Developmental Stages and Learning Theories in Education, Thesis of Management Accounting

Download Developmental Stages and Learning Theories in Education and more Thesis Management Accounting in PDF only on Docsity! D167 Performance Assessment Task 1: D167 Western Governors University Educational Psychology and Human Development of Children and Adolescents-D167 A1. The elementary school video I watched was called Practicing Presentation and Audience Skills Through Science Presentations and was case number 9. It was a kindergarten class with students ages five to seven years old. There were twenty students in the class. Ten students were boys and the other ten were girls. Three students were Hispanic origin with speaking English as their second language. One student gets Title 1 reading services five days a week for thirty-minute intervals. Another student has autism and receives primary services for thirty minutes a day daily, as well as occupational therapy for thirty minutes once a week. Her three English learning students receive services daily for thirty minutes a day, while two other students receive speech services three times a week for thirty minutes. One child has a heart abnormality and qualifies for a 504 plan which allows him to get drinks often, miss class for doctor appointments, and he gets to choose whether or not to participate in physical activities. He needs no special instruction towards learning. A2. The children in this video were in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. This stage happens between the ages of two and seven and children start to learn symbolically, or through different designs and patterns. They enjoy pretend play in this stage and learn a lot about the world through doing so. They still have a hard time understanding reasoning and logic at this stage. One example from the video showing something that the children understood symbolically was the way the teacher used the thumbs up signs as a way of meaning “good job” when the students raised the signs up to let the teacher and speaking student know if they did well with their presentation. A3. I believe the learning theory that best matches this teacher's instruction is Cognitive learning and Erik Erikson's theory. The teacher used a visual map to show what she needed to go over with the class. She did a great job of pointing out her visuals to model to the children what 3 they needed to do with their presentation. The video showed the teacher completing cognitive apprenticeship theory by her (the master of the skill) teaching presentation steps to the students (apprentices) and then they individually got up to complete their own presentations. The teacher checked the student's comprehension through formative assessment checks. One way she did this was by pairing the children up at the end of the lesson to discuss the topic with each other and ask questions. By listening to their discussions and asking them questions, she could tell how well they knew the material. B1. The middle school video that I watched was titled Analyzing Social Issues in Small Group Book Club Discussions and was case number 520. There were thirty-one students in this class, in seventh and eighth grades, and were between twelve to fifteen years of age. Twenty-five of the students were White, two were Black, and four were Asian. One Russian student learned English as a second language. Two students have autism. Five of the students have an IEP or a 504 plan because of reading or writing issues. The students are interested in learning and very engaged in class. They range from fifth to tenth grade reading levels. B2. The students in this video were in the social-emotional developmental stage. More specifically, in isolation versus role confusion in their adolescence age range. In this stage they figure out who they are independently as a person through experiences and form friendships and relationships with others. In the video, you can see the students actively going through the social- emotional development stage when they were discussing in groups their personal feelings and connecting with each other on different stories about things such as drunk driving. They were putting themselves in the shoes of the main characters and their families and discussing how they would feel if it were to happen to them. D2. One example this video was showing was a language development stage for this specific child. He was in the phonology stage of language development because he was learning what letter sounds make up words. The teacher in the video was doing this by teaching the boy what sounds two letters make, then by asking the boy what sound does he hear at the beginning, middle, and end of certain words. D3. The teacher in this video used the cognitive learning theory with her approach. She focused on how the student learned individually and saw what elements affected his learning both within and externally. Since he could not stay focused well, she would repeat the same material multiple times if needed. She had him in the class alone during this time teaching him as a way to decrease distractions like noise to improve his focus. She also had him sitting on a ball that bounces instead of on a typical seat. I liked the way that the teacher had the boy do multiple different ways of answering her questions to really make sure the child understood the material. That was her way of assessing his comprehension. E. Understanding psychology and human development is important for all teachers because they need to know the most appropriate ways of teaching their specific learning group. This helps them best meet the needs of their students, individually and collectively as a classroom. By understanding development, teachers can understand what the majority of children in different age groups are capable of learning and ways of implementing that information to students effectively so that they comprehend the information. Teachers use their knowledge of child development in order to make appropriate educational teaching choices fit for their audience. Knowing how a child should be performing at a certain age also shows teachers which students are not following the typical growth pattern in development and need special assistance to help them reach their potential and learn to the best of their ability. An example of this is noticing signs of when a student may need an IEP. My son, for example, is five years old with autism and sensory processing disorder. He has a hard time focusing and sitting still, so one thing necessary that is stated in his IEP is when he is in a regular education classroom, he needs an assistant to sit with him in order to continuously help him stay focused and seated. F. Understanding the differences in developmental levels of individual students is important in order to ensure each student’s individual success and progression. No two students learn exactly the same, and what works best for one will not work for the other. When I am a teacher, I realize I will be teaching students with varying abilities and levels. This is especially true because I want to be a special education teacher. For example, if I have a student in my class who has ADHD and cannot stay on task for longer than a short period of time, I will keep their assessment short. I will not “beat around the bush” with a long, drawn out explanation or assignment. G. Different learning theories show how information is gathered, processed, and comprehended. When I am a teacher, I will closely observe how each child learns keeping all the different learning theories in mind. By doing this, I will be able to best reach students individually in what method to use for instructing them. Simply put, knowing the different learning theories will help me make the best choices in what methods I use to teach my students. The constructivist theory, for example, is defined as “an approach to learning that holds that people actively construct or make their own knowledge and that reality is determined by the experiences of the learner” (Elliott et al., 2000, p. 256). In simple terms, this theory is saying students build and grow their own information instead of just latent learning when there is motivation to do it. Coupling students together in class to discuss material with each other from the lesson is one example of constructive learning. References Brooks, J., & Brooks, M. (1993). In search of understanding: the case for constructivist classrooms, ASCD. NDT Resource Center database. Elliott, S.N., Kratochwill, T.R., Littlefield Cook, J. & Travers, J. (2000). Educational psychology: Effective teaching, effective learning (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill College.Fox, R. (2001). Constructivism examined. Oxford review of education, 27(1), 23- 35. Lally, M., & Valentine-French, S. (2021). Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development | Lifespan Development. Retrieved 10 May 2021, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-lifespandevelopment/chapter/piagets-preoperatio nal-stage-of-cognitive-development/ Padgett, D. (2021). Learning Theories: Understanding the 4 Major Ones for the Classroom. [online] Leader in Me. Retrieved 10 May 2021, from <https://www.leaderinme.org/blog/learning-theories/>