Sternberg Context

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We all view the world differently as problems become visible we all have unique ways in which we think about them and formulate resolutions. When we think about these problems, we see them as a context of our situation. If we look at the dictionary meaning of the word context, it is the condition built around an event, idea, or statement for which we can understand. Context is the stimulus that we acquire daily in our surrounding environment and store away for use later. Sternberg, explains that for us to learn the meaning of words from their context we use our knowledge acquisition components which are selective encoding, combination, and comparison. These skills assist with our learning of new words and what the mean by seeking out the …show more content…

We can become better at weeding out extraneous information when solving problems. As people work through complex or novel issues, they bring their contextual view to the situation. As Sternberg pointed out we, use our performance components to do the hard work of encoding, inferring, mapping, and application of relations to help with the problem. However, we also leverage our knowledge acquisition components also to help think about the problem and aid in forming a decision. The context in which we bring to our problems are things that we have attained over time. As we process the information to cut through noise Sternberg notes that we utilize selective encoding to determine the relevant issue of the problem, then we think about how to make the information meaningful. Now we can take the current information and pull from past experiences that can help us formulate a decision. The relationship between performance and knowledge components work hand in hand as an individual thinks about how to apply the experience from the past that will best determine what steps to take toward a satisfactory …show more content…

Sternberg asserts that context cues help trigger selective encoding, combination, and comparison process that can help aid in thinking about the meaning of new words and problems. These cues are setting, value/affect, property, active property, causal/functional, class membership, antonymic, and equivalence cues. The importance of recognizing context cues can help a person breakdown not only meaning of a word but also the meaning of the problem we may face. Take for instance causal or functional cues which hones in on the goal of a word or problem. This cue helps us recognize the cause, effects, functions, and purpose. Like problems we encounter we want to think about the cause or purpose of the problem before we decide on how to proceed. Setting cues, for example, help us understand situational information with regards to the context based on spatial and time-related data. Having a good grasp of the environment where the problem resides, understanding when the event happened, and the location can be valuable when solving problems. Sternberg also explains the importance of mediators, which are variables in our learning process that help make contextual cues harder or easier to identify. Some examples of mediators are the concreteness of the unknown, The usefulness of previously known information, or the importance of the unknown data as it relates to the data. We did not cover all

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