Theory

Even though I believe Social-constructivist theory should be used as a part of using the internet in the classroom especially for group project where interaction and discussion are needed to facilitate learning, my personal preference is cognitive theory.

            As known, cognitivist theory takes place in the knowledge of the classes. According to this theory, the amount of information should not be overwhelming. Therefore, if instructors think the amount of the class’ information to be able to do the assignment is too much, they might turn it to a simply practice.

To give an example in applying cognitive theory to instruction that incorporates Internet-based applications, instructions could design a class making students to watch a video to think about what they will learn and how to use this information in their last project/ assignment before each class. In this class, weekly practice based on these videos and a required text-book could be included. After all weeks, learners can have a project/assignment that is clearly aligned to the class’ educational purposes. During these practices, there might be a little part of social/constructive learning through online discussions between group members because instructions could need to make learners paired in some weeks’ assignment.

According to cognitive theory, the more deeply the information is processed, the more it will be committed to memory. Therefore, I believe there are many course works in need to be changed or modified.  In cognitive theory the idea about recalling the information is important. There is a principle about recalling information we learned before. If we cannot move information to long term memory, we are not able to keep it in our memory after 20-30 seconds. Some students need to hear or see just 2 times to hold information, whereas others need to hear 20 times to hold it, to replace it to long term memory. I experienced that while memorizing the English words 3 years ago. Repeating is not enough. Only repeating information in a particular time period is also crucial in memorizing something. During my English learning process 3 years ago, I bought a book in my language named Mega Memory. This book, its website and online practices taught me 300 new English words and their synonyms. Therefore, I have memorized totally 600 new English words. I never forget them now, even if I would like to forget them. This book, the website, and online practices are prepared by using the learning, memorizing and recalling theories of the information. There were flash cards and a story for each of word on this website. Moreover there were 2 different music CDs and the websites to visit for while memorizing and for while practicing. There were 20 words for each day. In each day I had to memorize 20 words in first 10 minutes. Right after 10 minutes, there were some practices like playing some online games about these 20 words on this website. In other days, before memorizing the new words, I had to the practice the all words I memorized until this day in practice part of this book. At the end of 15^th day, the book and the other online sources provides 300 new words and their synonyms memorized by you. After 15 days, that is 1 month later of the first day. I had to do first general practice of all words with flash cards which are on the website. Until being sure about I know every word’s meaning and their stories, I had to do this first general practice again and again. After 5 months, which is the 6 months later of first day, I had to do second general practice with an online cross puzzle. I had to solve 1 puzzle each of day that includes just 20 words as answers. After completing this online puzzle 15 days later, there was nothing to do to avoid forgetting them. I still remember all of them. I cannot forget them, even if I would like to forget them because I have learned these words with some stories about these words’ pronunciation which means different things in my native language. And these stories are meaningful for me and they present strong emotions to me.

In summary, time is really important in learning. I experienced this exactly in memorizing of the words as I mentioned above. So we need to aware of this reality in our teaching processes. 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 6 months are really crucial points especially in recalling some information. I am precisely sure about this reality should be used in foreign language classes as a teaching method in memorizing foreign words, especially in the classes used cognitivist theory. As for other classes, it can be used that this scientific reality repeating some key points about all domain each year of the specific dates like after 1 week or after 6 months for the same students through some internet-based sources. This could also be efficient for transferring their knowledge from one set of concepts to another, one school subject to another, one year of school to another, and across school and every day, non-school activities