Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Stages:
"Cognition is the way we use our mind to understand the world. When we study cognitive development, we are acknowledging that changes occur in how we think and learn as we grow"- Levine and Munsch, 2014.
Theory of Core Knowledge: basic areas of knowledge are innate and built into the human brain.
Piaget plays an important role in cognitive development and how children grow. Vygotsky also plays an important role in cognitive development and his ideas need to be understood as well.
Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
Information Processing:
Information processing is very important because it shows how information is taken in, remembered, and processed in the brain. Information processing can be explained through the stores model and connectionist network model.
Attention is very important in information processing. It helps to maintain focus and perform different tasks. The rate at which children process information is one contributing factor in their cognitive function. The goal is to have these tasks completed proficiently and efficiently. Attention in infancy, childhood, and adolescence is incredibly important and vital in the development in children. Child's attention soon becomes automatic. They learn to develop automatic cognitive behaviors, for example, like driving a car. They can literally perform these tasks without any conscious thought because they have practiced them over and over.
Unfortunately, some children have attention disorders. 3%-7% of children are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)- a disorder marked by extreme difficulty with inattention, impulsivity, or a combination of both.
Memory
The different tasks and stimuli we pay attention to needs to be turned into memories. This is where encoding processes come into play. Encoding processes are: the transformation processes through which new information is stored into long term memory. Infants remember, however, they remember things non-verbally. As children grow into adults, they begin to remember by encoding different information.
--- Infantile Amnesia: Adults' inability to remember experiences that happened to them before they were about 3 years of age.
----Sometimes children will develop false memories or false recognition of events that happened to them. They either do this on their own or do this because people give them misinformation of their childhood past.
As we grow, we begin to use our working memory more and more effectively. This is where we briefly store information before it is turned into long-term memories.
Different ways we can memorize information:
In adolescence:
These help children grow cognitively, especially when they are in school studying for different assignments and exams. As the child grows into adulthood, they will be well practiced on these methods, which will eventually come naturally to them. These different methods even help students in college when they are preparing for their own exams. Children can only process so much information at one time (Processing Capacity), but as we grow older this capacity can widen and we can hold in more information than smaller children can.
Theory of Core Knowledge: basic areas of knowledge are innate and built into the human brain.
Piaget plays an important role in cognitive development and how children grow. Vygotsky also plays an important role in cognitive development and his ideas need to be understood as well.
Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
- Different than Piaget
- Development begins with the social world
- Learning begins with the child and his interactions with others
- (Whereas Piaget: children are independent learners)
- Zone of Proximal Development: child gets help from someone who is more skilled than them
- Scaffolding: moving a child just a little past their current level of capacity
- Private speech: turning what the adult has taught them into memories or internal thoughts. This way the child can guide their own actions
Information Processing:
Information processing is very important because it shows how information is taken in, remembered, and processed in the brain. Information processing can be explained through the stores model and connectionist network model.
Attention is very important in information processing. It helps to maintain focus and perform different tasks. The rate at which children process information is one contributing factor in their cognitive function. The goal is to have these tasks completed proficiently and efficiently. Attention in infancy, childhood, and adolescence is incredibly important and vital in the development in children. Child's attention soon becomes automatic. They learn to develop automatic cognitive behaviors, for example, like driving a car. They can literally perform these tasks without any conscious thought because they have practiced them over and over.
Unfortunately, some children have attention disorders. 3%-7% of children are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)- a disorder marked by extreme difficulty with inattention, impulsivity, or a combination of both.
Memory
The different tasks and stimuli we pay attention to needs to be turned into memories. This is where encoding processes come into play. Encoding processes are: the transformation processes through which new information is stored into long term memory. Infants remember, however, they remember things non-verbally. As children grow into adults, they begin to remember by encoding different information.
--- Infantile Amnesia: Adults' inability to remember experiences that happened to them before they were about 3 years of age.
----Sometimes children will develop false memories or false recognition of events that happened to them. They either do this on their own or do this because people give them misinformation of their childhood past.
As we grow, we begin to use our working memory more and more effectively. This is where we briefly store information before it is turned into long-term memories.
Different ways we can memorize information:
- Scripts, rehearsals, elaborations
In adolescence:
- Executive functions: the aspect of brain organization that coordinates attention and memory and controls behavioral responses for the purpose of attaining a certain goal. --- This helps to carry out a task correctly: Stroop Test (Blue, Purple, Orange)
- Metacognition: the ability to think about and monitor one's own thoughts and cognitive activities
- Metamemory: The understanding of memory, how it works, and how to use it effectively
These help children grow cognitively, especially when they are in school studying for different assignments and exams. As the child grows into adulthood, they will be well practiced on these methods, which will eventually come naturally to them. These different methods even help students in college when they are preparing for their own exams. Children can only process so much information at one time (Processing Capacity), but as we grow older this capacity can widen and we can hold in more information than smaller children can.
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Intelligence and Helping Children with their Academic Achievement: Intelligence is defined as: those qualities that help us adapt successfully so that we achieve our goals in life.
These different types of intelligence help to solve problems quickly and be able to solve problems from prior knowledge, consecutively. Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner: there are a number of types of intelligence that are all relative independent of one another.
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Promoting Learning in School
The classroom environment is very vital in a child's learning. Teacher quality has a very important influence on a child's performance in his or her classroom.
Smaller classrooms require more teachers, which may be more expensive, it is found to be more beneficial for the student
This is incredibly important. It allows a child to not feel behind in school and that they are not different than the rest of the students. Collaborative learning increases performance and self-esteem in students and has been found to help students learn better, rather than just holding them back with lower grades.
Expectancy Effects: the effect that the expectations of others can have on one's self perception and behavior.
Self-fulling prophecy: the process by which expectations or beliefs lead to behaviors that help ensure that you fulfill the initial prophecy or expectation
Teachers also need to be aware of the stereotype threat. Every child needs to be treated equal so that they do not feel anxious when trying to perform academically.
LOW EXPECTATIONS= LOW PERFORMANCE
HIGH EXPECTATIONS=INCREASES PERFORMANCE
The classroom environment is very vital in a child's learning. Teacher quality has a very important influence on a child's performance in his or her classroom.
Smaller classrooms require more teachers, which may be more expensive, it is found to be more beneficial for the student
- More one-on-one time with students
- Increases performance and self-efficacy in student
- Collaborative Learning: an educational strategy that allows groups of students who are at different ability levels to work together on a common goal, such as a project or an assignment
This is incredibly important. It allows a child to not feel behind in school and that they are not different than the rest of the students. Collaborative learning increases performance and self-esteem in students and has been found to help students learn better, rather than just holding them back with lower grades.
Expectancy Effects: the effect that the expectations of others can have on one's self perception and behavior.
Self-fulling prophecy: the process by which expectations or beliefs lead to behaviors that help ensure that you fulfill the initial prophecy or expectation
Teachers also need to be aware of the stereotype threat. Every child needs to be treated equal so that they do not feel anxious when trying to perform academically.
- Boys and girls need to be treated equally in school and teaching methods need to be geared toward both boys and girls equally as well.
LOW EXPECTATIONS= LOW PERFORMANCE
HIGH EXPECTATIONS=INCREASES PERFORMANCE