COGNITIVE TOOLS

DEFINITION - COGNITION -
The mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, understanding and recalling information.



WHAT ARE COGNITIVE TOOLS?


Cognitive tools and environments activate cognitive learning strategies and critical thinking. They are computationally based tools that complement and extend the mind. They engage generative processing of information (Wittrock, 1974). In generative processing, deeper information processing results from activating appropriate mental models, using them to interpret new information, assimilating new information back into those models, reorganizing the models in light of the newly interpreted information, and then using those newly aggrandized models to explain, interpret, or infer new knowledge (Rumelhart & Norman,1978). Knowledge acquisition and integration, according to these definitions, is a constructive process, so when using cognitive tools, learners engage in knowledge construction rather than knowledge reproduction.






CRITICAL REFLECTION
It is from Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development that we have found and created tools that help to assist further the cognitive development of students. Cognitive development concerns our abilities to reason, think, understand and remember the world around us. To do this we use processes that involve attendint to, understanding, recalling information and perceiving. We can enahance our Cognitive Development by using cognitive tools.