1) Define Gestalt Theory and explain its characteristics

Gestalt Theory is where humans are said to be predisposed to finding patterns and
organizing those patterns in our minds. Our brains automatically try to group items
together. My school just began a program with our students call Number Talks. Each
day we give our students a visual and then we ask What number do you see and how do you
see it? For example I would give the following:

I have students who say, I see 7. I see it as 4 + 3=7. I may have another child say, I
see 7, but I see it as 5 + 2= 7. This allows me as a teacher to also see how these students
are organizing these dots in their brains. (Hopefully this is what you were looking for.)
Another great example of this is the image of the old lady and a princess. Depending on
how which way the picture is turned depends on what you see.

Define Information Processing and the three types of memory

Information Processing is the process in which a person takes in information and what
their brain does with the information. There are 3 types of memory
1. sensory register- filter out distractions or unwanted stimuli (takes less than 1
second)
2. short term (working memory)- responsible for processing and storage of
information. How do we deal with new informationvisualize it or make a
phonological loop.
3. long term memory- where we hold information indefinitely. We are able to pull
information from long term memory to help us with working memory when needed.
We are able to go back and forth with working and long term memory with encoding and
retrieval.

2) Please complete the following analysis problem:

I created a flow chart of a student learning about the types of angles in a triangle. The
student is able to use his working memory and because the learning is meaningful he is able
to store it in his long term memory. When he is in a high school Geometry class he is able
to retrieval what he knows about angles do to his prior experience in 2nd grade.
3) What is potentially useful about verbal learning research and related learning
curves?
Looking closely at verbal learning research and the related learning curve allows us to
better understand our students thinking. How do they link items together, what is their
learning speed, what stage (beginning, middle, end) do they recall best? We can see at
which point they are learning the best. It would allow us to adjust our lessons to maximize
the learning for students. If students learn best at the beginning of a lesson then we
need to work hard to activate the prior knowledge and to gain their attention quickly. If
the learning curves show that students lose information in the middle then we can work to
strength that part of the lesson.
Explain the difference between procedural and declarative knowledge and provide an
example of each.
Declarative knowledge is basic facts and concepts. Procedural knowledge is the process of
how to do things. In 2nd grade I teach my students about a dictionary. The declarative
knowledge that they gain is that words are in ABC order, at the top of the page there are
guide words, a dictionary gives a punctuation guide, part of speech, spelling and definition
of the word. These are all facts about the dictionary. The procedural knowledge is how do
I use the dictionary. These is a long process for many students. They have the
declarative knowledge down pat but process of looking up a word and using the dictionary
is very difficult.