A requirement of a few of the education classes offered at the University of North Georgia is to complete 20 hours of “field experience.” In the past, I have fulfilled these requirements in an actual school doing one-on-one “mentoring” with students. For this class, I decided to volunteer at a summer day camp for a few days. I was surprised to see how many connections to education I was able to make throughout the course of that experience.
Field Experience: Jefferson Parks and Rec. Department The Jefferson City Parks and Rec. Department hosts a daytime summer camp, along with several other extracurricular sports camps. The day camp runs from 6:30 in the morning to 6:00 in the evening when most children get picked up. This camp is ideal for
…show more content…
Understanding the developmental stages of these children allowed me to relate to them better because I knew how to approach them. For instance, I was able to connect different learning theories to my observations. These 7 and 8 year olds, according to Piaget, are in the concrete operational stage. During this stage, “children can form concepts, see relationships and solve problems, but only as long as they involve familiar objects and situations” (Slavin, 2015, p. 34). Fortunately, their thinking is becoming less and less egocentric, so they are able to explore objective ways of thinking. Unable to think like adults, they are still able to see things in the context of other meanings, this is called inferred reality. I was shocked to hear some of the vocabulary a few children were using at this camp. Most of the children who spent their free time reading or writing stories were really the ones whose advanced language really impressed me. The rate at which a child’s language and literacy skills develop increases dramatically during elementary school (p. …show more content…
Although my field experience wasn’t in a classroom, I was still able to interpret my experiences and relate them to a potential classroom setting. For instance, despite the stable schedule, the camp seemed to lack structure. The instant I walked into the establishment, chaos prevailed and the camp counselors displayed little control of the children. It became clear that the leader was not viewed as an authority figure by the “campers.” To avoid this happening to me in a classroom, boundaries and guidelines would be established initially and coordinating punishments would be carried out. In a summer camp setting, no one wants to be “the bad guy” because the kids are there to have fun and remain occupied. Because of this fear and the soft-spoken nature of the group leader, she had no concept of classroom
Eliza, for the last five years, has worked as a camp counselor at Mazemakers Day Camp. Most recently, Eliza was a senior counselor, responsible for leading four classes each day, while nurturing camper growth in general. Eliza has been able to expand her skills in curriculum development, camper connections,
Siegler, R., & Alibali, M. (2005). Children’s Thinking Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall Inc. Upper Saddle River NJ.
In acquiring this new-found knowledge Piaget stated that when the child is given a more complex problem they can use logical and cognitive processes to answer instead of just their imagination and/or visual prospects (Feldman, 2006, pp. 286-287). Although some kids may not fully just jump into the concrete operation stage Piaget says it is completely normal that kids shift back and forth between preoperational and concrete operational thinking during the two years before they completely reach the stage. When the process is complete you should notice how your child becomes more sophisticated in handling their information. Their concepts of speed and time also highly increase. During the middle childhood stage, short term memory improves significantly. For example, a child will be able to repeat a set of numbers back to you with more ease and less concentration then they could before (Feldman, 2006, p. 289). Vocabulary of children also begin to rapidly increase during the school years. They can take in what the teacher says and store it in their brains so more knowledge is obtained. This is the stage in which your child usually learns to read and
This case study is based on Piaget’s theory of Cognitive development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence that is based mainly off of age, and was first developed by Jean Piaget. I will be testing this theory out on a six year old boy who I will call “Jordan.” I will be checking to see if Jordan falls in to the Preoperational stage of Cognitive development which ranges from age 2 until approximately age 7 and if he is in transition to Concrete Operational stage which ranges from age 7 until about 11 years. The following questions will be answered: Does he interpret language literally? Does he understand conservation? Does he think of things in terms of his own activities? Does he solve problems by pretending or imitating? Does Jordan have approximately 2000 words in his vocabulary?
Methods and approaches to teaching have been greatly influenced by the research of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Both have contributed to the field of education by offering explanations for children's cognitive learning styles and abilities. While Piaget and Vygotsky may differ on how they view cognitive development in children, both offer educators good suggestions on how to teach certain material in a developmentally appropriate manner.
Piaget believed that language development is associated with cognitive development or one’s own thought processes. Children ages 2-7 years old classify in Piaget’s preoperational cognitive stage. In this stage children use their well-developed ability to symbolize events or objects that are absent. Although children can represent the absent objects, they do not permit the child to think about the reversible cost of actions. According to Piaget, comprehending at this stage is based on appearances rather than main beliefs (Gray, 1991). For instance, one child playing with a ball of play dough may say they have less than the child playing with a flat piece of play dough simply because it is shaped differently. Also during the preoperational stage children are able to expand their vocabulary from 3,000 words to 8,000 words. Their sentences grow in length and complexity. They commonly use grammatically correct sentences and learn the basics of writing and reading (Cooter & Reutzel, 2008).
