Cognitivism
Definition
For the moment, just a little quote from a web page (which we will shorten down and complete by other stuff).
The cognitivistic school "went inside the head of the learner" so to speak in that they made mental processes the primary object of study and tried to discover and model the mental processes on the part of the learner during the learning-process. In Cognitive theories knowledge is viewed as symbolic, mental constructions in the minds of individuals, and learning becomes the process of comitting these symbolic representations to memory where they may be processed. The development of computers with a strict "input - processing - output architechture" from the 1960s and up till today certainly have inspired these "information-processing" views of learning.
In sum the cognitive approach & cognitive theories emerged as a new perspective employing "information-processing ideas" rather than the behavioristic assumptions that the learner is determined by his environments and so passively adapts to the circumstances.This cognitivistic view emphasized the active mental processing on the part of the learner. However knowledge was still viewed as given and absolute just like in the behavioristic school.
( CSCL - a brief overview & interesting links for further study )
- Cognitivism and the some variants of Constructivism adopt a rationalist stance. See also: Cognitive constructivism.
Cognitivism and Education
Cognitivist teaching methods aim to assist students in assimilating new information to existing knowledge, and enabling them to make the appropriate modifications to their existing intellectual framework to accommodate that information. Thus, while cognitivists allow for the use of "skill and drill" exercises in the memorization of facts, formulae, and lists, they place greater importance on strategies that help students to actively assimilate and accommodate new material (Cognitive Constructivism)