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“Teaching adolescents is a challenge because of physical, cognitive and psychosocial changes they undergo” 3

Piaget’s theory and cognitive development 3

Piaget’s theory and learning 3

Cognitive Stages 4

The sensorimotor stage: birth to age 2 6

The preoperational stage: age 2 to 7 6

The concrete operational stage: age 7 to 11 6

The formal operational stage: age 12 and beyond 7

Psychosocial development 8

Erik Erikson: eight psychosocial crises of development 8

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“Based on insights and experiences developed during the course,

examine how you as a teacher can support adolescent students’

learning experiences”

You may refer to any pertinent theories in the domain of

educational psychology.

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Using educational psychology to support student’s learning 10

Problems impacting on adolescents learning: depression, suicide

and delinquency 11

Erikson’s Crisis of adolescence 12

References 14

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Piaget’s theory and cognitive development

From his observation of children, Piaget understood that children were creating ideas.

They were not limited to receiving knowledge from parents or teachers; they actively

constructed their own knowledge. Piaget's work provides the foundation on which

constructionist theories are based. Constructionists believe that knowledge is constructed

and learning occurs when children create products or artifacts. They assert that learners

are more likely to be engaged in learning when these artifacts are personally relevant and

meaningful. In studying the cognitive development of children and adolescents, Piaget

identified four major stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and

formal operational. Piaget believed all children pass through these phases to advance to

the next level of cognitive development. In each stage, children demonstrate new

intellectual abilities and increasingly complex understanding of the world. Stages cannot

be "skipped"; intellectual development always follows this sequence. The ages at which

children progress through the stages are averages, they vary with the environment and

background of individual children. At any given time a child may exhibit behaviors

characteristic of more than one stage (Wood, Smith, Grossniklaus, 2001).

Piaget’s theory and learning

An important implication of Piaget's theory is the adaptation of instruction to the learner's

developmental level. The content of instruction needs to be consistent with the

developmental level of the learner. The teacher's role is to facilitate learning by providing

a variety of experiences. Discovery learning provides opportunities for learners to explore

and experiment, thereby encouraging new understandings. Opportunities that allow

students of differing cognitive levels to work together often encourage less mature

students to advance to a more mature understanding. One further implication for

instruction is the use of concrete hands on experiences to help children learn. Additional

suggestions include:

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-Provide concrete props and visual aids, such as models

-Use familiar examples to facilitate learning more complex ideas

-Allow opportunities to classify and group information with increasing complexity; use

outlines and hierarchies to facilitate assimilating new information with previous

knowledge.

-Present problems that require logical analytic thinking; the use of tools such as brain

teasers is encouraged.

-Use visual aids and models.

-Provide opportunities to discuss social, political, and cultural issues.

-Teach broad concepts rather than facts, and to situate these in a context meaningful and

relevant to the learner

Huitt and Hummel (1998) assert that only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized

countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood.

This is significant in terms of developing instruction and performance support tools for

students who are chronologically adults, but may be limited in their understanding of

abstract concepts. For both adolescent and adult learners, it is important to use these

instructional strategies

Cognitive Stages

Cognition refers to the processes of thinking and memorization and cognitive

development refers to the changes happening in these processes.

Piaget’s Stages:

Sensorimotor stage ( birth to 2 yrs)

Preoperational stage ( 2 to 7 yrs)

Concrete operational stage ( 7 to 12 yrs )

Formal operational stage ( 12 years and up)

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The sensorimotor stage: birth to age 2

In Piaget’s theory (1984, 2003), the sensorimotor stage is first, and is defined as the

period when infants think by means of their senses and motor actions. As every new

parent will attest, infants continually touch, manipulate, look, listen to, and even bite and

chew objects. According to Piaget, these actions allow them to learn about the world and

are crucial to their early cognitive development. The infant’s actions allow the child to

represent or construct simple concepts of objects and events. During much of infancy, a

child can only barely talk, so sensorimotor development initially happens without the

support of language. It might therefore seem hard to know what infants are thinking, but

Piaget devised several simple, but clever experiments to get around their lack of

language, and that suggest that infants do indeed represent objects even without being

able to talk.

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The preoperational stage: age 2 to 7

At this age, according to Piaget, children acquire representational skills in the area of

mental imagery and more especially language. They are very selforiented, and have an

egocentric view; that is, preoperational children can use these representational skills only

to view the world from their own perspective.In the preoperational stage, children use

their new ability to represent objects in a wide variety of activities, but they do not yet do

it in ways that are organized or fully logical.

One of the most obvious examples of this kind of cognition is dramatic play, the

improvised make-believe of preschool children.

