Reflection on Cognitive Development

Children are all unique individuals.  They don’t develop at the same rate, they are all raised in different household and cultures, have different physical traits and distinct personalities.  Most researchers agree that these differences are due to both the child’s biology (nature) as well as their environment (nurture).  With all these differences, it seems almost futile to try and generalize the process by which a child’s mental capacity grows yet many theories of cognitive development have been created to do just that.  What I am learning most during this quarter in class is that there are very few hard and fast rules on how a child develops, but a teacher needs to use these development theories as a framework to guide their lessons with enough flexibility to allow for the individual differences.

I am planning on teaching early elementary so I was most interested in reading about Piaget’s preoperational and concrete operational stages of development.  How well a child performs on conservation tasks or the level of abstract knowledge that a student possesses are great tools for evaluating their level of cognition.  This can help me, as a future educator, determine how to tailor the lesson so as to maximize its effectiveness.  Knowing that most children in the concrete operational stage can readily solve problems when given concrete objects to manipulate yet struggle with abstract or hypothetical situations stresses how important it is for me to provide them with lessons that are highly creative and visual (Pressley, p. 64, 2007).  Counting currency, practicing place value with groups of objects and picture book story times are all beneficial for students in the first grade.  Another proposal of Piaget’s which really resonated with me was that of cognitive conflict, which is “the situation that occurs when a learner does not have cognitive structures that permit understanding of environmental stimuli” (Pressley, p. 90, 2007).  If a student encounters a problem that requires just slightly more cognitive ability than they possess then this results in cognitive effort being put forth to solve the problem.  This in turn causes their mental capacity to grow and they start off towards the next level of development.  This helps me understand why it is important to challenge a student with a lesson, yet not to overwhelm them with a feeling of hopelessness by giving them something too far beyond their ability.  It’s a fine line to tread.

My growing knowledge of cognitive development theories is being paired with that of the biological processes by which the brain functions.  I find Medina’s Brain Rules to be the most fascinating (and entertaining) information this quarter.  By viewing everything through the purely biological lens of how a brain works, Medina has really opened my eyes as to how we should be teaching the next generation to be successful learners.  I will certainly make every effort to implement practices that align with the brains ability to function to its fullest capacity in my classroom.  This will mean properly spacing the information in manageable chunks, with lots of rest and repetition, as well as separate environments and stations for different subjects.  Most importantly I intend to implement lessons that contain a lot of exploration and discovery involving a lot of “learn by doing” activities.  School should be less about the memorization of facts and more about the development of concepts through inductive learning.  My favorite brain rule of Medina’s is the one he isn’t able to prove and that is the importance of curiosity (Medina, p. 259, 2014).  Fostering that desire for knowledge without squashing it is my number one goal as an educator.

Medina, J. (2014). Brain rules. Seattle: Pear Press.

Pressley, M., McCormick, C.B. (2007). Child and Adolescent Development for educators. New York: The Guilford Press.

Advance organizers and the use of instructional media

What is the relationship between instructional media and advance organizers?

I suppose it depends on your definition of instructional media.  For the purpose of this discussion we shall assume that instructional media refers to text, pictures, videos and other graphical and auditory tools used to teach.  Therefore, on the face of it, advance organizers and instructional media can be considered one and the same.  The real difference between the two comes down to a few factors: level of depth and “timing and intent” (Dean, p. 60, 2012).

Instructional media can be a single picture, or chart, which outlines some important fact related to the lesson.  Possibly even a video explicitly illustrating the lesson for purposes of instruction.  Advance organizers need to be much more.  They need to have a broader scope than just the lesson at hand and relate to a student’s existing knowledge to strengthen their cognitive structures.  They need present abstract concepts and use these as a framework with which to attach the more concrete, narrow focus of the lesson to, thus improving the student’s chance for engagement and retention.  The best advance organizers contain not only known information, but clearly define terms or ideas for a person to use as a scaffold to attach the upcoming lesson to.  It’s not enough to just show a picture of the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence and then lecture about the American Revolution.  The advance organizer should show a timeline of events, or outline each of the primary signers of the document and players in the events with a short biography or link to a video, define terms like taxes, loyalist, patriot, etc.  This helps to place the lesson in a larger context and allows students to connect the faces in the picture with the lives of the people who experienced the events.  Advance organizers should utilize many forms of instructional media to provide more opportunities for successful learning by making the information engaging.

