Cognitive strategy instruction is a method of teaching students routines that incorporate and promote cognitive modeling, or thinking aloud, self-instructional techniques and evaluation of performance (Vaughn & Bos, 2009). According to Rosenshine (1995), a cognitive strategy is "a heuristic or guide that serves to support or facilitate the learner as she or he develops the internal procedures that enable them to perform the higher level operations" (p. 266). The emphasis that Cognitive Strategy Instruction places on cognitive modeling, self-instruction and self-evaluation facilitates greater self-efficacy among students, particularly those with learning disabilities. Essentially, Cognitive Strategy Instruction teaches students how to learn using explicit frameworks, much in the same way as does operant learning. Cognitive Strategy Instruction requires that students analyze a task and the thinking process, or cognitive process, involved in completing the task (Vaughn & Bos, 2009). Cognitive Strategy Instruction incorporates aspects of operant learning, social learning theory and cognitive theory. The relationship between Cognitive Strategy Instruction and these three arenas of educational thought substantiates its success with students, particularly those with learning disabilities.
Cognitive Strategy Instruction operates under the same premise as does operant learning: behaviors can be learned, indicating that they can also be relearned or modified for more favorable outcomes. If behaviors can be learned, unlearned or modified, it follows that cognitive behaviors, or thinking processes, can also be learned, unlearned or modified. Operant learning seeks to reinforce positive behaviors and increase the likelihood of their reoccurrence while simultaneously decreasing the likelihood that negative behaviors will reoccur. In order to promote operant learning, teachers, administrators and researchers must be able to identify and tailor antecedents, or environmental factors that occur prior to a certain behavior and increase the likelihood of its recurrence, to promote positive behaviors. Manipulating situations so that they are favorable to learning is significant: a noisy classroom could negatively influence students’ ability to concentrate; a curriculum beyond students’ skill level could incite frustration; unclear instructions and expectations could muddy students’ ability to understand and fulfill their role in various situations. Guiding situations toward being positive learning environments increases the likelihood of experiencing desirable behaviors. While educators must be able to control antecedents, Vaughn and Bos (2009) assert that they must also be able to control consequences of certain behaviors; a student’s behavior, according to operant learning theory, “is controlled by the consequences that follow it” (p. 33). If a child speaks kindly to a peer and is congratulated on his or her prosocial behavior, he or she is more likely to speak kindly to peers in the future. If, however, a child speaks unkindly to a peer and is not reliably corrected, he or she is likely to continue speaking unkindly to peers.
Operant learning’s effectiveness relies primarily upon two conditions: the behavior on which students are assessed is already in their repertoire and the consequence of the behavior, be it positive or negative, must be delivered directly after the behavior’s occurrence or linked to the occurrence through language (Vaughn and Bos, 2009). Desirable behaviors are rewarded with positive reinforcement, which encourages students to increase the behavior. Likewise, undesirable behaviors are followed with negative reinforcement, which Vaughn and Bos (2009) explain as the “removal of a stimulus to increase responding” (p. 34). Negative reinforcement is not synonymous with punishment, but rather the removal of a negative stimulus, such as staying after school or receiving a dark look from a teacher. Vaughn and Bos (2009) refer to this as “avoidance learning,” in which a student ceases an undesirable behavior in order to avoid negative reinforcement (p. 34). The very nature of avoidance learning implies that student and teacher must have some sort of social relationship, which will be inspected at a later point.
Cognitive Strategy Instruction relies upon the same conditions as operant learning. Just as students cannot engage in behaviors that they have not yet learned, they cannot replicate cognitive processes to which they have not been introduced. Teaching a student a cognitive process is very similar to teaching him or her to tie a shoe: there are explicit steps that guide the individual through the process and ostensibly lead him or her to the desired outcome, which could be a successful, self-guided reading of a poem or a well-tied shoelace. It is essential to introduce students to new instrument of Cognitive Strategy Instruction by first modeling the relevant strategy for them. Additionally, giving students explicit instructions that guide them through a process allows them to refer back to the instructions when they are unsure of the next step. The individual modeling the relevant strategy for students should verbalize each step in the process, illustrating physically and audibly the various stages of the relative strategy. This is called cognitive modeling, or thinking aloud (Vaughn & Bos, 2009; Bronson & Merryman, 2011). Students should initially be encouraged to verbalize the various stages of the particular strategy; the students will gradually assimilate the instructions into their cognitive schemas and eventually direct themselves through the process toward the desired behavior without consciously referring back to the instructions. Students will learn to self-correct, or “self-instruct.”
Self-instruction is central to the effectiveness of Cognitive Strategy Instruction. The promotion and cultivation of self-instruction inherent in Cognitive Strategy Instruction can remedy learned helplessness. David Scanlon (2002) explains learned helplessness as a situation in which a “student learns to avoid failure or an uninteresting task by acting helpless” (p. 48). Learned helplessness is dangerous: students avoid foundational content skills and do not learn to think independently. The University of Miami’s Marjorie Montague and Samantha Dietz suggest that Cognitive Strategy Instruction is particularly relevant to students with learning disabilities (LD) in that they often have not independently developed strategies to facilitate problem-solving or struggle to assign an appropriate method of problem-solving and execution to a given task (2009). Additionally, students that are efficient and strategic learners possess a collection of strategies and skill sets and are able to negotiate when these varied skills are appropriate to a task. Strategic learners are able to self-direct, self-regulate and motivate themselves, in addition to generalize strategies across various content areas (Pressely, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987). Cognitive Strategy Instruction allows teachers to direct students explicitly in identifying and applying appropriate problem-solving strategies, yielding more strategic learners and facilitating self-efficacy.
