cognitive development and education eds115, gedeon …deak/classes/eds115/eds115_1stlecture.pdf ·...
TRANSCRIPT
Cognitive Development and Education EDS115, Gedeon Deák
• Welcome, introductions
• Syllabus; wait list
• on Thursday...
• Guiding questions:
• What should teachers know about development?
• How are children’s cognitive skills & limits reflected in work, play, talk?
• How can we fit educational practices to children’s skills & limits?
• What education institutions assume about children & learning
What should teachers know?about cognitive development?• Hard questions:
• What’s the relation between development and learning? Whatshould teachers know about the brain?
• Problem: teacher (mis)conceptions:
• science as “a bunch of facts”
• Guiding concepts:
• “developmentally appropriate” teaching
• Scaffolding; “Zone of Proximal Development”
• Goal: acquire knowledge/skills w/in capabilities
Zone of Proximal Development; ScaffoldingA
bilit
y Le
vel
Low (novice)
Intermediate
High (expert)Scaffolded level
Unassisted level
Zone ofProximal
Development
Scaffolded level
Unassisted level
Zone of ProximalDevelopment
Developmentally appropriateteaching: Fit the school to the
child?
• What do children “get” from instruction?
• How much does this depend on age?
• What can children of a given age learn?
• Complicating factor: individual differences
• How does education contribute to cognitive skills?
• Age vs. experience
What a child can learn (or not)
• Example: Learnability of syntax (Braine, 1971):
• Child (2.5 years): “Want other one spoon, daddy?”
• Dad: “You mean, you want the other spoon?”
• C: “Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.”
• D: “Can you say, ‘the other spoon’?”
• C: “other…one…spoon”
• D: “Say ‘other’” [C: “other”]
• D: “Spoon” [C: “spoon”]
• D: “Other…spoon”
• C: “Other spoon. Now give me the other one spoon.”
What behaviors can kindergartners inhibit?
data from 83 5-6-year-olds (Carlson 2005)
Do what the bearsays, not the dragon