CHAPTER 6

NOTES AND TEST

Off to School

Cognitive Development

1.Piaget’s Version

a.      In Piaget’s stage of concrete operations:

i.       children become less egocentric

ii.     very seldom confuse appearances with reality

iii.   are able to reverse their thinking

iv.   are able to solve perspective taking, conservation and class-inclusion problems correctly

v.     their thinking is limited to the concrete and real

b.     In Piaget’s stage of formal operations:

i.       adolescents are able to reason hypothetically and abstractly

ii.     they are using deductive reasoning, and understand that conclusions are based on logic, and not on experience

c.     Critics of Piaget’s formal operatons thinking point out that:

i.       adolescents reasoning is often less sophisticaated that would be expected of formal operational thinkers

ii.     Piaget believed that thinking does not change qualitatively after formal operations have been completed

2.Information Processing Strategies for Learning and Remembering

a.      Rehearshal and other memory strategies are used to transfer information from working memory, to long term memory.  Children usually begin to rehearse about 7 or 8 years of age.

b.     The effective use of strategies for learning and remembering begins with an analysis of the goals set for any learning task.  Monitoring of one’s performance to find out if the strategy is working is also important.

Aptitudes for School

1.Binet and the Development of Intelligence Testing

a.         Binet was the first to develop an intelligence test.  The reason was to identify students who would potentially have difficulty in school

b.        using Binet’s work Lewis Terman developed the Stanford-Binet intellligence test which is still used today

c.        The Stanford-Binet introduced the concept of the intelligence quotient or IQ which calculated using mental age/chronological age X 100

d.              The IQ scores today are determined by comparing the child’s test performance to others of the same age who have taken the test

2. Do Test Work?

a.        Intelligence tests are reliable

b.       Intelligence tests are valid measures of achievement is school, but    do not measure aspects of intelligence that are also important outside of school

3.The Elements of Intelligence

a.      Gardner’s theory includes linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and personal intelligence

b.     Sternberg’s triarchic theory includes contextual, experiential, and      componential subtheories

4.Impact of Race, Ethnicity and Social Class

a.The average IQ scores of African Americans are about 15 points lower when compared to the average scores of European Americans

b.This difference has been attributed to the fact that more African American children live in poverty, and that test knowledge has been based on middle-class population

c.IQ scores are valid predictors of whether a child will succeed in school, because in many schools middle-class experience is a prerequisite for success

5.Heredity and Environmental Factors

a.The impact of heredity on IQ scores comes from findings that sibling’s IQ scores are more alike because siblings come from similar genetic background

b.Children who live in responsive, well-organized home environments tend to have higher IQ scores

Special Children, Special Needs

1.Gifted and Creative Children

a.Gifted children tend to have higher IQ scores

b.Modern definitions of giftedness are broader and include exceptional talent such as arts

c.Creativity is associated with divergent thinking, which means thinking in new and unusual way

d.Tests that measure divergent thinking can predict which children are more likely to be creative when they are older

e.Creativity can be fostered  by encouraging children to think flexibly and to explore alternatives

2.Children with Mental Retardation

a.Have IQ scores of 70 or lower and also deficits in adaptive behavior

b.Organic mental retardation has been linked to specific biological or physical causes

c.Familial mental retardation reflects the lower end of the normal distribution of intelligence

d.The majority of mentally retarded individuals are classified as mildly or educably retarded, they are able to attend school, work and have families

3.Children with Learning Disabilities

a.They have normal intelligence but have difficulty mastering specific academic subjects.  Most common is reading disability.

4.Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

a.Children with ADHD tend to be overactive, inattentive and impulsive.  They often create problems in school and do poorly.  ADHD is due both to heredity and environmental factors.

b.They are often given stimulants which have a calming effect on them.  Behavior management is also used as treatment

5.Learning in School

a.American elementary and high-school students do poorly when compared to students from other industrialized countries

b.When literacy is defined in terms of understanding documents and quantitative information, the majority of high-school graduates lack the skills necessary for success in today’s increasingly sophisticated work place

6.Effective Schools, Effective Teachers

a.Characteristics of successful schools include:

1.     -academic excellence is a primary goal

2.     -the school provides a safe and nurturant climate

3.     -parents are involved members

4.     -there is regular evaluations of performance

          b.Computers is the classroom are used for

1.     -tutoring

2.     -experiential learning

3.     -achieving traditional academic goals

c.Characteristics of effective teachers include:

1.     -effective classroom management skills

2.     -personal responsibility to student’s learning

3.     -emphasis on mastery of topics

4.     -active teaching, pacing, and tutoring