A Teaching Assistant's Guide to Child Development and Psychology in the Classroom

Second edition

Susan Bentham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136815645
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

How can you help students most effectively in the classroom? As a Teaching Assistant, you play a vital role in today's schools. This fully updated new edition will help you get to grips with the main issues to do with psychology and its role in the processes of teaching and learning. This accessible text, building on the success of a best-selling previous edition, provides informative, yet down-to-earth commentary with clear examples of how you can apply this knowledge in everyday practice. The book addresses issues including: how to support learninghow to identify and cater for different learning stylesteaching children with additional needshow to manage behaviour to support learninghow to help children with their self-esteem and independence. This new edition includes references to up-to-date research in child development and psychology to include information regarding personalised learning, creativity, motivation, friendships skills, moral development and neuroscience. Chapters are complemented with lively case studies, self-assessment questions and examples of how to apply theory to everyday classroom practice. The reader is encouraged to develop reflective practice to best support childrens' behaviour and learning. This reader-friendly book is an invaluable companion for every Teaching assistant, HLTA, Cover Supervisor, and anyone working in a supporting role in an educational setting.

Chapter 1 Basic Principles Underlying Pupil Development and Learning

DOI: 10.4324/9780203829486-2

Susan Bentham

This chapter outlines how individuals develop and learn. We know from experience that there is a world of difference between what a three-year-old toddler can do compared with a thirteen-year-old adolescent. The big question that various theorists have attempted to explain is: How does this change occur?

Many theorists talk about stages of development, i. e. they outline what the average child can do at a certain age and how the behaviour of this average child changes through time. Now while this approach is useful in suggesting what to expect at certain ages, we also know that even children of the same age can differ widely in terms of what they can and cannot do. In fact there is no such animal as the ‘average child’. However, if a child is behaving in a manner that is considerably different from what we would expect, then this could indicate some underlying issue. (For further information on children with additional needs, see Chapter 4.)

What we will also discover is that different theorists have different views. But if debate exists, you might want to ask:What is the right view? However, there is no one right view – all theories offer some insights into how individuals develop and learn. The fact that debate exists highlights the complexity of learning and development.

Intellectual and Cognitive Skills

Piaget

In everyday language, when we say someone is intellectual we are saying that we think they are very clever or smart. But what do we mean by clever? In part, intellectual ability is due to cognitive skills, i. e. how someone thinks and reasons through ideas and problems. Jean Piaget (1896–1980) devoted his adult life to the study of cognitive development, i. e. how individuals learn to think and how thinking develops over time. Piaget was interested in tracking how thinking develops from a newborn infant, through the ‘terrible twos’, to the pupil just beginning school, to the lanky adolescent, and finally onwards to the emerging adult. Piaget studied thinking by observing children doing specific tasks and by asking them specific questions. For example, Piaget was interested in how children came to understand why some objects float in water whereas others sink. Piaget was interested in how children would solve such problems as:‘If Amy is taller than Susan and Sarah is shorter than Susan, then who is the taller: Amy or Sarah?’

One of Piaget’s greatest insights started with the awareness that a child’s manner of thinking is very different from that of an adult, that thinking changes with time, and that these changes are both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative refers to the amount of thinking, while qualitative refers to the style or manner in which we think.

Cognitive development, according to Piaget, was due to an interaction between the developing individual and the individual’s experience within the environment. Piaget believed that children were little scientists who constructed or created knowledge by being actively involved in what was going on around them. Children learned best by discovering things for themselves. However, what children can learn is limited by their age. A thirteen-year-old can be taught algebra, but a two-year-old can’t. Children of four or five can begin to learn to read. But can you teach an eighteen-month-old child to read? Piaget labelled this as maturational readiness. At a certain age a child’s thinking ability develops to a point that makes it possible for a child to learn certain skills. Obviously this has important implications for when certain skills are taught in schools. Piaget went on to describe how individuals learn new information. Central to Piaget’s theory is the concept of schemas. Schemas are units of mental thought. Schemas have been compared to files in which we store information. But how do schemas develop in the first place? To answer this question Piaget outlined a process called adaptation, which involved assimilation and accommodation. This sounds quite complex but the following case study illustrates how this terminology can relate to everyday experiences.

