Reflective Journal Entry One

For many years I felt as if I had wasted time and money in college because I changed my major from Psychology to Education. I realized early on that I had a passion for learning about people. Sociology and Psychology courses were always my favorites, and I often took more of these courses than were required. I did not realize until years later that I had a passion for teaching, which was even greater than that of learning about the field of Psychology. I now realize after having taught for four years that I never wasted a minute in the Psychology courses I took, because I use the knowledge I gained in those courses every day in the classroom.

This week’s assigned reading was a great refresher on the development of children. I believe it is very important to keep the information presented in the forefront of our minds as educators because effective educators plan lessons and learning experiences that are appropriate for their students. In order to understand what is developmentally appropriate, we have to be aware of children’s cognitive development. Slavin (2012) states that, “Piaget’s work forms an essential basis for understanding child development” (p.31). I personally agree with what more recent research supports, that these stages are not concrete and can occur at different ages, depending on the individual child. However, understanding that these stages do exist is very important.

The discussion question for this week made this very apparent to me. Thinking about what is an appropriate assignment to teach a concept for second grade and eighth grade students required me to analyze the differences in the developmental stages of each age group and helped explained why there are those moments in the classroom where few or none of the students are successful. There have been times when this occurred that I believed their inability to grasp a concept or misunderstanding of an idea came from my delivery of the information, when in reality it could have been that the activity or concept being presented was above their cognitive ability. In the future I will definitely keep this in mind when those times occur with my students. I also learned from various peer posts, who teach in both primary and secondary classrooms, that there is true evidence that these stages exist among students. Those of us who teach younger students have a true understanding of their need to relate all new information and concepts to those they are already familiar with, while teachers who work with older students stated that their students are more capable of thinking hypothetically and better understand relationships and multi-step problems.

Reviewing Vygotsky’s views on cognitive development was also beneficial. I teach reading and my students take a reading assessment every nine weeks on a reading program provided by the school system. The assessment provides us with a Zone of Proximal Development for each student, which includes specific book levels for optimal growth in reading. Slavin (2004) states that, “Vygotsky further believed that higher mental functioning usually exists in conversation and collaboration among individuals before it exists within the individual” (p.42). The reading groups I create are based on this theory and Vygotsky’s theory of Cooperative Learning. I place students in groups so that they are all reading books at their appropriate reading levels, and encourage them to discuss the books and collaborate to answer questions about the readings. Many of the questions I provide require a deep level of thinking and they learn a great deal from one another by helping each other through conversation.

I do not believe that Piaget’s theories of cognitive development are any better than Vygotsky’s or visa versa. I believe a good educator will use both in planning and developing student lessons. This reading and class discussion have been great reminders for me that Psychology is important in the classroom, especially in planning developmentally appropriate learning activities and lessons.

References

Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational Psychology: Theory and practice (10^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.