The Information Processing Perspective
The Theory:
Information Processing perspective developed as a reaction to what was seen as
behavioralists' oversimplified theory of learning. In a
desire to explain complex behaviors such as language acquisition, where the environment
had little obvious influence on the speed of learning, Informational Processing
theorists took into consideration the function of memory in the learning process.
They claim that processes that occur internally in the human mind work similarly
to a computer processor.
The Practice:
With a certain scientific rigor, the Information Processing theory postulates
that learning is influenced by internal memory routines rather than external circumstances.
As a consequence, they claim that learning is made up of a simple sequence of
events, including attention, encoding and retrieval.
Learning is somewhat coldly described as a change in knowledge stored in memory,
an organized and active storage mechanism. In addition, students acquire information
objectively, with their memories mirroring exactly what exists in the world. This
point is the fundamental difference between the Information Processing Theory
and the Constructivist Theory, which believes that each learner
percieves information from an individual perspective, or a subjective point of
view.
Instructor's Role:
Information Processing theorists believe that a teacher's role is to create conditions
that nurture the memory process, including organizing information, linking new
knowledge and using questions, highlighting, analogies and mnemonics to help aid
in memory retrieval.
The overlap of theories