Contemporary Developmental Themes (Development)

In recent epochs, the study of human development within the purview of psychological inquiry has increasingly prioritised information processing (Samuelson & Smith, 2000). The information processing paradigm emphasises functions, as opposed to structures, in its analysis. This section shall offer a conspectus of the alterations observed in the functions of attention, encoding and retrieval, and metacognition. These cognitive processes exhibit progressive refinement during development, concomitant with an augmentation in the rapidity with which children execute them (Kail & Ferrer, 2007). Furthermore, contemporary themes pertinent to the discourse, namely developmentally appropriate instruction and the transitions inherent in formal schooling, shall be deliberated upon within this section.

Attention

Sustained attention doth prove a challenge for the tender years, as doth the discernment of pertinent from impertinent information. Children, too, encounter difficulty in the swift transposition of attention from one occupation to another. The faculty to superintend attention doth contribute to the betterment of Working Memory (Swanson, 2008). It doth behove pedagogues to forewarn pupils of the attentional demands requisite for learning. Outlines and study guides may serve as advance organisers, and cue learners as to the nature of information of import. Whilst students are engaged in their labours, instructors may employ prompts, queries, and feedback to succour students in remaining fixed upon the salient aspects of the task (Meece, 2002).

Encoding and Retrieval

A facile method for appraising children's information processing is through a digit-span task. In this exercise, a researcher recites a sequence of digits (e.g., 5—3—8—10—2—9) to a child at a measured pace of one digit per second, and upon the researcher's cessation, the child doth attempt to reiterate the sequence. An average child of five years may accurately repeat four digits; this capacity doth augment to six or seven by the age of twelve (Meece, 2002).

Underlying this developmental betterment are information processing capacities and cognitive processes. In all likelihood, these interact: as information processing capacity expands, superior cognitive processes may be applied. For example, as children's capacities for attention, encoding, and storage increase, those who employ more efficacious strategies for attending, rehearsing, organising, and retrieving evince enhanced cognitive development.

The majority of a child's fundamental cognitive processes are firmly established by early childhood. From this juncture forward, developmental alterations primarily involve the acquisition of skills to make better and more efficient use of existing perceptual and attentional processes. Some of the more salient alterations include the ability to make fine discriminations between stimulus objects, the development of automaticity and selective attention, and the capacity to exert control over attentional processes (Meece, 2002).

Automaticity is a function of import. Automatic attention signifies that children gradually diminish attention as an active cognitive process. When attention becomes automatic, less cognitive exertion is requisite in the early stages of information processing, and thus children may apply their efforts where they are most needed. For example, as decoding becomes automatic, more cognitive processing may be shifted to comprehension. Poor readers, for whom decoding is not automatic, expend considerable effort to decode, with the result that comprehension suffers.

Much developmental research hath centred upon the strategies that children employ in encoding, retention, and retrieval. The section entitled 'Information Processing Theory' doth discuss the utility of possessing mental representations of oft-repeated events, or scripts (Wellman, 1988), which engender predictability in a child's world and also organise information for more expeditious processing. With experience, children acquire a more extensive repertoire of scripts (Flavell, 1985).

Children also ameliorate in their knowledge and employment of encoding strategies (Matlin, 2009). Rehearsal appears early and improves as children advance in years (Flavell, Beach, & Chinsky, 1966). In other areas, such as organisation and elaboration, children's application of strategies improves with age. These strategies may be taught and enhance children's memory and understanding (Meece, 2002).

With respect to retrieval, older children employ superior strategies than their younger counterparts (Flavell, 1985). For example, older children are more apt to conduct an exhaustive memory search and not relinquish the pursuit when the requisite information doth not immediately spring to mind. Older children also have learnt disparate methods of accessing information, such as by contemplating diverse situations wherein that information may prove useful. Albeit strategic alteration often occurs at a measured pace in children, they are prone to embrace novel strategies when these consistently yield more accurate solutions than their extant strategies (Siegler & Svetina, 2006).

