Cognitive Psychology/Information Processing Case Study Analysis

1. After participating in this activity, what do you think the students will remember? How might those memories differ from those students would have if they only read about the Civil War in their textbook? The differentiation that those students got to experience while learning are drastically different than those of the students that read it from the textbook. Its hands on and not only will the students remember what happened but they will mostly likely remember the people that experienced those conditions too.

2. How does Mr. West’s use of a Civil War re-enactment engage students’ emotions? What is the relationship between emotions and learning? It evokes emotions from the students about the topic that they didn't know before that experience. They learn that those people were real and can put a face and name to them. They can relate in some way to all of those people. Emotions make up our memory. Every memory I have can be related to an extreme emotion that I experienced at that time.

3. Based on the principles of dual-coding theory, what activities would be effective for Mr. West to use as a follow-up to the re-enactment? Mr. West can be effective for the students to read about the events as well. It is combining their visual knowledge/experience with a reading assignment and then a discussion.

4. Who do you think provides better instruction for his students? Support your answer from an information processing perspective. I believe Mr. Richards provides better instruction. His method allows for differentiation for all learning types and keeps the attention of more of the students. He actually requires the students to think and use their minds. In Mr. Dunkin's class students are simply taught what to think and how to memorize facts, not to think through problems and come to their own conclusions.

5. How would you expect the students’ learning outcomes to differ depending on which teacher they had? Like I said above, students will have an array of methods to process information and reach their own conclusions rather then only being able to act based on what they have been told by others.