Teaching students applied cognitive psychology

This article presents a lesson to teach students about top-down and bottom-up processing, as a key metacognitive strategy. The article provides images to use as a discussion trigger, to hel... See More

This article presents a lesson to teach students about top-down and bottom-up processing, as a key metacognitive strategy. The article provides images to use as a discussion trigger, to help students analyze their own thinking patterns. My gifted students often get swept away with top-down thinking; they tend to apply background knowledge before using their analytical skills. This is an excellent lesson, to point out how and why they should slow down, and think about their thinking.

Ways to use metacognition with students

Deborah Lovrich shows the differences in top down ( using previous experience and knowledge is used to help identify stimuli ) and bottom up (when simple characteristics of stimuli are used ... See More

Deborah Lovrich shows the differences in top down ( using previous experience and knowledge is used to help identify stimuli ) and bottom up (when simple characteristics of stimuli are used and put into a pattern) thinking and teaching students when to use these metacognition strategies. Of particular note using metacognition with a test question from the New York State Living Regents Examination in Living Environment.