Jean Piaget was a theorist which “who” focused on people’s “children’s” mental processes (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.10). Piaget developed (words missing) how children differentiate and mentally show(tense) the world and how there , thinking , logic , and problem solving ability is developed (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011 , p.10). Piaget analyzed that children’s cognitive processes develop in an orderly sequence or series (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011 , p.11) . But each stage show how children understand the world around them. – sentence fragment; should be joined to the previous sentence. Every child goes through the same development”al” steps but some are more advance(d) than others . Piaget described four stages of child
The stages are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The phase that applies to these children at the age of 4 years old is the preoperational stage, which covers approximately ages 2 to 7 years old. During this stage, “ preschool children use symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor discoveries,” (Berk, 2010) and the use of language. In this preoperational stage, children do not yet understand concrete logic, and cannot mentally manipulate information . Piaget and Vygotsky had different ways to explain cognitive development. Piaget’s roots were in biology and the evolutionary adaptation of humans, and Vygotsky in theory that focus on how people transform their world rather than adapt to it (Vianna, 2006). Vygotsky focused on the importance on the psychosocial aspect of cognitive development. Piaget believed cognition was a result of the of the child 's maturity. Vygotsky felt that learning was only as strong and powerful as the environment surrounding the child. Piaget’s felt that one stage of devlopment must be completed prior to moving forward, whereas Vygotsky’s cognitive development perspective has little dependence on time, but more emphasize on social
Jean Piaget was a swiss expert whose theories on the nature of children’s thinking and learning have been extremely influential since the 1960s. In his theory, there are five key stages in relation to children of a young age. The first key stage was the ‘Stages of development’. Piaget argued that there was a natural path in which the development of thought, of a child, would follow. This was known as ‘genetic epistemology’. A child would have to be at certain stages of the development to learn new ideas and information. Therefore, Piaget identified four stages within this process. These stages of development were split into four sections; the Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational, and Formal operations stages. The Sensorimotor stage was all about a child’s first two years of life. This is where a child would a toddler’s knowledge mainly came from physical action, from their senses. The toddler would become aware of object permanence. The Preoperational stage included children from the ages two to seven. In this stage, the child would learn to manipulate the environment around them and begin to identify different objects were words. The Concrete operational stage includes children from the ages of seven to eleven, this is whereby logical thoughts start to develop. They’re able to
Despite the flaws in Piagets’ theory of cognitive development for children, it changed the face of the way that people look at children forever through history. Adults used to always look at children like they were tiny human adults that didn’t understand how anything worked in an adult world, but when Piagets’ theory came to surface people, parents, and teachers began to understand and think more of
Over the course of this “interview” came a new found understanding for the cognitive development of a child, and their reasoning which came as a great surprise. Answers that were presented, and rationales for why things were as they were sincerely amazed me. Mental capabilities mature with age, and I now understand how brilliant Piaget was for classifying such behaviors.
Wertlieb, Donald. "Child." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web. 16 Aug. 2011.Retrieved from http://www.worldbookonline.com/advanced/article?id=ar110700&st=middle+childhood+development&sc=1#h4
Piaget believes functions of language develops over four stages which are, the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage. To briefly explain each of these children develop the sensorimotor stage from ages 0 – 2 years, Piaget sees language at this stage as more physical where children experiment with their mouths and learn to repeat parents sounds. The pre-operational stage from ages 2 – 7 years, is when children talk more and have the ability to solve problems about stories on specific and concrete facts. The concrete operational stage begins at about age 6 or 7 when children can work things out in their mind and explain their reasoning. The formal operational stage begins at 11 or 12 years when children use abstract reason and can use language to express and discuss things found in subjects such as mathematics or philosophy. Piaget highlights the roles of language in children’s lives by describing the functions of language. (McDevitt, Ormrod, Cupit, Chandler and Aloa, 2013, p. 209 –
This was a two year course to learn how to be a youth leader for children aged 9-15. During this programme, we covered mental health issues, bullying, social problems, abuse and how to deal with these issues if they arose during the residential camp. In a 3 week camp last year, I planned an activity about the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. As this is such a sensitive topic I had to do extensive research in order to produce a balanced point of view. Being a camp leader meant that I was in effect loco parentis for the children. This was a huge responsibility as I did have to deal with a number of sensitive issues. From this experience I learnt communication skills, how to use my initiative and developed my leadership skills to a whole new
middle of paper ... ... (1958), as cited in ‘Children’s Cognitive and Language Development, Gupta, P and Richardson, K (1995), Blackwell Publishers Ltd in association with the Open University. Light P and Oates, J (1990) ‘ The development of Children’s Understanding’ in Roth, I (Ed) Introduction to Psychology, Vol 1, Hove, East Sussex, Psychology Press in association with the Open University.