A Building Block Model of Cognitive Learning

The view that cognitive development involves the successive formation of cognitive skills or operations has a long history in psychology. A prime example is Piaget’s theory, in which it is postulated that concrete operations are formed after sensory motor schemas develop, and formal operations come into existence after concrete operations have been established. Furthermore, between the First and Second World Wars, Otto Selz, a German psychologist, constructed a theory that was based on a number of experimental investigations. Selz claimed that intelligence consists of a structured system of problem solving methods that must be acquired during development and that may be improved through teaching. Currently, the idea that teaching may be optimized if viewed as erecting a hierarchical structure in the learner, is well known from the publications of Robert Gagne (1970).