Case of Study

Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Over the course of his career in child psychology, he identified four stages in childhood. He also developed new fields of scientific study, including cognitive theory and developmental psychology.

Stages established by Jean Peaget:

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years)
• Pre- operational stage (2 to 7 years)
• Concrete operational ( 7 to 11 years)
• Formal operational (11 to adulthood) 

The purpose of my project is to prove the theory about the Pre- operational stage by Jean Peaget by trying two different experiments.

Pre- operational Stage

The child in the preoperational stage is not yet able to think logically. With the acquisition of language, the child is able to represent the world through mental images and symbols, but in this stage, these symbols depend on his own perception and his intuition. This stage may be the age of curiosity; preschoolers are always questioning and investigating new things. Since they know the world only from their limited experience, they make up explanations when they don’t have one.

Child’s Profile
Name:	Sheila Abigail Ayala Arias
Age:	6 years old
School life:	“Preparatoria”
Favorite games:	Jump the rope
Favorite activities at school:	Paint, create shapes with clay.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of both experiments was to confirm the stage the child in this project is in. In this case Pre – operational stage. As well, I wanted to confirm yje theory: A child at this stage (Pre-operational stage) is not able to think in logic way and their thinking is influence by perception.

METHOD

In this project, I used two different experiments:

Experiment 1: I showed to the child two glasses with the same quantity of water. I asked her if the two glasses had the same quantity. Then, I take one of the glasses and I put the water in other glass with a different shape. After that, I asked what of the glasses had less water in it. 

EVIDENCE

Experiment 2: I showed her two lines of matches. The two lines matches had the same number of matches (5 matches each line). However, I let more space among each of matches in the first line. Then, I asked the child to count the matches for each of the lines.  I also asked her what of the lines had more matches, I asked her to count the matches again. Finally, I asked what of the lines had more matches.

EVIDENCE

FINDINGS

In the first experiment, when I asked her what of the glasses had less quantity of water in it. She responded that in fact both of the glasses had the same quantity. However, when I emptied the water into the third glass which was different, she answered the glass which was different to the first two glasses had less quantity of water in it. Moreover, the results for the second experiment had almost the same relevance to the first one. In this case, although she counted the matches for both lines, she answered the line which had more space between each match had more matches.

To conclude, both experiments successfully confirmed the Pre – operational Stage theory by Jean Peaget. Children at this stage are not able to think logically. According to the experiments applied in this project, it demonstrates that children are influence because of their own perception. In other words, they think and process information in the way they perceive objects or images. In the experiments, even though the quantity of water in the three glasses was the same, the child said that one of the glasses had less quantity of water because that is the way she perceived the image. As well, in the experiment with matches she argued that one of the lines had more matches because at simple sight for her that line it was longer than the other even though had the same quantity of matches.  Finally, it is important for teacher to integrate into the lesson plan different activities that encourage our students at the Pre- operational stage to develop cognitive skills. 

Learning Disabilities and Desorders

During the workshop, I learned about what  aggressivity in children is. As well, I increased my knowledges about Attention Deficit Desorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Desorder (ADHD)  their characteristics and causes. I also learned how to identify some symtoms about different desorders. There are activities and techniques that we as teachers can integrate into the classroom if we have a students with a deficit or desorder.

We will start by defining what aggressivity in children is.

Aggressive behavior is behavior that causes physical or emotional harm to others, or threatens to. It can range from verbal abuse to the destruction of a victim’s personal property. Children with aggressive behavior tend to be irritable, impulsive, and restless. Emotional problems are the most common cause of aggressive behavior.

A variety of factors can influence aggressive behavior, including:

• Family structure
• Emotional problems (frustration)
• Relationships with others
• School environmen
• Individual characteristics.

Types of aggressivity in children can be:

• Psychological
• Physical
• Verbal
• Social

Due to children behave in such as different ways, there are some strategies that we teachers can to apply in order to manage aggressive behaviors in the classroom.

•  Establish coexistence rules and limits in the classroom.
• Teach values: plays, presentations with puppets, games, songs, etc.
• In case of a conflict in the classroom, teacher have to respond inmediately.

It’s normal for children to occasionally forget their homework, act without thinking, forget to follow rules and instructions. But inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity are also signs of attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD), which can affect your child’s ability to learn and get along with others. The first step to addressing the problem is to recognize the signs and symptoms.

Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities are neurologically-based processing problems. These processing problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing and/or math.  They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention.  It is important to realize that learning disabilities can affect an individual’s life beyond academics and can impact relationships with familyand friends. Since difficulties with reading, writing and/or math are recognizable problems during the school years, the signs and symptoms of learning disabilities are most often diagnosed during that time. However, teacher have to take into acccount that learning disabilities should not be confused with learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicaps; of mental retardation; of emotional issues. Teachers play an important role in the classroom when teaching children with learning disabilities for the reason that children need to feel part of a learning environment.

Types of Leaning Disabilities

• Auditory Processing Disorder
• Dyscalculia
• Dysgraphia
• Dyslexia
• Language Processing Disorder

Learning difficulties

A learning difficulty is a desorder which does not affect general intelligence (IQ). Somethin important is that this kind of difficulties have cure or treatment in contrast to learning disabilities.