Metacognition

Much developmental research hath probed children's understanding concerning cognition, or metacognition (Flavell, 1999). Metacognitive understanding doth expand greatly between the ages of five and ten (Siegler, 1991). Metacognitive advancements are a hallmark of development, as children acquire methods for monitoring their level of comprehension, posing questions to themselves concerning what they have perused, and summarising information. They learn which strategies to employ for disparate tasks, and with development, they are more inclined to believe that strategic application doth lead to improved performance (Paris et al., 1983).

Children's metacognitive awareness doth develop gradually. Alexander et al. (1995) discovered that consistent developmental improvements occurred in declarative metacognitive knowledge, as well as in the metacognitive skills of self-monitoring and self-regulation of strategic application (Zimmerman et al., 1996). The development of self-regulation may vary as a function of gender. As early as kindergarten, and continuing into middle school, girls develop and apply superior self-regulatory skills in school learning (Keeney-Benson, Pomerantz, Ryan, & Patrick, 2006; Matthews, Ponitz, & Morrison, 2009). Self-monitoring of performance is aided with self-recording, such as with diaries and checklists that contain essential aspects of the task. For example, if students are engaged in reading comprehension, the checklist may contain steps such as perusing the passage, ascertaining the principal characters, determining the chief action, and so forth.

A further theme inherent within contemporaneous cognitive perspectives on human development doth pertain to instruction that is developmentally appropriate. Instruction deemed developmentally appropriate is duly matched (or, compatibly aligned) with the developmental levels of the children receiving it. Such a notion may, at first blush, appear fundamentally self-evident; however, it doth, alas, transpire that instructional activities and developmental levels are oft mismatched. The act of teaching may involve naught more than the mere presentation of information to students (as doth, indeed, appear to be the circumstance within Master Frank's class), who then receive and process the selfsame. Not only might the information be presented in such a manner as to occasion students difficulty in its due processing, but also might they process it in ways that produce a learning distinct from that which the instructor doth desire.

For example, many a student doth undertake the study of precalculus during their time at secondary school. Much of the content of precalculus is of a highly abstract nature (e.g., conic sections, trigonometric relations, limits of functions). Albeit secondary school students are, with ever-increasing frequency, capable of functioning at a Piagetian formal operational level and handling abstract content with cognitive aplomb, many remain primarily concrete operational thinkers. Instructors who make scant effort to furnish concrete referents for precalculus topics do engender a mismatch betwixt the content and the students’ modes of thinking. It is, therefore, little wonder that so many students experience difficulty with precalculus, which, in turn, may adversely affect their motivation for the further pursuit of mathematical studies.

Instruction that is developmentally appropriate doth rely upon sundry assumptions, which do stem from the material heretofore discussed within this chapter. First, students do construct knowledge based upon their prior experiences and their extant schemata. Knowledge is ne'er transmitted automatically; the construction of knowledge and its integration with current mental structures are the means by which learning doth proceed. This doth necessitate that instruction be designed so as to foster such knowledge construction. Master Piaget did commend active exploration, a notion that is compatible with instructional methods such as discovery learning and small-group projects (Mistress Lucia shall commence employing these with greater frequency).

Second, the social milieu is of considerable import. This notion is clearly observable within Master Vygotsky’s theory (Chapter 6). When interacting with others, children do receive ideas and opinions that conflict with their own; this doth set the Piagetian equilibration process into motion (Meece, 2002). The cognitive conflict that doth ensue is considered the impetus behind learning in many developmental theories.

Third, conflict is engendered when the material to be learned is just beyond the students’ present understandings. This doth create the zone of proximal development (ZPD), within which learning can occur through cognitive conflict, reflection, and conceptual reorganisation (Meece, 2002). Little conflict doth exist when material is too far advanced beyond current understandings; conflict is similarly minimised when learning is at children’s current levels.

Finally, instruction that is developmentally appropriate doth incorporate active exploration and hands-on activities. Master Bruner’s theory doth recommend that enactive learning occur first, followed by iconic and symbolic learning. Albeit children’s learning is based largely upon what they do, hands-on learning is beneficial at all developmental levels. Adults who are learning computer skills do benefit from observing instructors demonstrate them (iconic) and explain them (symbolic), as well as by performing the skills themselves (enactive).

