Enhancing Cognitive Development Through Effective Teaching Strategies

Common Principles of Teaching Programs

The teaching of strategies has led to the design of cognitive improvement programs consistent in providing students with development-oriented activities of cognitive functioning. Largely based on rigorous research, it has been shown that intelligence is amendable and not fixed, as classically thought. Theories such as those by S. Gardner and Enrberg have helped establish the theoretical foundation of the psychology of instruction by a considerable shift, despite the disagreement over the terminology to use. For example, S. Enrberg (1986) gives preference to the development of intelligence, while Feuers, Hoffman, and Miller (1980) use the term "modifiability." Chipman & Glaser (1985) lean toward the term "Teaching Thinking." In the diversity of programs available today, we see that they differ in two important respects if we observe the objectives that these programs aim to achieve. Thus, we find programs whose objectives are aimed at improving or developing intelligence, focusing on skills and processes that promote operational reasoning, while others are fixed in thought processes as subject matter and even try to emphasize the importance of teaching methods.

Difference Between Behaviorism and Cognitivism

• Observational learning
• Contributions of behavioral psychology to education
• What constitutes learning?
• Methodological strategies for learning
• Functions of Steinberg's intellectual styles

Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT)

TTCT designs are based on the conception of creativity. Its purpose is to assess children's creativity by evaluating the four components of creativity: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. The test involves using different modes of thought and consists of two subtests:

1. Verbal Tests: The objective is to assess the pupil's ability to use imagination through language. It has seven subtests:
   • Asking questions to stimuli
   • Imagining reasons to support ideas
   • Imagining inferred consequences of the stimulus
   • Developing ways to refine an object
   • Developing procedures for using a novel object
   • Formulating original questions
   • Imagining unreal situations
2. Figurative Expression Tests: The objective is to assess the level of imagination through drawings. It consists of three subtests:
   • Composing a drawing
   • Finishing a drawing
   • Creating different compositions using parallel lines