develop a friendship with someone they have just met. How you go about studying for an upcoming examination also involves many metacognitive functions.

While only briefly mentioned in the chapter, research conducted with regulatory skills involved in reading (this type of skill is called metacomprehension) and studying is very interesting and disturbing. For example, less able readers also tend to demonstrate poor metacomprehension. When we label someone as a poor reader, we are saying they have greater difficulty comprehending. When we say poor readers also show poor metacomprehension, we are saying they are less aware of the circumstances in which their comprehension has failed. They are unable to take advantage of the adaptive value of metacognition - i.e., they are less likely to realize that it would be helpful to reread a certain passage. Even college students make constant use of metacomprehension. Try asking if students ever lose concentration while reading and all at once realize that they cannot remember what the last several paragraphs said. This is metacomprehension at work. Metacognition is also heavily involved in study behavior (because study behavior is autonomous and relies heavily on decisions made by the individual student). Students make decisions about when they have studied enough to meet personal expectations on an upcoming examination and whether they should continue studying chapter 4 or move on to chapter 5. Evaluating and regulating are heavily involved in studying.

Learner Control

In a way, technology offers an alternative to certain aspects of metacognition. A computer can gather lots of information while students are working and exercise control over certain aspects of the learning experience. Instead of the student deciding I have studied Chapter 4 long enough, the computer can decide. Instead of determining that I have probably worked enough of these practice problems, the computer can evaluate performance and determine if more practice is required. Research has contrasted performance when students are allowed to make their own decisions and when the computer makes the decisions. Summaries of many studies of this type seem to conclude learners would be better off if the computer made decisions for them. Does this summary surprise you? Would you be willing to let the computer control your learning experiences? If the power of the computer somehow seems magical, imagine giving the same kind of control to a personal tutor. It would kind of be like working out alone or with a personal trainer. Would it surprise you that a personal tutor might place demands on students they would not place on themselves?

Learner control with advisement offers a possible compromise. Here the computer gathers data, but summarizes this information for the student without making any specific demands. This techniques seems to offer an advantage over pure learner control. There is a somewhat similar finding in the literature concerning study behavior. The research with study behavior demonstrates that practice examinations help students make more accurate predictions about their strengths and weaknesses (surprise). In both cases, the more concrete information is helpful. What about the possibility of self deception? Do you think students might deceive themselves when evaluating their own learning?