Cognitivist and Constructivist Theories by

Marzano's High Yield Strategies

esporter — 2025-06-16 16:49:12 UTC

Marzano advocates for supporting a student's development of the connections between concepts/ideas. As students understand and grow their knowledge, they can meaningfully organize it graphically.

Kohler, 1887-1967

esporter — 2025-06-16 16:54:28 UTC

If something goes wrong, students can and must reflectively work to find a solution. Gestalt learning and processing (the organized whole) involves thorough error analysis.

Piaget's Work + How It Can Meaningfully Relate to Technology

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:02:51 UTC

This, albeit a bit dated article, did highlight some of the important early-learning milestones and connected Piaget's work to the work of early interventionists now.

Bandura, 1925-2021

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:07:28 UTC

If people believe that they are capable of reproducing positive behaviors, they will be more receptive to a given model of such a behavior. He utilized the term "self-efficacy" to describe this behavior pattern.

Responsive Teaching

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:10:21 UTC

I believe, as Rosenshine advocated for, that students must be taught by teachers with a responsive disposition. I have to be ready to stop a lesson, rework a unit, and remain engaged in order to allow myself and my students to perform their best.

Modeling is key

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:17:05 UTC

When working to build key language concepts (such as inferential thinking), I am stuck between the principles of Ausbel and Bruner. Modeling and self-guided practice are needed to master key skills. Vygotsky rightly asserts that scaffolding can be an important way to transition a student's dependence from a higher to lower level as they gain independence.

Thoughts and Ideas about Cognitivist and Constructivist Theories

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:18:26 UTC

Included in the connections below and to the side.

Marzano + Rosenshine's Strategies

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:20:49 UTC

The tiles/items connected to Marzano's and Rosenshine's work are indicated by placement beside or next to this post.

Piaget- Construction of Knowledge Happens in Stages

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:33:08 UTC

Forgive the simplistic drawing-- the idea accompanying the drawing is that Piaget's stages show how knowledge is built upon with cognitive maturation. Some students may experience this maturation at a faster rate than peers. At the Pre-operational stage (Piaget places students aged 2-7 in this stage), students begin to logically order objects. These objects can be thought of as building blocks to higher-order thinking and processing.

Personal Response to Dewey's Intelligent Action Cognitivist Theory

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:40:11 UTC

I was heartened by Bob Bates (2023)'s take on the principles of Dewey's work when he said, "Accept the diversity in cultures, religious beliefs, and values that others have," (p.45). I think this is incredibly relevant for understanding how life and learning intersect and I feel this theory reminds me of the dignity of each of my student's lived experiences.

Ausbel (1918-2008), Reception Learning

esporter — 2025-06-16 17:47:32 UTC

Ausbel posited that there is a graduated effect to which students can map new information onto existing ideas. I conceptualize this as a pyramid in which background knowledge is required to accomplish higher-order thinking processes.

Gestalt Language Processing

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:02:49 UTC

As I read and reflected about 'gestalt' as an understanding of the "organized whole" (p. 46), I thought of the students who I have worked with in speech therapy who were Gestalt language processors. As students who processed language in larger chunks than other children, I may see a child with autism utilize a 'scripted' response to a situation. In some cases, this might be a line from a movie/show or something they'd heard from a family member or loved one. For some students, it was a 'trial and error' process where they may try or attempt numerous scripted responses until they landed on one that felt 'right' or appropriate to the topic at hand. Understanding gestalt processing has been instrumental in my speech therapy practice and the cognitive underpinnings are fascinating to uncover and study.

Takeaways from Principles of Instruction by Barak Rosenshine

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:08:14 UTC

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dr. Rosenshine's thoughts on how to effectively utilize research-based methods and principles to instruct students and unlock new learning opportunities. I appreciated his emphasis on allowing all students the chance to participate, instead of favoring a system in which the child who is quickest to react or speak out garners all of the accolades and attention.

