Cognitive Development: The School Years

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Part IV
Chapter Twelve

• Cognitive Development The School Years

Building on Theory Language Teaching and Learning
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Cognitive Development The School Years

• School-age children are learners. as long as it
  is not to abstract, they can learn almost
  anything.
• Time matters, but the depth and content of
  learning reflect motivation more than
  maturationmotivation guided by cultural
  priorities and channeled by brain networks. Thus,
  nurture and nature interact to allow each childs
  mind to develop.

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Building on Theory

• Theories of cognition in school-age children have
  been used to structure education.

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Building on Theory

• Piaget and School-Age Children
• concrete operational though
• Piagets term for the ability to reason logically
  about direct experiences and perceptions

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Building on Theory

• An Example Classification
• classification
• the logical principle that things can be
  organized into groups (or categories or classes)
  according to some characteristic they have in
  common

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Building on Theory

• The Significance of Logic
• identity
• the logical principle that certain
  characteristics of an object remain the same even
  if other characteristics change
• reversibility
• the logical principle that a thing that has been
  changed can sometimes be returned to its original
  state by reversing the process by which it was
  changed

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Building on Theory

• Vygotsky and School-Age Children
• Vygosky (1934/1999) also felt that educators
  should consider the thought processes of the
  child.

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Building on Theory

• The Role of Instruction
• Vygotsky regarded instruction by others crucial
• teachers and peers provide the bridge between
  the childs developmental potential and the
  necessary skill and knowledge
• in the zone of proximal development, other people
  are crucial
• Cultures (tools, customs, people) teach people

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Building on Theory

• Cultural Variations
• patterns of cognition are apparent worldwide
• Understanding of classification
• demands of the situation
• learning from other sellers
• daily experience

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Building on Theory

• Information processing
• the view of cognition as comparable to the
  functioning of a computer and as best understood
  by analyzing each aspect of that
  functioning---sensory data input, connections,
  stored memories, and output

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Building on Theory

• Memory
• sensory memory
• the component of the information-processing
  system in which current conscious mental activity
  occurs--also called short-term memory
• long-term memory
• the component of the information-processing
  system in which virtually limitless amounts of
  information can be stored indefinitely

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Building on Theory

• Speed and knowledge
• Speed
• of thinking increases throughout the first two
  decades of life
• knowledge base
• a body of knowledge in a particular area that
  makes it easier to master new information in that
  area

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Building on Theory

• Control processes
• mechanisms (including selective attention,
  metacogniton, and emotional regulation) that
  combine memory, processing speed, and knowledge
  to regulate the analysis and flow of information
  within the information-processing system
• metacognition
• thinking about thinking, or the ability to
  evaluate a cognitive task to determine how best
  to accomplish it, and then to monitor and adjust
  ones performance on that task

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Language

• language advances rapidly before middle childhood
• by age 6 children have mastered most of the basic
  vocabulary and grammar of their first language

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Language

• school-age children can learn up to 20 new words
  a day
• increases in logic, flexibility, memory, speed of
  thinking, metacognition, and connections between
  facts enhance the learning of first and second
  languages

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Language

• Vocabulary and Pragmatics
• vocabulary
• school-age children are more flexible and logical
  in their knowledge and use of vocabulary,
  understanding metaphors, prefixes, suffixes, and
  compound words
• pragmatics
• advances markedly in middle childhood the use of
  language, including communication with varied
  audiences in different contexts

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Language

• Second-Language Learning
• English-language learner (ELL)
• a child who is learning English as a second
  language
• total immersion
• a strategy in which instruction in all school
  subjects occurs in the second (majority) language
  that a child is learning

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Language

• Second-Language Learning
• bilingual education
• a strategy in which school subjects are taught in
  both the learners original language and the
  second (majority) language
• English as a second language (ESL)
• an approach to teaching English in which all
  children who do not speak English are placed
  together and given an intensive course in basic
  English so that they can be educated in the same
  classroom as native English speakers

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Teaching and Learning

• school-age children are
• great learners
• develop strategies
• accumulate knowledge,
• apply logic, and think quickly
• universally children are given responsibility and
  instruction at about age 7
• the age when their bodies and brains are ready
• 95 of children are in school by age 7

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Teaching and Learning

• Curriculum
• everywhere children are taught to read, write,
  and do arithmetic
• when, how, to whom, and whether second-language
  instruction should occur varies form nation to
  nation
• religious instruction is another major
  variablesome public school teach

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Teaching and Learning

• No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
• a U.S. law passed by Congress in 2001 that was
  intended to increase accountability in education
  by requiring standardized tests to measure school
  achievement. Many critics, especially teacher,
  say the law undercuts learning and fails to take
  local needs into consideration.

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Teaching and Learning

• National Assessment of Educational Progress
  (NAEP)
• An ongoing and national representative measure of
  childrens achievement in reading, mathematics,
  and other subjects over time, nicknamed the
  Nations Report Card

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Teaching and Learning

• Reading First
• a federal program that was established by the No
  Child Left Behind Act and that provides states
  with funding for early reading instruction in
  public schools, aimed at ensuring that all
  children learn to read well by the end of the
  third grade

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Teaching and Learning

• hidden curriculum
• the unofficial, unstated, or implicit rules and
  priorities that influence the academic curriculum
  and ever other aspect of learning in school

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Teaching and Learning

• the outcome
• most parents, teachers, and political leaders
  believe that children are learning what they need
• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study
  (PIRLS)
• a planned five-year cycle of international trend
  studies in the reading ability of fourth grades,
  inaugurated in 2001

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Teaching and Learning

• Iranian girls acting out a poem they have
  memorized from their third-grade textbook

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Teaching and Learning

• Education Wars and Assumptions
• adults differ in their beliefs about what
  children should learn, and how

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Teaching and Learning

• Japanese Education

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Teaching and Learning

• The Reading Wars
• phonics approach
• teaching reading by first teaching the sounds of
  each letter and of various letter combinations

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Teaching and Learning

• The Math Wars
• mathematic instruction in the U.S. has become
  problematic
• economic development depends on science and
  technology
• many children hate math
• Google search showed 36,100 math phobia hits
  compared to 171 for reading phobia
• U.S. students are weaker in math than students in
  other nations
• how to teach math does not always benefit children

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Teaching and Learning

• Other Assumptions
• children learn from homework
• One researcher finds that homework undermines
  learning instead of advancing it (Kohn, 2006)
• mixed evidence shows that smaller classrooms size
  is not necessarily better (Blatchford, 2003,
  Hanushek, 1999)
• raising teacher salaries improving professional
  education
• extending school hoursexpanding the school year
  increasing sports, music, or silent reading

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Teaching and Learning

• Culture and Education
• controversies regarding cognitive development
  related to education is political more than
  developmental
• there are many hidden roles of culture
• teaching styles and methods
• the understanding of the childs culture by a
  teacher of another culture