Research indicates that if students do not possess appropriate problem-solving skills, they can actually be taught how to think (Montague and Dietz, 2009). Thinking is a cognitive, or mental, process; cognitive theory relates to mental processes. Mental processes are expedited or impeded by an individual’s processing speed, which relates to one’s brain plasticity. Brain plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change as an individual learns (Murphy et al., 2011). The Salk Institute (2001) has demonstrated that brain plasticity is not finite; students’ mental processing speeds can be enhanced. Salk researchers’ findings indicate that exercising the brain facilitates new neural development and strengthens frequently used neural paths, increasing mental processing speeds. Cognitive behavior theory investigates the ways in which individuals think, or the actual behavioral aspects behind thinking. Although some children are able to learn basic skills, like subconsciously grouping similar and dissimilar objects, writing complete sentences or extracting the main idea from a reading passage, others are unable to learn these tasks unless they are taught how to complete the tasks. Herein lies the particular value of Cognitive Strategy Instruction as it relates to cognitive theory: Cognitive Strategy Instruction teaches students to think in a specific way, which increases the efficiency of their cognitive processes, or thought processes. If a student spends a great deal of time trying to figure out how to approach a situation, or how to solve a given problem, and then muddles through the process with the method he selected, which may or may not be appropriate, his thinking is not efficient. Cognitive Strategy Instruction increases cognitive efficiency.
Social learning theory bridges operant learning and cognitive theory. Social theory is underpinned by a belief that individuals can learn from other individuals through observation, imitation and modeling, but also by a belief that learning relies on many cognitive processes, like being aware of and able to anticipate reinforcements for desirable behavior (Ormrod, 1999). Social learning places a premium on the value of social interactions, emphasizing students’ awareness of and reaction to others’ assessment of their behavior, be it social or academic. Purcell-Gates, Jacobsen, and Degener (2004) believe that the cognitive occurs in a sociocultural context and that both are necessary for educational success; this can be achieved using Cognitive Strategy Instruction. For example, if a positive reinforcement for completing a task according to a Cognitive Strategy Insturction is a kind word from a teacher, the student must value that teacher’s praise in order for it to be a reinforcer. The cognitive processes involved in moving through the Cognitive Strategy Instruction to complete the given task are expended for the sake of receiving positive reinforcement from the teacher, which in this case is praise. This proposed situation illustrates the connection between operant behavior, social learning theory and cognitive theory as they relate to Cognitive Strategy Instruction.
There are many variations of Cognitive Strategy Instruction, but all cognitive strategies share a common goal: they seek to teach students to interact with content such that they become more deliberate, self-directed and self-regulated learners (Jitendra, Burgess and Gajira, 2011). This is of particular significance for students with learning or behavior problems that may not be able to regulate their behavioral or cognitive processes independently. Deshler et al. (2001) found that Cognitive Strategy Instruction is effective with students with learning disabilities because of its “self-cueing and self-monitoring … help students become independent learners.” This combats learned helplessness. Students should be able to apply Cognitive Strategy Instruct instruments in multiple classes rather than only in the specific classroom of the teacher that taught the student the strategy (Scanlon, 2002).
One example of implementing Cognitive Strategy Instruction for math for students with learning disabilities is evidenced by Chung and Tam (2005), whose model is based on Marjorie Montague’s 1992 cognitive strategy. Montague’s procedure was entitled SAY, ASK, CHECK (Montague, 2008) and involved saying the problem aloud, asking relevant questions and checking one’s answer. Chung and Tam elaborated on Montague’s original procedure and generated the following steps:
l. Read the problem out loud.
2. Select the important information.
3. Draw a representation of the problem.
4. Write down the steps for doing the computation.
5. Check the answer.
Both Montague’s 1992 Cognitive Strategy Instruction and Chang and Tam’s 2005 instruments of Cognitive Strategy Instruction sought to improve the mathematical abilities of students with learning disabilities by providing explicit steps to direct students through problem-solving (Montague, 2008). Both instruments of instruction promoted strategic and self-regulated learning in that students could apply the relative strategy and, by moving through the strategy’s stages and constantly referring back to the strategy as a guide, self-regulate their progress toward the end goal of successfully solving a math problem (Montague, 2008). Students did not move blindly through the problems but followed explicit strategies designed to enhance their academic success and increase their self-efficacy.
Tools of the Mind classrooms, though not specifically developed for students with learning disabilities, are microcosmic testaments to the powers of Cognitive Strategy Instruction. Tools classrooms promote self-regulation from students’ first day at school by engaging in very structured daily routines so that students can anticipate their schedule and learn to self-navigate through the day by cognitively preparing themselves for upcoming activities. Each day, students make a “play plan,” which they will act out during a very scripted 45-minute play period. If students deviate from the plan, their instructor asks simply, “Is that in your play plan?” The child is then able to redirect himself to his self-determined plan for the 45-minute period and self-regulate his behavior so that he once again is aligned with his play plan (Bronson & Merryman, 2011).
Another salient example of Tools of the Mind classrooms’ reliance upon Cognitive Strategy Instruction is Tools’ embracement of promoting self-reflection and self-regulation. Students in Tools classrooms talk themselves through their daily activities. When they write letters, they repeat verbalize the instructions first modeled by their teachers. The students continue to verbalize and then, without being told to stop, begin to internalize the words and engage in a thought-conversation (Bronson & Merryman, 2011). Students are also provided with examples of a “good” letter and then asked to choose the letter they drew that most closely resembles the “good” letter modeled for them. In this way, students learn to reflect on their work and analyze whether or not they have demonstrated an adequate skill level and degree of effort (Bronson & Merryman, 2011). This increases their self-efficacy, as do many other exercises in Tools classrooms.
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