 

Some examples of specific learning difficulties are:

• Dyspraxia
• Dyslexia
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Desorder (ADHD)

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder that appears in early childhood. ADD/ADHD makes it difficult for people, specially to children to inhibit their spontaneous responses. Responses which can involve everything from movement to speech to attentiveness. Sometimes these children are labeled as “troublemakers”, or criticized for being lazy and undisciplined. However, they may have ADD/ADHD.

 

Children ADHD may be:

• Inattentive
• Hyperactive

• Inattentive

In order to teachers recognize if a learner propably is getting prblems when learning there are some symtoms to take into account to pay important attention to children :

 

• having a short attention span and being easily distracted
• appearing forgetful or losing things
• appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instruction
• constantly changing activity or task without finish an specific task
• being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings
• excessive physical movement
• excessive talking

 

Even though a children have a desorder, there are different strategies teacher can use to help our students to feel part of the larning process:

 

• Curricular acommodation

• Create checklist, cards or stickers.
• Put a clock in order to manage time for choldren on developing different tasks or activities
• Motivate the children to follow instructions in an interactive way.

To summarize, it is really important for us to know what aggressivity in childooh is, and what are some of its causes. Besides, is fundamental for teacher to know how to manage aggressive behavior in children when teaching in the classroom. Moreover, teacher have to know about learning disabilities and learning difficulties. It is essential to say that teachers play an important role on identifying if a student have issues on learning. There are some sings that teacher can notice in children in order to look for a professional on treating this disabilities and difficulties. Finally, the most important fact is to know what type of activities we can integrate into the lesson plan for students with aggressive behavior, learning disabilities or difficulties or children with ADD/ADHD.   

 

Teaching the Concrete Operational Child

The Concrete Opratational stage (7 - 11 years old) was considered by Jean Peaget as one of the most important stages in child’s cognitive development. This stage marks the biginning of logical and operational thoughts in childhood. Besides, the child is mature enough to use logical skills as weel their thinking is more organized and rational. Moreover, Jean Peaget’s theories influence in many different ways. It is important to take into account  to integrate direct tasks and activities which make a sucessful lesson plan, in order to help our learners develop Concrete Operational  as an essential  stage in childhood.

 

Furthermore, it is fundamental for we, language teachers take account Behavior Management when teaching children. As we already know, children demonstrate different behaviors in the classroom so that teachers have to know how to deal with and to know what is causing a certain behavior in children. For that reason, it is also important that teachers have knowledge about what the Typical Attention Span is, in order to think and integrate  meaningful activities into the lesson plan and to get advantage when our students are focused.

 

Typical Attention Span: When trying to estimate realistically how much time a child can focused on one activity.

 

In order to know the Typicl Attention Span for our students, we can use the following formula:  

(cronological age + 1) e.g  8 years old + 1 = 9 minutes
 

It is important to mention that if we provide long tasks to our students, they will get bored and they will behave inappropiately. Behavior in children look to satisfy  a necesity due to they not have the words necessary to express themselves. For this reason,  when a child behaves inappropiate, teachers should first try to identify the cause or necesity of the behavior that child is showing.

Accoding to Choice Theory by William Glasser, all behavior is motivated by an individual’s internal desire to satify basic physical and psychological needs:

 

• Love and belonging
• Freedom
• Power
• Fun

In addition, we language teachers should view child’s inappropiate behavior as a teaching opportunity to teach the child to make good chooices and that he is responsible for his actions. Teachers can teach about responsibility and appropiate behavior by providing students with choices and by setting clear boundaries.

 

 A boundary is present as a positive point that will happen when the child behaves appropiately.

 

• Be specific and clearly communicated.
• Respect the needs of the tutor and the child.
• Be set before problems occurs.
• Focus on the positive outcome.

 

 

It is important to keep in mind that teachers will not be able to teach the children responsibility or get them to make appropiate choices by using threats or conditions, losing their tempers, installing fear or being permissive. Moreover, teaching styles play an important role in the classroom. It is not possible to demand that teachers always be authoritative, as opposed to authoritarian or permissive. These teaching styles are based on two concepts: control and involvement with students.

 

 

Teaching Style Characterics

 

Permissive teachers

 

• Theacher are popular, but have a low control threshold.
• They make few demands.
• They generally show aphaty toward students progress.

  

Authoritarian teachers

 

• They are antithesis of permissive supervisors.
• They set out insuperable barriers to students – teacher involment.
• Their roles are copious and enforced.
• Encourages little interaction.
• Establishes fervent competition among students.

 

Authoritative teachers

 

• Manages the best of both worlds with regard to control and students involvement.
• Mantains not only high behavioral expectations but also classroom rigor and relationship.
• He usually encorages interactions and is warm and inviting to students.
• He is open and friendly, even though his boundaries are clearly stablished.
• He is a steady and reale role model.

 

To conclude, it is really important that teachers know how the Concrete Operational stage works in childhood and the characteristics in order to integrate different activities into a lesson plan that help students to develoment cognitive skills. Besides, it is essential for teachers know how to manage behaviors in the classroom and take advantages from, those behaviors in order to teach our learners to become responsible. Finally,. Even though authoritative teachers result to be the ideal model in classroom, we can mix the different teaching styles according to students needs.