In my previous article, “An evidence-based model of memory to help you learn better,” we reviewed the popular but increasingly antiquated modal model of memory. We then discussed Craik and Lockhart’s 1972 reconceptualization of the modal model, what they call the levels of processing approach. We then concluded the article by briefly discussing what the authors meant by the term “deep” processing (since it is by deeply processing stimuli that more durable and robust memory traces are formed).
In this article, I’d like to pick up where we left off and dig a little deeper into what Craik and Lockhart call “elaborative encoding,” or what’s known more generally as “elaborative processing.” After examining how they define and use the concept, I will examine elaborative processing in terms of dialectical forms of cognition, demonstrating that “elaborative processing” is merely code for dialectical thinking. I will conclude by discussing the problem of disciplinary boundaries and a fractured, inchoate curriculum in K-12 public education considering what we know about how people learn best.
Here’s an extended quote from Craik and Lockhart’s 1972 paper (email me for a copy):
“This conception of a series or hierarchy of processing stages is often referred to as ‘depth of processing’ where greater ‘depth’ implies a greater degree of semantic and cognitive analysis. After the stimulus has been recognized, it may undergo further processing by enrichment or elaboration. For example, after a word is recognized, it may trigger associations, images or stories on the basis of the subject’s past experience with the word.”
From this excerpt we can see that the authors define elaborative processing in terms of essentially the semantic and associative “stages” of perceptual analysis. For example, after a learner recognizes or identifies a proposition from a text by matching that proposition with previously learned propositions, the learner may choose to elaboratively process the proposition by enriching its semantic content or meaning (e.g., developing a more nuanced and sophisticated representation of a state of affairs), or by associating that proposition with related but cognitively “distant” propositions, or perhaps even situating it within a larger theoretical formation or cognitive schema structure.
Thus, for the authors, to process a stimulus deeply is to enrich its meaning and/or to enrich its associations with closely (or even tangentially) related content in episodic or sematic memory. These two methods for enriching a memory trace are then precisely what the authors mean by elaborative processing. It follows, then, that if we want students to not only comprehend, but to remember, the curriculum that is being taught, then we need to teach students how to elaboratively process new content. In other words, if the instructional desideratum is the durable learning of nuanced and sophisticated content, then it would seem imperative that teachers explicitly instruct students (perhaps via cognitive modeling strategies) both general and domain-specific strategies for elaboratively processing the content that they are teaching.
But let’s think a little deeper (ha!) about what is meant by “elaborating” curricular content. In essence, to elaboratively process some “chunk” of curricular content is merely to make connections between it and what the student already knows. It means situating something novel within an already elaborated network of meanings, assumptions, beliefs, doubts, knowledges, etc. To make connections among seemingly unrelated phenomena is to practice a dialectical mode of thinking. In a very meaningful sense, therefore, elaborative processing is just a cognitive psychologist’s code for the dialectic, for a dialectical (and therefore totalizing) approach toward semantically organizing content in long-term stores. Given this new perspective, the question becomes: Why aren’t we teaching our kids dialectical modes of thinking and organizing their school learning around this concept of “making meaningful connections, associations, and relationships”?
One reason is that students are never encouraged to make meaningful connections between the different disciplinary domains. That form of interdisciplinary cognition is not something that’s rewarded, as evidenced by the Common Core State Standards strongly suggesting that teachers stay “within the four corners of the text,” meaning don’t bring politics, society, economics, or history to bare on reading and understanding your curricular texts.
Another reason is that we don't teach a coherent, unified curriculum. There's really little to no reason or logic as to what gets taught--and especially HOW it gets taught--in the middle and secondary school curricula. Thus, with no coherent body of knowledge as a foundation for contextualizing and interrelating new learning, any new learning becomes just more decontextualized "information" that's quickly remembered and forgotten.
There are many more reasons, but they get very political, very fast. Which is a discussion for another day.
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