The timing and intent aspect of advance organizers referred to in Classroom Instruction That Works means that the organizer needs to precede the lesson and clearly outline what it is the student should be expected to learn (Dean, p. 60, 2012).  If the instructional media is presented simultaneously with the lesson, or as an addendum then it loses a lot of its impact.  They are unable to build that scaffold of knowledge to connect the new information to, and are left with rote memorization as their only recourse which has a limited lasting effect.  Also, if the advance organizer isn’t clear in its intent then it doesn’t matter how engaging or interesting the instructional media is, it won’t activate their prior knowledge or attach to an existing cognitive framework.

I’ll admit that the idea of expository teaching and just presenting information to a class is not an appealing teaching method to me.  It is the type of schooling I had, and I understand it’s appeal because it allows you to cover a lot of material in a small time, however I feel that it was information easily lost.  More progressive teaching models that value inductive reasoning, exploration and discovery sound amazing but there is the time constraint involved as well as a lack of focus.  Advance organizers, and their inclusion of varied instructional media, seem a great way to marry the two ideas.  The organizers present the information as concepts, rather than a mere recitation of facts, and allow the student to form cognitive structures which lead to greater engagement with the upcoming lesson.  I see them as an invaluable tool to any effective lecture.

Dean, C.B., Hubbel, E.R., Pitler, H. & Stone, B.J. (2012). Classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ACSD Publications.

What is the relationship of concepts to facts?

Concepts and facts are very similar – the difference lies in their level of constraint.  Facts are known pieces of information.  They are static and unyielding and beyond questioning.  Concepts are notions or ideas and as such are more open to interpretation and change.  They can be constantly updated and adapted to suit new information.  They have a much broader focus when compared to the narrowness of facts.

I think many teachers focus on relaying facts as a way of delivering information to their students, however this is a dull affair for children and can lead to disinterest which is not a good state of mind for fostering true learning.  Concepts can be formulated and attained through discovery.  Students are allowed the freedom to form ideas with the guidance of their teacher and a curious active mind is better for successful learning.

This isn’t to say that facts aren’t important to the process.  Knowing certain facts can be the building blocks upon which concepts can be formed.  In concept attainment, the attributes of the exemplars are often facts which drive the categorization process.  The problem with facts is they don’t set students on a path of exploration.  Knowing when the Spanish Armada was launched is not nearly important as examining the whys surrounding the event.  Being shown how to carry the one while adding columns of numbers is not as critical as being shown the importance of place value, or examining the concept of adding numbers in bases other than 10.  Math was always a difficult subject for me because I was always shown the shortcuts and the hardline facts associated with it and never really “played” with the numbers.  It’s enough to get you through basic math, but not when you start to get to higher or theoretical math because you find you haven’t laid a proper foundation for the new learning.

Looking at Bloom’s taxonomy of intellectual processes the knowledge of facts is the lowest level.  “Knowledge involves the rather elementary skill of recalling, or remembering specific information or experiences (Scheuerman, 2017).  By comparison, teaching concepts allows one to move to successively higher levels of information processing as the student works through and explores their own thought processes.  Joyce, Weil and Calhoun (2015) write that concept attainment “strategies nurture an awareness of alternative perspectives, a sensitivity to logical reasoning in communication, and a tolerance of ambiguity” (Joyce, p. 145, 2015).  This represents a level of awareness and learning that is far more effective than the mere memorization and recitation of facts. 

It’s as Jerome Bruner writes about in The Culture of Education (1996) – you can give a child a list of facts, but this information is pointless unless it can be transferred into some sort of usable form and can be applied in multiple situations and connected to other information they already possess.  Students become much more active participants in the learning process when concepts are taught versus the passive role they take when they are just being presented with facts.

Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education (from SIS Session 3 Lecture notes EDU 6526: Survey of Instructional Strategies)

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2015). Models of Teaching. Boston: Pearson Education. Ed. 9.

Scheuerman, R. (2017). EDU 6526: Survey of Instructional Strategies.  (SIS Session 3 Lecture notes on Bloom’s Taxonomy).

Questioning as a Teaching Strategy

Questioning is an invaluable tool for educators.  First and foremost, it is an amazing evaluative technique.  It allows a teacher to gauge if their lessons are having their intended effect, namely comprehension of the source material.  Through questioning a teacher can determine if a student is merely parroting back information or if they understand the lesson on a deeper lesson.  For instance, a child may be able to properly carry over numbers when doing math calculations, but it isn’t until you question them as to why they carried the one that you know whether or not they understand that one indicates a group of ten, and whether or not they are developing good number sense.  It allows an educator to find those weak points in a student’s knowledge and work on them.  It can also help a student to clarify their own thoughts on the subject matter, something they may not have attempted themselves.

Secondly, it challenges the student.  It causes them to examine the concept and draw connections to previous knowledge.  It sends them off on an exploration of information and allows true learning to occur, rather than a rote memorization of facts.  It pushes kids to think inductively.  To examine the information presented to them in order to find answers.  The questioning of the teacher prompts them to in turn question their teacher as well as their peers.  It can be used to foster collaboration as well as independent reflection.  Questioning teaches kids how to think for themselves, which I feel is the hallmark of effective education.

Lastly, I think the mere act of questioning helps students to understand the importance of questioning in and of itself.  All of the great discoveries and learning arose from people trying to answer questions.  It shows students the importance of searching the world around them for themselves and to not be content with a passive role in education, but to take an active curiosity-driven one.

Learners in Context: Reflection 1

My knowledge of child development feels sparse.  I have a B.S. in Psychology and have read about Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories amongst others, though if pressed on specifics I would draw blanks.  This concerns me as I take the steps to become an educator of children, especially since I plan on teaching early elementary, yet it also excites me.  I crave acquiring knowledge just as much as want to help others acquire knowledge.  It is important to recognize and work on my gaps, yet with child development theories there is so much debate that I also have to take what works for me and my students as I see fit.

That being said I am a strong believer that environment plays the largest role in determining child development.  I understand that an individual’s biology plays a huge role, but I think family life, culture, and classroom environment all play a much larger role in determining an individual’s development.  A child may have a greater potential intelligence concerning literacy due to their genetic make-up, but unless given a literacy rich environment and encouragement to take advantage of these opportunities the child won’t be able to reach the same comprehension level as a child with less of a biological tendency towards intelligence who is armed with these tools. 

This doesn’t mean you can just create said environment and call it a day, because children are raised in many different manners and family households, and the individual complexities that exist among your students is so vast that lessons need to be tailored in such a way that all children are given the best chance of success.  Development theories provide a great framework, but they can’t account for all these variations – that is why it is our job to get to know them as individuals. 

Lastly, after reading about Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in Child and Adolescent Development for Educators I strongly agree that the child affects the environment just as much as the environment affects the child. (Pressley & McCormick, p. 14, 2007).  This is why I find it vitally important that my role as a teacher is to help guide students to make the kind of decisions that will impact their environment in a positive way.  Reading, writing and arithmetic are all well and good, but we as educators have a greater responsibility to give children decision making tools to assist them the rest of their lives.  I want to adopt this broader approach to education, not just the fact memorization of the past.

I won’t lie, the more I learn about what it takes to become a successful educator the more intimidated I become.  I am worried I won’t be ready when I get my first classroom and I don’t want to fail my students.  I take this even further and worry that just having these thoughts means I am having second thoughts about being a teacher.  However, I come to the conclusion that the fact that I stress about the success of my future students means that I genuinely care and want to improve upon our current educational system and this concern will push me to become an even better educator.