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Chapter 2 | Thinking and Intellectual Performance | Summary Learning is usually best explained by physiologist and philosophers alike though comparison, describing; human memory as filing cabinet, metal processes in a computer, and studying as tools available in our journey though learning. We think about the knowledge we have. Knowledge is not the same as thinking. There are several stages in thinking. Not everyone who graduates from college becomes a critical thinker, which is the ability and disposition to improve one s thinking by systematically subjecting ti to intellectual selfassessment. Being ethical is important because it entails a consciousness of the need to treat all view point alike without the regard to one s own selfish interest, or one s friends community or nation. It means one can be adherent to an intellectual standard not influenced by one own advantage or that of a group. As students we should attempt to make sense of what is going on in our academic studies, that is to understand and create meaning of what we are learning. Each course we study in different subjects is different in the way of thinking of particular questions, and therefore each subject requires different ways of learning the information through different methods. There are 3 different types of knowledge. Declarative knowledge which is possessing specific information about something. (I.e. Social Security number, quadratic formula) Factual knowledge consists of basic pieces of information in a particular academic discipline (i.e. terminology and specific detail). Conceptual knowledge is the larger groupings of related ideas (i.e. principles, theories, models). Declarative knowledge is comprised of basic units of thoughts which are called prepositions. On the other hand there is schemata which are networks of relates facts and concepts that influence acquisition and understanding of new information.
Spring 2012
Procedural knowledge is knowing how something is done (the process). The process of knowing how has been labeled by psychologists as productions. With practice we biome faster and more accurate at a task. Conditional knowledge is knowing when and why to use particular strategies. Being aware of our learning strengths and weakness, we are using conditional knowledge, as is when we understand the requirements of a test or project. There are six levels of intellectual performance, which are different levels of master of concepts of one set of data. Each is successive level is more complex and dependent on the rest below it. The levels, in ascending order are; remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The primary contributor to this model of knowledge mastery is Bloom 1956, Bloom s Taxonomy. Remember is being able to recall. Understand is being able to comprehend constructs from a literal meaning of a message. Apply is being able to use ideas appropriately in new situations. Analyze is being able to break material into parts and detect relationship and organizations among those parts-ability to compare and contrast. Evaluate means that the learner can render value judgment based on criteria and standards. It is easy to understand how the upper levels of thinking are dependent on the rest. After finishing reading I recognize that this assignment is a strategy to learn the information in the book, summarizing and then evaluation though our reaction part of the assignment. It was interesting to understand how learning occurs and the different types of knowledge. Learning about the different levels of intellectual performance could be used to analyze how different courses in school will demand different levels and therefore require different utilizing different levels of conditional knowledge. For example, I understand that doing more problems in mathematics help improve both my declarative and procedural knowledge, which becomes more accurate and easier with practice.