Cognitive Tools for Effective Teaching
Cognitive tools make teaching and learning easy and effective. Viewing learning as a student-centered and dynamic process where learners are active participants, it strives to understand the reasons behind behavioural patterns. Students are in control of their own learning (what a relief for a teacher, don't you think!?) and are guided towards autonomous learning, where the motives are intrinsic and learning is meaningful.
Cognitive approach in teaching includes helping your students understand themselves, and recognize their own preferred ways of working, thinking and learning. It also shares the tools for understanding and visualizing the more complex thoughts by analyzing and categorizing them. The teacher should also model her own way of thinking by showing the steps how she found the solution and explain students how there usually are more than just one way to accomplish the given task. One great tool for this is making students explain each other what they think. With a very small practice it is easy to engage even the very young students into this sharing and explaining.
