Syllabus

P540 Learning and Cognition in Education

• Instructor Information
• Course Description
• Course Requirements & Assessment
• Readings/Course Materials
• Technology Requirements
• Submitting Assignments

Instructor: David Perry

Office: Evaluation Services & Testing, Franklin Hall M005,
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-1223

Phone: 812/855-9025 Fax: 812/855-8404

Email: jdperry@indiana.edu

As you might imagine, my involvement with theories of learning and cognition has been principally as a practitioner; that is, as someone who seeks to understand how people learn in order to better understand how to teach or design instructional materials. I have an undergraduate degree from IU in Telecommunications. My doctorate, also from IU,  is in instructional design and development, with a cognate in instructional psychology. 

Throughout the course, I encourage you to talk with me anytime you have a question, idea, problem, or concern. I should normally be able to respond to email within 24 hours, often sooner. If you're in or near Bloomington, a face-to-face meeting is always welcome.

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In this course we will look at several different theoretical perspectives on learning, cognition, and cognitive development. As we'll see, no single theory can account for all aspects of human learning. By looking at a variety of theoretical perspectives, we can identify a range of tools that may be useful in understanding learning and teaching in a variety of settings.

Our primary goals will be

• to become conversant with the basic assumptions, concepts, and principles of each theory
• to determine the possible implications of each theory for instructional settings
• to compare their usefulness in the various settings of interest to you and other educational professionals.

Learning activities will include reading, writing, and participating in group assignments and discussions via the Internet.

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Required text: Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction, 3rd edition. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

This book can be obtained from the TIS Bookstore. For those students not in the Bloomington area, TIS can arrange to send the texts to you. They have a toll-free phone number especially for distance learning students: 1-800-238-1229. You can also email them at bookmark@tisbook.com.

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1. Application papers. Three short (3 single-spaced pages maximum) papers will be due during the semester. Your task in these papers is to evaluate one or more theories or approaches from the perspective of an educational setting, issue, or problem of importance to you. Here are some additional guidelines and samples for the papers.

   I will gladly review drafts of your papers before you submit the final version. However, to do so, I will need to receive your draft at least 5 days before the due date.

2. Course participation. Because of the nature of this class, your completion of weekly activities and regular participation in course discussions will be essential to your success in the course. I will not assign individual letter grades to the unit activities; you will receive full credit for them if you have responded in a thoughtful and timely manner. At about the midpoint of the semester, I will give you individual feedback on your course participation performance to date. (Note: Even though most of the learning activities will be completed in small groups, your participation credit will be based almost entirely on your own input; therefore, "free-riding" is not an issue in this course.) Course discussions will take place over a Web-based conferencing system.

3. Final examination. This will be a "take-home" essay exam. I will post the questions at least two weeks before the exam is due.

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You will need to have regular (at least three times weekly) access to a computer with email and web browsing capabilities. You should use a recent version of Netscape or Internet Explorer for your web browser. If anything on the P540 site appears to be "broken", or if you can't figure out how to use the conferencing system, please let me know. However, you should be aware that, in general, I will not be able to provide you with technical support. Any technical questions need to be directed to Indiana University computing services (ucshelp@indiana.edu) or your Internet service provider.

The technology skills you will need to succeed in the course are a basic familiarity with the Web and your own Web browser, email, and word processing.

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You'll submit most of the unit activities by posting them on the course conference. Your papers, exams, and some activities will be submitted directly to me. For these, you will have at least three options:

E-mail. Sending your paper as an attachment to e-mail (jdperry@indiana.edu) is probably the easiest method for both of us. An acceptable alternative is to simply cut and paste your text from a word processor into the body of an e-mail message. (Just be aware that you'll probably lose any special formatting such as underlining, italics, or large fonts.)

Fax. If you prefer, you can fax the assignment to me at 812/855-8404. Be sure to include a cover page that has my name on it.

"Snail" mail. Finally, you can always submit an assignment through the US mail. Just be sure you send it early enough for me to receive it by the due date.

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