Week Two: Blog Reflection

Activity 3: Blog Reflection - Given what you have read about cognitive psychology in the first chapter, what do you believe is the benefit to understanding these concepts as you go to design instruction in your particular situation? Why is understanding cognitive psychological principles more important than Freudian analysis or post-modern scream therapy principles better for an educational setting?

Activity 3: Week 2 (Blog Reflection)

Understanding the foundational principles of cognitive psychology has many benefits. For instance, the main basis of every human thought or reaction is centered upon each person’s respective “mental map” or cognitive schema. With this being the case, the only field that studies how the human framework of the mind works is: cognitive psychology. One of my favorite things about cognitive psychology and it s relation to instructional design is that through the study of it an individual can actually see the premise of “perception is reality come to life.” For example, even the best piece of instructional design is usually faulty at best if how a person interprets that piece of instruction cognitively is off base. I believe that we as individuals are more bound to cognitive framework then we actually believe. For instance, although this would not be ethical, babies could be conditioned similar to the way Pavlov did with the salivating dogs through Behaviorism. Also, once you understand the cognitive framework of the mind, the instruction that you design as whole will be much better off because the user. Audience will be able to interpret the instruction on more than just the surface level. This fact is evidenced by the fact that many people want to know why we as humans think so drastically different from each other. Cognitive psychology explores this. However, as mentioned in Chapter 1, one of the best things about this fact is that each human is shaped by his or her own unique experiences as framed through their mind. So, even individuals with the same upbringing and backgrounds can be completely different.

As far as understanding cognitive psychology being more important than Freudian analysis or post-modern scream therapy, cognitive psychology is more important in an education setting because it is less invasive when it comes to methodology and is more applicable to a wider variety of people. Also, I don’t think that either of the aforementioned approaches would work well as well ethically due to the current laws of medicine. Also, the foundation of an educational setting is learning, which is done via the mind.