Week 7 Lecture on Fact and Concept Learning

Instructional Strategies for i) Declarative Knowledge (Fact) and ii) Concept Learning are covered in this week's lecture.

Fact Learning (Declarative Knowledge)

Declarative knowledge, Fact and Verbal information are terms that can be used interchangably. Facts may be taught for its own sake or may be taught as a pre-requisite to other types of learning e.g. concept learning, procedural learning, psychomoter learning and problem-solving learning.

Facts involves "knowing that" something is the case. Fact Learning involves memorizing an association between two or more entities. There are 3 different categories of Fact Learning namely:

1. Labels and names: This involves pairing of information and requires the learner to mentally make a direct link between two elements. The learning of labels and names do not necessarily require learning the meaning of the two linked ideas, but rather learning that one thing links to another. However, being able to associate the item and its meaning facilitates easier learning. An example is the learning of a foreign language vocabulary.
2. Facts and lists: Fact - statement that describes a relationship between concepts. List - group of elements that must be remembered together. Facts and lists may be learned as individual facts or as networks of interconnected information. However, the more isolated the fact is, the more difficult it is to learn. Integrating facts with prior knowledge makes learning easier. An example of an isolated fact is the closing time of the library while an example of a list are the metal elements of the periodic table.
3. Organized discourse: This is an extensive body of information which may come in the form of a prose or essay. Learning is accomplished through reading an expository text, then interpreting the threads of meanings contained within. To facilitate easier learning, the discourse must be tied in to prior knowledge. An example is an academic journal.

There are 3 instructional strategies for Fact Learning and these are also the 3 critical cognitive activities that learners need to engage in when learning declarative knowledge.

1. Linking: Tying new facts to learner's prior knowledge. Information is meaningful when we have prior knowledge that links to it. The result of linking is the construction of meaning and preferably instrinsic meaning. Without prior knowledge to link to, learners have to employ artificial links, based on surface similarities OR resort to rote repetition.
2. Organizing: Chunking simplifies the cognitive load of handling and remembering large masses of data. Organization adds meaning by placing unfamiliar information into some existing "slot". Slots aid recall by being a beginning point for recall or limit activation of memory to a smaller area.
3. Elaborating: Achieved by filling in gaps, making inferences and imagining examples. Elaboration is a process by which links are made within the received information as well as for connecting the received information to prior knowledge. When learners receive new information, they add to it so that it makes sense and to make information more retrievable.

Concept Learning

Concept Learning involves "Knowing the meaning of ..." or "Knowing what ... is". It is a form of Intellectual Skill that involves applying knowledge across previously unencountered instances.

A concept is "a set of objects, events or symbols grouped together on the basis of shared characteristics and is referenced by a particular name of symbol". There are 2 kinds of concepts:

1. Concrete concept: Those which have physically perceivable characteristics which may be discerned by the physical senses like sight, smell, touch, taste, etc. An example is 'pulley'.
2. Abstract concept: Those which fit a particular definition and are not perceivable by their appearance. An example is 'profit'.

Furthermore, Concepts have 3 kinds of attributes namely:

1. Intrinsic attribute: invariant property of an observable thing or class of things that can be pointed to.
2. Functional attribute (a variable attribute): how something works and what its use might be.
3. Relational attribute (also a variable attribute): a quality a concept possesses defined in terms of something else.

The detailed steps for Fact and Concept Learning are found at the end of the summary for the reading and the elaboration for each step can be found in the reading itself. It is lengthy and thus shall not be repeated here.

So, having covered Declarative Knowledge and Concept Learning, I am looking forward to Procedural learning, Psychomoter learning and Problem-solving learning which will probably be introduced in the coming weeks.