Week 5 Cognition

1) The two things that I think would be the most helpful in teaching are mnemonic devices and attention getters. When I was a kid it was hard to memorize things sometimes but when given a way to memorize it it seemed to stick better. Like ROY G BIV. That was a great way to remember colors of the rainbow. Another one of my favorites was one I learned in music class, FACE for the space notes and Evert Good Boy Does Fine for the line notes. Those helped me to always remember what they were. It works the same way for many people. once they are given something to help them remember it sticks. Attention getters are also a good way to make sure the child stays with you during a lesson. It is good at the beginning of the lesson but during it the lesson must still be able to grab a child's attention or it will not stick.

2) Low road transfer is the transfer of highly practiced skills with little or no need for reflection. An example of this would be like driving a car. you don't have to be familiar with an area to drive through it. You know that when you see a stop sign you break and that a speed limit sign tells you how fast you should be going. It becomes almost like muscle memory. Another example would be a practiced typist. Someone that knows the keyboard well and does not have to OK at it in order to type out a sentence. (unlike me)
High road transfer is the purposeful use or application of knowledge, skills, principles or strategy learned in one situation to a completely different situation. This would be like writing letters for the first time. Many children know the alphabet but transferring that to pencil requires effort. So writing letters for the first time can take time. Another example would be teaching in a second language. Many people speak a second language here in Utah but don't have the required vocabulary to speak outside of social situations. This would require a lot more adaption and effort.

3) At a younger age when everything is new I think that it would be more high road transfer because the children have very little experience in anything. Much of what they do is based off of other tasks that they have previously learned to do. But I think as they get older it changes from high to low road thinking because they move on from learning the basics to higher levels of study that use the basics to support them, like reading a book for comprehension

4) Math is where I have used algorithms the most. That is a place where they are really needed too. I have used heuristics in projects. It was a way for me to break down my goal into smaller parts that were more achievable and it allowed me to get things done.