The concrete operational stage: age 7 to 11

Piaget called this period the concrete operational stage because children mentally operate

on concrete objects and events. As children continue into elementary school, they become

able to represent ideas and events more flexibly and logically. Their rules of thinking still

seem very basic by adult standards and usually operate unconsciously, but they allow

children to solve problems more systematically than before, and therefore to be

successful with many academic tasks. They are not yet able, however, to operate or

think systematically about representations of objects or events. Manipulating

representations is a more abstract skill that develops later, during adolescence.

Concrete operational thinking differs from preoperational thinking in two ways, each of

which renders children more skilled as students. One difference is reversibility, or the

ability to think about the steps of a process in any order.

The formal operational stage: age 12 and beyond

In the last of the Piaget cognitive stages, the child becomes able to reason not only about

tangible objects and events, but also about hypothetical or abstract ones. Hence it has the

name formal operational stage—the period when the individual can operate on forms or

representations. The hypothetical reasoning that concerned Piaget primarily involved

scientific problems. Piaget’s studies of formal operational thinking therefore often look

like problems that middle or high school teachers pose in science classes. The fourth

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stage in Piaget’s theory is really about a particular kind of formal thinking, the kind

needed to solve scientific problems and devise scientific experiments.

Piaget did not design instructional strategies, but teachers have interpreted Piaget’s theory

to suggest broad instructional principles. If a teacher is using a specific method, it should

be a method that depends on the teacher’s understanding of the student’s thinking .

According to Marcy Driscoll,there are three basic instructional principles on which

Piagetian theorists generally agree. (Driscoll,1994).

Principle 1:

The learning environment should be an active discovery oriented environment to support

the activity of the child .

Principle 2:

Peer interaction is important and the children’s interactions with their peers are an

important source of cognitive

Principle 3:

Instructional strategies that make children aware of conflicts and inconsistencies in their

thinking should be used.

Psychosocial development

Social development

Social development is defined by the long-term changes in relationships and interactions

involving self, peers, and with family and this includes both positive changes, such as

how friendships develop, and negative changes, such as aggression or bullying. The

social developments that are the most obviously relevant to classroom life fall into three

main areas:

(1) Changes in self-concept and in relationships among students and teachers,

(2) Changes in basic needs or personal motives, and

(3) Changes in sense of rights and responsibilities.

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As with cognitive development, each of these areas has a broad, well-known theory that

provides a framework for thinking about how the area relates to teaching. For

development of self-concept and relationships, it is the theory of Erik Erikson; for

development of personal motives, it is the theory of Abraham Maslow; and for

development of ethical knowledge and beliefs, it is the work of Lawrence Kohlbergand

his critic, Carol Gilligan.Their theories are definitely not the only ones related to social

development of students, and their ideas are often debated by other researchers. But

their accounts do explain much about social development that is relevant to

teaching and education.

Erik Erikson: eight psychosocial crises of development

Erik Erikson developed a theory of social development that relies on stages, but

compared to Piaget, Erikson thought of stages as a series of psychological or social (or

psychosocial) crises which are turning points in a person’s relationships and feelings

about himself or herself .Each crisis consists of a dilemma or choice that carries both

advantages and risks, but in which one choice or alternative is normally considered more

desirable or healthy. The way one crisis is resolved affects how later crises are resolved.

The resolution also helps to create an individual’s developing personality. Erikson

proposed eight crises that extend from birth through old age; they are summarized in the

table below. Four of the stages occur during the school years.

Eight psychosocial crises according to Erikson

Psychosocial crisis Approximate

age

Description

Trust and mistrust Birth to one

year

Development of trust between caregiver and

child.

Autonomy and

shame

Age 1-3 Development of control over bodily functions

and activities.

Initiative and guilt Age 3-6 Testing limits of self assertion and

purposefulness.

Industry and Age 6-12 Development of sense of mastery and

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inferiority competence

Identify and role

confusion

Age 12-19 Development of identity and acknowledge of

identity by others

Intimacy and

isolation

Age 19-25+ Formation of intimate relationships and

commitments.

Generativity and

stagnation

Age 25-50+ Development of creative or productive activities

that contribute to future generations

Integrity and

despair

Age 50+ Acceptance of personal life history and

forgiveness of self and others

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II “Based on insights and experiences developed during the course, examine how you as

a teacher can support adolescent students’ learning experiences”

You may refer to any pertinent theories in the domain of educational psychology.

Using educational psychology to support student’s learning

Studying educational psychology is very useful for an educator to help his students

namely to understand:

(i)Individual differences

Since there are wide variations in different abilities among students, a teacher has to deal

carefully with a group of students in class room situation. At the level of growth and

development, it is very essential to understand the individual difference of students

concerning their ability, interests, attitudes and need.

