Cognitive Development and Jane

Education Foundations – Module B Human Development

Jane’s Scenario

Returning to Jane, a first year teacher in a rural secondary school. In addition to student and community engagement issues, Jane has found that some of her students are not at the stage of physical development that she would expect while other students are remote both geographically and socially. In this post, I will relate these observations to the physical and cognitive development of the brain that was introduced in Module B.

Neural Development

During the time that students are attending secondary school, they are undergoing the many physical changes associated with puberty. In the brain, old neural connections are reorganised and new neural connections are formed (Churchill p88). The work that Jane has set is not stimulating the formation of these neural connections and so the students are not engaged in the classroom. To increase engagement, Jane needs to find the correct ‘hooks’ in the brain that will connect prior knowledge to new knowledge (Churchill p83). In other words, Jane needs to make the material relevant to her students so that new neural connections can be formed and the correct neural pathways strengthened.

Stages of Cognitive Development

According to Piaget, children attending secondary school should be in the formal stage of cognitive development. In this stage, students should be able to use their existing knowledge to deduce what might happen in a hypothetical scenario (Woolfolk & Margetts p46). Critical factors affecting this level of development involve the physical maturation process, interaction with the environment and social influence. If the child has not experienced any one of these three things, their ability to reach the formal stage is limited and these children will most likely be in the concrete stage (ibid p47). Students require new situations to promote the disequilibrium that is the stimulus for learning (ibid p52).

The student that are physically underdeveloped are most likely the ones that will be still in the concrete stage of learning (as they are not as developmentally advanced). Jane needs to scaffold these student’s so that they can progress from observable (concrete) to formal (hypothetical) ideas while still retaining the students’ interest. Her student’s that live on remote farms have limited social interaction. Piaget’s theory predicts that these students will also experience developmental delays as they do not have the same environmental and social stimuli that other students have.

Social Learning

In Vygotsky‘s model of cognitive development, knowledge is constructed from the child’s social interaction with those who are more experienced than them (ibid p53). Jane’s more remote students are not getting the social  interactions as they are isolated from the community and spend their time with peers or with the same set of adults. A variety of social experiences is required to transfer knowledge from the wider community to the child. Relevance is also key here. If Jane was able to provide a connection with the community’s local culture, this would help increase both student and community engagement.

Conclusion

In using these models of cognitive development, Jane is reinforcing the idea that we as teachers, teach students not subjects (provocation 7). The models outline provide us with an understanding the many things that influence learning, and also a framework for adapting our teaching to the different developmental stages and learning styles that are present in the classroom.

Treating teaching as an intellectual pursuit (provocation 8 ) allows us to learn more about our students, the way they learn and how to we can promote future learning so that they can become successful members of their  community.

References

Churchill, R., Ferguson, P., Godinho, S., Johnson, N.F., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Mackay, J., McGill, M., Moss, J., Nagel, M.C., Nicholson, P. & Vick, M.   (2011) “Teaching: Making a Difference.” Milton, QLD, John Wiley & Sons Australia

Wikipedia, Jean Piaget, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget

Wikipedia, Lev Vygotsky, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky

Woolfolk, A & Margetts, K. (2010). Educational Psychology. Pearson Australia

It’s not about me..

STS1 Reflective Journal Post 2

One of the main themes that emerged from the Experience Teacher Panel (STS 24th March 2011) was the importance of reflective practice in teaching. Each of the teachers recounted anecdotes of students that they had taught. Although challenging at the time, reflection on these events have made them better teachers.

Gibb's Model of Reflective Practice (Source: Deakin University)

Nearly all of the provocations can be related to these situations, but the one I though of the most was “Should we teach student students or subjects?”. Each of the experienced teachers obviously cared about each student that they taught and by taking an interest in the student and their needs, the outcomes for this student were improved.

Provocation 8 (To what extent is teaching an intellectual pursuit?) also comes to mind when using reflective practice (an example of which is shown above). It gives us a way of using the situations that occur in a classroom and use them to stimulate both student learning, and our own life-long learning.

The title of this post comes from a member of the panel. As teachers, we need to have confidence not only in our pedagogical and subject knowledge, but in ourselves as people. Students will aim their frustrations at the teacher, but it is important to realise that it is not about us personally.