What might a classroom incorporating developmentally appropriate instruction look like? Mistress Meece (2002) hath suggested several appropriate practices that are summarised in Inclusion 'Developmentally appropriate instructional practices'

Developmentally appropriate instructional practices

• Instructors do structure the learning environment so as to include adults, other children, materials, and opportunities for children to engage in active exploration and interaction.
• Children do select many of their own activities from a variety of options.
• Children remain active as they engage in much self-directed learning.
• Children do work most of the time in small groups or individually.
• Children do work with concrete, hands-on activities.
• Instructors actively monitor children’s work to ensure continued involvement.
• Instructors focus upon the process children use to arrive at answers and do not insist always upon one right answer.

Some classroom applications of developmentally appropriate instruction:

Researchers have assiduously explored the developmental intricacies inherent in the transitions within the schooling system. In the United States educational framework, discernible transitions manifest when pupils progress to differing institutions or encounter substantial modifications in curricula and pedagogical activities; to wit, from preparatory schooling to elementary education, thence to middle or junior secondary institutions, followed by progression to senior secondary schooling, and ultimately, advancement to collegiate study.

Transitions bear considerable import, owing to their propensity to instigate disruptions in established routines and cognitive frameworks, coupled with the developmental stages of the students at the juncture of their occurrence (Eccles & Midgley, 1989). Ergo, the transition from elementary education to middle or junior secondary schooling may prove disruptive for any individual; yet, this is acutely amplified for students at the said age, given the attendant somatic metamorphoses they undergo and their characteristic vulnerabilities concerning their self-perception and outward presentation. Transitional variables and developmental factors most assuredly interact in a reciprocal fashion. Developmental attributes may facilitate a seamless or arduous transition; conversely, factors intertwined with the transition may exert influence upon the student's personal, social, and cognitive maturation (Wigfield & Wagner, 2005).

The transition to middle school or junior secondary school is particularly fraught with difficulties (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Wigfield et al., 2006). This transition coincides with a significant period of physical change in young adolescents, accompanied by its concomitant personal and social adjustments. Furthermore, multitudinous alterations transpire within the structure of the school and classroom, in addition to the subject areas. In elementary education, pupils typically remain with the same pedagogue and peers for the majority of the academic day. The pedagogue often cultivates a cordial and nurturing rapport with the pupils. Instruction is frequently individualised, and teachers monitor and report individual advancement in the content domains. Disparities in scholastic aptitude within a class may be considerable, encompassing pupils ranging from those with learning disabilities to those of exceptional intellectual endowment.

Conversely, in middle and junior secondary institutions, students typically change classrooms for each subject, thus encountering different pedagogues and peers. Teachers seldom cultivate intimate relationships with their charges. Instruction is imparted to the entirety of the class and is rarely individualised. Grades—whether predicated upon absolute or normative standards—do not reflect individual progress, nor is such generally reported. Variability in scholastic aptitude within a class may be minimal if pupils are subject to tracking. In general, middle school and junior secondary classes exhibit a more formal, impersonal, evaluative, and competitive ethos (Meece, 2002). Eccles and her associates (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles, Midgley, & Adler, 1984; Wigfield et al., 2006) posited that these structural and curricular modifications precipitate alterations in students' achievement-related beliefs and motivation, often in an adverse direction. The introductory discourse between the three middle school pedagogues contains pronouncements that elucidate why middle school presents challenges for numerous students.

School transitions need not be so arduous. In theory, the middle school configuration ought to ameliorate the transition. Whilst certain middle schools bear resemblance to junior secondary institutions, save for a disparate grade organisation (typically grades 6 to 8 in middle schools and grades 7 to 9 in junior secondary institutions), many middle schools endeavor to facilitate the transition by maintaining students together for the majority of the day and employing interdisciplinary teams of pedagogues (e.g., four teachers, one each for language arts, social studies, mathematics, and science). These pedagogues collaborate to ensure an integrated curriculum. They alternate ingress and egress from the classroom, such that although the teachers change, the peers remain constant. Alternatively, pupils may change classrooms, yet they share some of the same peers in two or more classes. Amplified efforts may also be undertaken to report individual progress. Reduced emphasis on evaluative comparisons amongst peers serves to assuage young adolescents' self-concerns, which are so characteristic at this juncture.