(ii)To know the classroom teaching-learning process

To transmit effectively the content of teaching to the students, a well developed theory of

class room teaching and learning is helpful and this includes classroom climate and the

teaching competence which are required for effective communication and presentation of

content. Knowing the appropriateness of principles of teaching and learning and the

different approaches to teaching is important for teaching and learning process.

(iii) Awareness of effective methods of teaching

The developmental characteristic of the students is important for the methods of teaching.

Therefore the classroom teaching depends on the teachers’ knowledge about the interest

of students and methods of teaching for the students of various specificities.

(iv) Curriculum development

Knowledge of psychology can be useful in developing the curriculum of different levels

of students in different subjects. The developmental characteristics and needs of the

students are also taken into account in the formulation of curriculum.

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(v) To study mental health of students

In the process of teaching and learning the mental health of teacher and students must be

normal or healthy. There are different causes of mental illness of the teacher and the

students

(vi) Guidance to the students

Guidance is a type of assistance to the students to solve their problems by themselves.

The knowledge of psychology enables the teacher to provide necessary educational and

vocational guidance to the students of different age groups especially on problems

associated with development such as depression, suicide and delinquency prevention.

Prevention of depression, suicide and delinquency are important when supporting

adolescent student’s learning experiences. A student who is mentally depressed cannot

concentrate on studies. The role of an educator is to identify any possible causes

depression, suicide and delinquency as a form of prevention.

Problems impacting on adolescents learning: depression, suicide

and delinquency

Depression

Feeling sad, frustrated and hopeless about life, loss in most activities and disturbances in

sleep, appetite, concentration and energy are symptoms of depression and is the most

common psychological problems of adolescents .Depressive symptoms increases sharply

between ages 13 and 15 .Depression prevents young people from mastering crucial

developmental tasks and this disrupts the identity development and is also associated with

persistent anxiety, poor school performances and drug abuse.

Suicide

The suicide rate increases from childhood to old ages but it jumps sharply at adolescence.

Suicides tend to occur in two types of young people. The first group includes adolescents

characterized as being highly intelligent and solitary, withdrawn and unable to meet their

own standards or those of important people of their lives. The second group of people

show antisocial tendencies and express their despondency through bullying, fighting,

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stealing, increased risk taking and drug abuse. They are usually hostile and destructive

towards others so they turn their anger and disappointment inwards themselves and these

suicidal behaviours are influenced by biological and environmental factors. Some

triggering factors are parents blaming the teenager for family problems, breakup of

important relationships and humiliation. Suicidal prevention starts by picking up signals

of the troubled adolescent.

Delinquency

Juvenile delinquencies are children or adolescents who are involved in illegal activities.

Children with difficult temperament, low intelligence, and a history of poor school

performances, peer rejection and association with antisocial peers are linked with

delinquency and as well as children of families with where there are high level of

conflicts and low monitoring

Erikson’s Crisis of adolescence

One of the crisis stages of Erikson is the crisis of adolescence where there is the identity

and role confusion.

Identify and role

confusion

Age 12-19 Development of identity and acknowledge of

identity by others

The crisis of adolescence: identity and role confusion

As they make the transition from childhood to adulthood, teens may begin to feel

confused or insecure about themselves and how they fit in to society. As they seek to

establish a sense of self, teens may experiment with different roles, activities and

behaviors. According to Erikson (1963, 1968), this is important to the process of forming

a strong identity and developing a sense of direction in life.

Those who receive proper encouragement and reinforcement through personal

exploration will emerge from this stage with a strong sense of self and a feeling of

independence and control. Those who remain unsure of their beliefs and desires will

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insecure and confused about themselves and the future. Teachers can minimize role

confusion in a number of ways. One is to offer students lots of diverse role models by

identifying models in students’ reading materials, for example, or by inviting diverse

guests to school. The point of these strategies would be to express a key idea: that there

are many ways to be respected, successful, and satisfied with life. Another way to support

students’ identity development is to be alert to students’ confusions about their futures,

and refer them to counselors or other services outside school that can help sort these out.

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References

Driscoll, Marcy Perkins (1994). Psychology of learning for instruction.Needham Heights,

MA: Allyn & Bacon

Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.

Erikson, E.H. (1963). Childhood and Society. (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Huitt,W. & Hummel, J. (1998). Cognitive development. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associated, Publisher

Piaget, J. (1984). The attainment of invariants and reversible operations in the

development of thinking . Social Research, 51, 167-184.

Piaget, J. (2003). Development and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,

40(March 2003 supplement), S8-S18.

Seifert K., Sutton R. (2009) Educational psychology , second edition,

Wood, K. C., Smith, H., Grossniklaus, D. (2001). Piaget's Stages of Cognitive

Development. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and

technology

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