Case study 1.1

Developing an understanding of shape

Imagine a primary maths classroom. The teaching assistant is working with two pupils (Sam and Kylie) on shape, in particular the difference between squares and rectangles. Each child has in front of them ten shapes: five squares and five rectangles of varying size and colour. The task is to sort the shapes into piles of squares and rectangles.

Kylie knows that squares have four sides and so have rectangles, but squares are different from rectangles in that all four sides are the same length. Kylie looks at all the shapes and is a little bit confused by the fact that some shapes are bigger than others, but then she remembers that for a shape to be a square it must have four sides of equal length, so it does not matter if some squares are bigger than others. Kylie also knows that rectangles do not have sides of equal length. Kylie correctly sorts the shapes into squares and rectangles. Kylie has taken this new information regarding different sizes of squares and rectangles and fitted it, or assimilated it, into her existing understanding of what squares and rectangles are.

Sam, however, has problems with this task. He quickly sorts the shapes out into two piles corresponding to big shapes and small shapes. The teaching assistant asks him where are the squares. Sam says all the shapes are squares. The teaching assistant asks him where are the rectangles. Sam says all the shapes are rectangles. Sam adds all the shapes are the same because they have four corners. The teaching assistant tries to explain that there is a difference between squares and rectangles. Sam looks upset as he realizes he has got it wrong. Here Sam has an existing schema about shape that states squares and rectangles are the same as they have four corners. Sam is correct but there are also differences between squares and rectangles. Sam’s understanding of squares and rectangles is not the same as society’s shared understanding of what is a square and what is a rectangle. Sam is experiencing what Piaget would term cognitive disequilibrium. Sam realizes sadly that how he understands squares and rectangles is not the same as everyone else. According to Piaget, this state of cognitive disequilibrium is unpleasant and that will motivate Sam to try to figure out the difference between a square and a rectangle. Sam needs to create a new schema for squares and rectangles. The process of creating new schemas is called accommodation.

Thinking deeply

What possible explanations are there for Sam’s lack of understanding?

How would you support Sam?

Why would simply telling Sam the answer NOT be helpful?

How would you respond to Sam being sad and upset?

To summarize:

• Schemas are units of mental thought.
• Adaptation explains the process of learning.
• Adaptation involves both assimilation and accommodation.
• Assimilation is when you take new information and fit it into an existing schema or file.
• When new experiences cannot fit into existing schemas or files then an unpleasant state of cognitive disequilibrium is said to exist.
• In order to put an end to this state of cognitive disequilibrium, the individual must create new schemas, through a process called accommodation.

It is important to note that being in a state of cognitive disequilibrium, i. e. realizing that you are confused and that you don’t understand, may not always result in greater motivation to find the right answer. A pupil experiencing these feelings might simply give up. Recent research has focused on the relationship between how pupils approach difficulties in learning and the importance of viewing ‘mistakes’ as a vital part of the learning process. More will be said about this in Chapter 7.

Figure 2 ‘My husband says he can't do the dishes or mow the lawn because he's not maturationally ready!’

Piaget also believed that development occurs in four stages. These stages are universal: everyone goes through these stages in the same order and at no time can an individual skip or miss stages. Although Piaget stated corresponding ages for various stages, he did note that there could be variation, i. e. some children would enter the stage earlier and some children would enter the stage later. Piaget’s four stages will now be described.

Sensori-Motor Stage (Birth to Two Years)

The achievements of this stage are object permanence and general symbolic function. Object permanence is the awareness that something exists in time and space even if we cannot see it. For example, does a young child realize that teddy still exists even if teddy is put away in the toy box? The classic test for this is to fully cover a toy with a cloth while a baby is watching. The important part is that the baby sees you hide the toy. Will the baby search and find the toy or will the baby act as though ‘out of sight is out of mind’? Surprisingly it is not until eight to twelve months that a baby will actively search for and find a toy that they have seen being hidden.

General symbolic function includes the emergence of language, make-believe play and deferred imitation. Deferred imitation is an important skill, which starts with watching someone else; in particular, watching what a person does and noting exactly what happens to that person. Deferred imitation then involves deliberating or thinking about whether the behaviour viewed was worth repeating. If the behaviour was seen as worthwhile, the individual waits and, when an opportunit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Basic principles underlying pupil development and learning
• 2 Learning support strategies
• 3 Learning styles
• 4 Pupils with additional needs
• 5 Managing behaviour for learning
• 6 Establishing effective working relationships with pupils and colleagues
• 7 Self-esteem, motivation and independent learners
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index