Cognitive Psychology/Information Processing Case Study Analysis

Case 1
1. This is an interesting approach to learning that allows students to understand the perceptions of those who fought in this battle by gaining their own perceptions through a mock experience. This type of information processing allows students to engage in meaningful learning as they apply their new information and experiences to their prior schema's. Chances are that the students will have some major accommodations made in their existing schema's. These students will remember the feelings they associate with experience. As they encode declarative knowledge through procedural and conditional means, they will have a stronger long term-memory because they will have a broader range of understanding when they need to retrieve the information.
Text book reading induces far fewer kinesthetic processes and the procedural technique of reading often precludes attentiveness. Thus, the hands-on experience is far more likely to be filed into long-term memory.
2. Students emotions are strongly engaged in this hands-on learning process. A lot of what they are feeling is processed through the Amygdala which is the processing center for emotion. It is interesting that post-traumatic stress disorder is an amygdalic condition. It is plausible that students might understand some of the fear that these soldiers experience many years ago in battle. Sensory memory receives input from our five senses, so when all five senses are being engaged in learning, we conceivable are five times as likely to remember the event. As we use our five senses we retrieve previous understandings of what we are experiencing, and the emotions that are associated with those previous experiences. Thus, our emotions become tied with the input that our five senses are extending to our sensory memory.
3. During this experience, Mr. West's class largely engaged their visual/spacial storage unit. This should be followed up with auditory input to complete the dual-processing mode of learning. In this way, the information the students learned is likely to be cemented in their memory for easy retrieval. An interesting way for Mr. West to supply an auditory rehearsal of their experience would be for the students to report on what they experienced and how it impacted them. In this way, students would not only get the perspectives of their peers, but the information would be processed again in an auditory fashion to compliment their visual/spacial experience.

Case 2
4. I would definitely prefer to be in Mr. Richard's class. Although the students do not know what to expect in advance of their arrival, they are supplied with an advanced organizer to help them get a vision for where the classroom learning will lead. Mr. Dunkin's students know exactly what to expect as far as learning style, but not necessarily according to learning content. Mr. Richards engages in dual-processing teaching to allow students to process information in a variety of ways. This allows the students to implement knew knowledge with existing knowledge by assimilation.
5. It is likely that Mr. Dunkin's students will retain information through maintenance rehearsal long enough to regurgitate it on the Friday exam they are expecting. Mr. Richard's students are using their long term memory to assimilate and accommodate the new information and are more likely to retain the new information in their long-term memory. This is beneficial for their pop quizzes because they are already prepared.