Kim Un Gyong, teacher from Faculty of Social Sciences is developing the high ability of creation and inquiry of students to make them active learners and pursuers by applying the principle of association in psychology lecture.
In lectures, students’ cognition is formed through the process of having a general idea related to the content of lecture and understanding the essence by analyzing and synthesizing it. In order to make such process active, positive and creative for students, the lecturer should actively apply the principle of association to lectures.
First of all, it is good to provide students with enough ideas about the content of the lecture by similar association through preparation process.
Enough ideas about the content of the lecture is the premise and basis for students to understand the essence correctly.
For example, in the lecture on senses and perception, we can present 3D image which shows the tactual process of the pilot and the reality imitation which shows artificial arms receiving different stimulations and feeling senses simultaneously, and then, through it, present the problem to explain about the sense process theoretically as preparation assignment..
First, students get plenty of vivid ideas about the tactual process of the pilot through the animation clips applied with virtual reality technique. After that they realize the sense process of artificial arms which are common in simulation amount, signal transmission speed, neural network etc. at the same time by applying similar association.
Such interpretation process based on similar association let students understand the tactual process correctly.
As such, combining teaching aids rationally like multimedia programs applied with virtual reality technology and their reality imitations appropriately so that students could associate with each other may help students accurately understand the principles of psychological phenomena.
Next, it is important to let students recognize the essence in correlation with other objects and interpret it deeply by applying comparison association.
To apply comparison association on the general ideas of different objects actively is very important for students to recognize and interpret the essence correctly.
For example, we can suggest a critical thinking problem - “Indicate the essential difference which distinguishes imagination from other types of cognition.”- so that students could apply comparison association to the process of sense, perception and thinking already learned in order to make them understand the essence of imagination.
Then they recognize the essential characteristics of imagination by themselves through the process of finding out various differences such as the fact that imagination is a cognition process about objects not experienced directly, unlike sense and perception that happens contacting to object directly, and that imagination forms vivid images about objects, while thinking helps them to understand the essence and law of objects.
Suppose that we fix the essence of imagination as an independent thinking item and educate it to students. Then we could find the limitation that the knowledge structure of students is not organized systematically.
The essence of imagination that students recognize through comparison is engraved deep in their memory and then is applied to engineering knowledge learning process, and leads to conceptions and inventions of new objects.
Another step is to develop the creative thinking ability of students by using the principle of association actively on occasions of practice.
For example, in order to improve the memory ability of students, we can set a problem of memorizing the serial, “8494338851956789123890175” and explain the requirements to memorize quantities of numbers like this.
This is a problem whereby students’ ability of applying their knowledge to practical use and their creative thinking ability could be estimated at the same time.
The general method of memorizing numbers is the number pictorial interpretation technique exaggerating the numbers interestingly according to their shape and type.
We can keep the content in the brain by drawing it in a vivid picture like making a story by creating a fantastic idea and referencing it in more detailed ways as if the story goes on just in front of our eyes.
In this way, students can newly recognize the principle that remembering objects with certain meaning in correlation with features such as the shape, sound and color of them or various things such as the meaning of word and emotion etc. is much easier and lasts longer in their memory.
Particularly, they could naturally recognize the principle that if they have the inner connection with the previous knowledge rather than the external ones such as the shape of objects or the psychological experiences like emotions when they interpret, then, the meanings added could be more practical and significant in the creation of a new object.
As above mentioned, thanks to the association method, students can understand the essence actively and positively with high enthusiasm for study and also develop their ability to search new principles themselves in the process.
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