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Mind map: theories which inform teachers of children's social,…
Mind map: theories which inform teachers of children's social, emotional and cognitive development: 1st class
Bandura: Banduras theory incorporates the law of effect but emphasizes that observation also plays a key role in learning. Observational learning also known as vicarious conditioning occurs when people imitate what they have previously seen. The conditions necessary for learning the occur are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation..
Erikson: A child in 1st class faces the industry v.s. inferiority stage of development. Children at this stage still benefit from a certain amount of imaginative play yet it needs to be balanced with more challenging and 'worthwhile' activities. Children need to be challenged cognitively at this stage. They gain confidence from completing relatively difficult tasks that require preseverence.
Behaviourist learning theories: Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of conditioning during which certain behaviours can be produced by a neutral stimulus. Operant conditioning states that our behaviour 'is guided by reward and punishment'. The four principles of operant conditioning are positive and negative reinforcement which cause an increase in the frequency of certain behaviour and positive and negative punishment which cause a decrease in the frequency of certain behaviour.
Vygotsky: Childens learning occurs 'within the zone of proximal development'. This ranges from what the child can do independently to what the child could potentially do if provided with assistance. 'It is a fundamental principle of the curriculum that the child's existing knowledge and experience should be a starting point for acquiring new understanding'. Vygotsky believed that talking and socially interacting with others is vitally important for cognitive development. The primary school curriculum recognises this importance and 'incorporates the use of talk and discussion as a central learning strategy in every curriculum area.' According to Vygotsky children around the ages of 7 are capable of using private speech which is to facilitate their thought process and planning.
Piaget: Piaget believes that children learn because of cognitive adaptations. 'the basic unit of understanding is called a scheme.' Schemes are gradually changing as children grow and this change occurs as a result of adaptation which can be subdivided in assimilation and accommodation. In 1st class children are moving from the preoperational stage to the concrete operations stage. The child moves from centrationally to conservationally thinking. The child understands that situations and objects consist of a variety of components. Children have acquired transitive inference for objects that are physically present. However children still have difficulty applying this to abstract situations. At this stage the child moves from egocentrism.
Teachers must provide assistance in the form of 'scaffolding'. As the child's understanding increases the assistance provided decreases proportionally until the child reaches the stage when he/she can complete the task unassisted.
Thus it is important that teachers allow sufficient time for discussion of new concepts among students to help deepen their understanding, to allow them express opinions and to help them clarify their thought process.
Teachers should provide independent problem-solving activities to aid the transition to private speech.
Given that children observe teachers for a large proportion of the day it is important that teachers are good role models. It is important that teachers are aware that for observation and thus learning to occur children must ' pay attention to their teacher'. Teachers should adopt a variety of attention gaining strategies and ensure lessons are interesting and engaging. Children learn from each other also therefore group work is important.
Teachers should recognize the stage of development of the child and set appropriate tasks that will challenge and stimulate the child yet not overwhelm the child by its complexity thus leaving them feeling inadequate. Teachers should identify when guidance is necessary and when the child will be able to complete the task individually with perseverance.
Teachers need to allow opportunities for play-time without teacher interference. Children will develop socially through their interactions with others.
Teachers should never make comparisons between children as this can leave a child feeling inferior, which in turn will affect their self esteem.
According to Vygotsky's theory children benefit from social interaction. Therefore the teacher could use extra play time as a form of positive reinforcement. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of environment based learning thus nature walks could be used as whole class positive reinforcement if the children have been well behaved.
Teachers must ensure they don't unintentionally reinforce the wrong behaviour. Although giving out to a child may seem to be a 'punishment' it may actually be serving as a reinforcer. A teacher should instead ignore undesirable behaviour and reward immediatly when the child demonstrates desirable behaviour.
'children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that....for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must reinvent it'.
'The curriculum allows for differences in capacity and in the range of individual intelligence'. Teachers must note that the transition from the preoperational stage to the concrete operations stage is unique to each child.
When teaching maths it is therefore important to begin introducing a topic using concrete materials to allow children fully grasp a concept before gradually transitioning to simple abstract problems.
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