Cognitivist

1. (30 points) Study and listen to the opening 16 measures of the second movement of Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata.  Write two relatively brief posts.  In the first post describe how you would teach a student to play the work using the behaviorist/stimulus response approach.  In the second post describe how you would  teach a student to play the work using the cognitivist/gestalt approach.

A cognitivist teacher attempting to organize the same exact lesson would approach it differently.  A cognitivist teacher tends to focus on more complex learning areas than behaviorist teachers do.  These teachers are interested in how the new knowledge is acquired by the student.  There are two different approaches to the cognitivist thought: 1) the student plays an active role in organizing the material that is to be learned and 2) the teacher organizes the material that is to be learned.

A cognitivist teacher who follows Bruner's process and is teaching the second movement of Beethoven's Pathetique might give the students options regarding the piece.  The student might chose where to start in the piece and how fast or slow they wish to take it (within reason).  They might chose a from a few different listening examples of the piece, which listening example they would like to imitate the most.