Cognitive science, also called the study of the mind, is an approach to learning that focuses on how rather than what people learn. Using this approach, teachers build on students' prior knowledge and out-of-school experience within a subject. Students are no longer expected to learn by rote memorization but to view academic subjects as a means to solve "real" problems.
Alan
Phelps, director of the Center on Education and Work and professor of educational
administration and vocational education at the University of Wisconsin
in Madison, talks about appealing to the learning modalities or the multiple
intelligences of students. [332k audio file] Excerpted from NCREL's
Rural Audio Journal (Vol. 2, No. 3), From School to Work--and
Back Again: Apprenticeships for Rural Students (North Central Regional
Educational Laboratory, 1994). A text version is available.