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38 2 Learning in the Context of Technologies

ACT-R model of information processing (see http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/publication/).
Information processing theory involves how people receive, store, integrate,
retrieve, and use information. The basic idea of the information processing theory is
that the human mind is like a computer or information processor.
This model proposes that information is processed and stored in three stages:
sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. They are assumed to
receive information from environment and transform it for storage and use in
memory and performance (Huitt, 2003).

• A learner’s environment activates the receptors (sense), and information is then
transmitted through the sensory memory to short-term memory in selected and
recognizable patterns (7 plus or minus 2 chunks of information). The infor-
mation is held in short-term memory for about 20–30 s (unless rehearsed), and
then, the information to be acquired is transformed by a process known as
semantic encoding to a form that enters long-term memory (Cognitivism and
Gagne’s Model of Learning, 1970). With sensory memory, learners perceive
organized patterns in the environment and begin the process of recognizing and
coding these patterns.
• Short-term memory (working memory) permits the learner to hold information
briefly in mind to make further sense of it and to connect it with other infor-
mation that is already in long-term memory.
• Long-term memory enables the learner to remember and apply information long
after it was originally learned.

Impact on teaching
As a cognitive psychologist, Gagné (1985) proposed nine events of instruction
and conditions of learning as effective means to activate and support the processes
of information processing. Table 2.1 shows these instructional events in the left
column and the associated internal mental process in the right column.

The impact on teaching from cognitivism is as the following:

(1) In the design of computer-aided instruction, people began to pay attention to
the internal psychological process of learners and then began to study and
emphasize the learners’ psychological characteristics and cognitive structures.
(2) Educators no longer regard learning as the learner’s passive response to
external stimuli, but consider learning as involving attitudes, needs, interests,
hobbies, and cognitive structures.
(3) The teacher’s task is to try to arouse the learners’ interest and motivation and
then combine the current teaching content with the original knowledge and
experience of the learners.