The focus of reading and discussion in EDAT 6115 this week was on how children develop cognitively. It discussed the way Piaget and Vygotsky viewed cognitive development. Teacher's can better learn how to plan lessons for their students if they think about the factors that influence them in their cognitive development. Intentional teachers use what they know about development to improve their own teaching and learning.
Analysis
Slavin (2012) stated, “One of the
first requirements of effective teaching is that you need to understand how
students think and how they view the world” (p.30). Effective teachers think about the
individualized needs of their students in order to determine how to help them
succeed. Every child thinks differently
and has their own schema of background knowledge from their individualized
lives. As an educator we need to keep
Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development stages in mind.
Piaget believed “that a child’s
intellect, or cognitive ability, progresses through four distinct stages
(Slavin, 2012, p.31). Each of these
stages are characterized by ages ranges, however these are generalizations and
children may move through these stages at different rates. Each range provides major accomplishments that
students must meet in order to be successful in the next stage. In the sensorimotor stage, which ranges from
birth to age two, “babies and young children explore the world using their
senses and motor skills” (Slavin, 2012, p.33).
In the preoperational stage, which ranges from ages two to seven, “children
have greater ability to think about things and can use symbols to mentally
represent objects (Massey, 2008). In the concrete operational stage, which
ranges from seven to eleven, children “can form concepts, see relationships,
and solve problems, but only as long as they involve objects and situations
that are familiar (Slavin, 2012, p.36). Lastly in the formal operational stage,
age eleven to adulthood, students can have “the ability to deal with potential
or hypothetical situations; the form is now separate from the content” (Slavin,
2012, p.37).
Vygotsky believed in two main ideas.
In his first idea, “he proposed that intellectual development can be understood
only in terms of the historical and cultural context children experience”
(Slavin, 2012, p.41). His second idea “he
believed that development depends on the sign systems that individuals grow up
with” (Slavin, 2012, p.41). Vygotsky
thought that development could be linked from other’s input. Vygotsky believe development occurs through
private speech, zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and cooperative
learning.
As long as teacher’s are aware of
the cognitive development that students go through, they will be more conscious
of how to plan their lessons to help their students learn best. Understanding the factors that influence cognitive
development help us be more intentional teachers.
Reflection
After reading this chapter, it really motivated me to better myself as an educator. I want to make sure I am paying attention to the stages of development my students might be in and consider what they need to be successful. My goal as a teacher is to help my students learn and grow. In order to complete this task it is imperative that I am focusing on the way my students will interpret the information best. I need to be intentional in my teaching and focus on what students know and what they must be able to know by the end of my lesson. I need to have clear learning target goals for my students so they also know what they should be able to do by the end of the lesson.
This chapter did confirm for me though that students have individual needs. I teach a workshop modeled classroom. I meet with students individually for conferences based on their needs. I work in small groups designed from preassessment data and informal observation. I give my students individualized attention to help them be successful. Also having students goal set to encourage their own motivation about learning is important to me in the classroom for achievement.
Learning about how children develop cognitively has really opened my mind up to whether or not I am meeting the needs of my students in a fair manner. Often times trying to prepare students for state mandated testing and expectations forces us to push our students beyond their cognitive abilities. Also, with all of the other expectations finding time to differentiate the needs of every child some times does not fall at the top of the list. After reading this chapter I now realize the importance of truly finding that time. We can not expect students to learn if we do not meet them at a level in which the learning makes sense to them. This looks different at different levels and with different students.
The biggest question that continued to run through my mind while reading this chapter was how are we expecting students to perform the same on ONE test when students may be at so many different levels of development? I understand how we must teach them in various ways to ensure individual learning, but what about state mandated assessments? It just does not seem fair to the students and/or teachers to hold such high expectations for differentiated lessons when all students will in turn be tested the same way at the end of the quarter. If these psychologist have proven that students develop in different ways, then why are we not testing or grouping them based on their cognitive needs.
References
Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
Massey, C. (2008),
Development: PreK-2. In T. L. Good (Ed.), 21st
century learning (Vol. 1, pp.73-81). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
