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| Classifying Subject Matter |
Classifying Subject Matter
In analyzing the learning process, researchers and educators often group everything that can be learned into just three categories: knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Knowledge
Ultimately all knowledge can be regarded as information about specific items, or sets of items. All knowledge can be sorted into five basic categories:
1. Facts (e.g. World War I ended on November 11, 1918)
2. Systems of facts (e.g. columns of stock prices in the business section of a newspaper)
3. Algorithms (e.g. the recipe for baking a cake)
4. Concept systems (e.g. the precepts of democracy, and the structure of Euclidean geometry)
5. Rule systems (e.g. the traffic laws of Kentucky, and Latin grammar).
A key feature of these categories is that they are open-ended. There is no limit to new knowledge. No matter how much you know there is always more to learn.
Skills
Skills can be divided into two main categories: psychomotor skills, and cognitive skills.
Psychomotor skills involve the co-ordinated movements of muscles and limbs to achieve specific results such as swimming or playing a trombone. Psychomotor skills are mastered through repeated trial-and-error efforts, and efforts to imitate others who have already mastered the desired skill. The first tentative steps of a baby learning to walk provide a classic example of psychomotor learning. Psychomotor skills are stored in procedural memory.
Cognitive skills involve the co-ordinated thought processes required for problem solving, such as how to describe an emotion in a poem you are writing, or how to analyze a logical puzzle. Cognitive skills involve your ability to apply a variety of strategies such as sorting, comparing, classifying, and decision-making; and are used by your conscious mind to deal with novel situations that you encounter in your daily life. Cognitive skills are stored in declarative memory. The essential message of this book is that cognitive skills and clear thinking can be learned and practiced, just like any other skill.
Many tasks, such as delivering a speech, require the simultaneous application of both psychomotor and cognitive skills.
Attitudes
Establishing attitudes involves your values and your mental approach to various subjects and situations. Your attitudes are an essential component of your learning efforts. With a positive attitude your chances of success are optimized.
It is important to realize that your attitudes are learned. You are not born with a set of attitudes about the world. Your current attitudes have been acquired as a result of your experiences in life and your mental habits in dealing with those experiences.
Much of your success as a learner will depend on your ability to build positive attitudes towards the material that you are studying.
In analyzing the learning process, researchers and educators often group everything that can be learned into just three categories: knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Knowledge
Ultimately all knowledge can be regarded as information about specific items, or sets of items. All knowledge can be sorted into five basic categories:
1. Facts (e.g. World War I ended on November 11, 1918)
2. Systems of facts (e.g. columns of stock prices in the business section of a newspaper)
3. Algorithms (e.g. the recipe for baking a cake)
4. Concept systems (e.g. the precepts of democracy, and the structure of Euclidean geometry)
5. Rule systems (e.g. the traffic laws of Kentucky, and Latin grammar).
A key feature of these categories is that they are open-ended. There is no limit to new knowledge. No matter how much you know there is always more to learn.
Skills
Skills can be divided into two main categories: psychomotor skills, and cognitive skills.
Psychomotor skills involve the co-ordinated movements of muscles and limbs to achieve specific results such as swimming or playing a trombone. Psychomotor skills are mastered through repeated trial-and-error efforts, and efforts to imitate others who have already mastered the desired skill. The first tentative steps of a baby learning to walk provide a classic example of psychomotor learning. Psychomotor skills are stored in procedural memory.
Cognitive skills involve the co-ordinated thought processes required for problem solving, such as how to describe an emotion in a poem you are writing, or how to analyze a logical puzzle. Cognitive skills involve your ability to apply a variety of strategies such as sorting, comparing, classifying, and decision-making; and are used by your conscious mind to deal with novel situations that you encounter in your daily life. Cognitive skills are stored in declarative memory. The essential message of this book is that cognitive skills and clear thinking can be learned and practiced, just like any other skill.
Many tasks, such as delivering a speech, require the simultaneous application of both psychomotor and cognitive skills.
Attitudes
Establishing attitudes involves your values and your mental approach to various subjects and situations. Your attitudes are an essential component of your learning efforts. With a positive attitude your chances of success are optimized.
It is important to realize that your attitudes are learned. You are not born with a set of attitudes about the world. Your current attitudes have been acquired as a result of your experiences in life and your mental habits in dealing with those experiences.
Much of your success as a learner will depend on your ability to build positive attitudes towards the material that you are studying.
