First blog

The cognitive approach to learning is based on a learners ability to find a meaningful element of what is being taught and rearrange the new material so that it links to past experiences. A learner must be able to relate to the concept and the information needs to be meaningful in order for the cognitive learning to be complete. Learning can differ person to person depending on what they percieve the information to be basing it on past experiences.

What effect might meaningfulness and insight have in  e-learning contexts?

Meaningfulness is when people learn through patterns and completion. This can be either a positive or negative aspect to e-learning. Students that have used any type of online learning will be able to relate to e-learning therefore drawing back on past experiences, which therefore allows the context to become ‘meaningful’. If the student has already had experience in an online environment he/she will be able to work the functionalities and problemsolve reflecting on what they have done in the past. On the contrary if the learners have never used e-learning systems in the past, the learning process may not be effective at all as students will not be able to draw on past experiences, and therefore the system becomes less meaningful for the students.

 Insight can also be a positive aspect if learners can relate to the context. If the issues, and problems seem fimiliar then the learner will be able to come up with a resolution, restructuring the system.. but if they are not fimiliar with the system they will not be able to go beyond by coming up with resolutions on how to fix a problem when encountered.

How can we use advance organisers in e-learning contexts?

Advance organisers are an ideal way to make learners recieve the optimum cognitive learning possible. In an e-learning context this will be easy to incorporate, for example before a online exam, an advanced organiser can be created to brief the topics covered in the exam so that learners can get material ready and take notes before the exam.