Thinking Aloud/Providing Cognitive Models

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:13:59 UTC

I have been fortunate to have received some rudimentary training in the SRSD writing curriculum/method. Think Alouds are meaningfully integrated into the curriculum so as to provide students with strong models and problem-solving exemplars. When writing, they emphasize verbalizing one's thought process in writing in order to make the 'invisible' (our thinking process) visible to students. I found great success with this method and I feel it humanized me to my students. It helped them to truly believe that even English teachers get stuck with formulating a conclusion paragraph and even English teachers have to revise their rewritten work to make sure they haven't included too many 'to be' verbs. I think the fact that I am not a traditionally-trained English teacher helped me inhabit this headspace. I told them that I sometimes get stumped too, and have to remind myself of what a gerund phrase is to better understand how it functions in a given sentence.

Accommodations for Students

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:24:26 UTC

As I was reflecting on Rosenshine's recommendation for "a high level of active practice" for all students. One of the accommodations that some of my ELA students had was 'reduced workload'. Over time, I grew to understand that this meant that when students showed mastery of a given concept, instead of being made to prove their mastery repeatedly with long and numerous HW and/or test questions, they were able to show this competence through fewer questions. Though some team members found this to most impactful in mathematics, I also felt that it gave me the opportunity to consider my teaching practices as I determined which items I would ask students to complete. Which (few) items were the most representative of the knowledge that I wanted to reassess a given student's mastery of. It was helpful for me to distill what type of active practice would be most appropriate and actionable for students.

Accommodations Vs Modifications

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:31:42 UTC

Helpful information to keep in mind as one integrates principles from Marzano's work. Accommodations may be beneficial for students who have focal difficulty in visually presented information or visuospatial integration. Many of Marzano's suggestions include a visual component. This could be shifted to other means of getting information to students as needed (kinesthetic, auditory, tactile, etc.).

MKOs - Most Knowledgeable Others

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:36:33 UTC

Vygotsky asserts that there is an incredibly powerful process that occurs when students interact with others such as teachers, parents, siblings, and peers. These individuals have the opportunity to teach and model important concepts, and they are known as MKOs. p. 48, Dr. Bates's Learning Theories Simplified.

Testing Prior Knowledge (p.49, Learning Theories Simplified)

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:39:29 UTC

When educators account for the things that students already know, they can crystalize what must be learned and further understood. This is critical for learning and planning instruction.

"Providing Models of Worked-Out Problems"

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:42:33 UTC

This is a fantastic way to reduce the cognitive load of the task at hand- students can instead 'free up' their working memory for other facts and figures. They can put their brain energy towards where it is most useful and necessary.

Marzano's Strategies- Incorporating Art/Emotional Processing

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:48:50 UTC

This strategy allows students to take in what they hear, react/act upon it through drawing, and it allows them to share what they have learned with others. This is a powerful tool that recruits different areas of the brain (language processing, emotional regulation, motor processing as they create the image, etc.).

Personal Summative Reflection on Marzano and Rosenshine

esporter — 2025-06-16 18:56:04 UTC

Both of these gentlemen have certainly given me lots to think about as I conceptualize and determine what settings, projects, and central ideas I find most important for my students to learn, grow, and reflect upon. I'm grateful for these actionable strategies and I feel I will try to incorporate 1-2 to begin with (use of a Venn Diagram to indicate one's understanding of how two topics relate or differ) and will work to incorporate even more concepts from there.

Personal Reflection on Cognitivist and Constructivist Ideas

esporter — 2025-06-16 19:01:10 UTC

This chapter in Dr. Bates's book has been a fascinating read. I love the fact that there are so many classroom-friendly scenarios in which he suggests teacher candidates implement these theorems. His application suggestions for Dewey's Intelligent Action theory I felt were especially apt. Not forcing students to hold one viewpoint and, instead, empowering them to "discuss their feelings on a subject with their peers" is a fantastic place to start (B. Bates, 2023, p.45).