Module 12: Student Developmen

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Introduction to Student Development 

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Development refers to long-term personal changes that have multiple sources

and multiple effects. 

Some human developments are especially broad and take years to unfold
fully.

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Example:

A person's ever-evolving ability to “read” other's moods may take a lifetime to

develop fully. Other developments are faster and more focused, like a
person's increasing skill at solving crossword puzzles.

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 The faster and simpler the change is, the more likely it is to be called
“learning” instead of development. The difference between learning and
development is a matter of degree. 

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Example:

When a child learns to name the planets of the solar system the child may not
need a lot of time, or does the learning involve a multitude of experiences. So
it is probably better to think of that particular experience, learning to name the
planets, as an example of learning rather than of development (Salkind, 2004;
Lewis, 1997).

Students’ development matters for teachers, but the way it matters depends
partly on how schooling is organised. 

In teaching a single, “self-contained” class level, the benefits of knowing about

development will be less explicit, but just as real, as if teaching many class
levels.

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Working exclusively with a single class highlights differences among students

that happen in spite of their similar ages, and obscures similarities that
happen because of having similar ages.

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Under these conditions it is still easy to notice students’ diversity, but harder
to know how much of it comes from differences in long-term development,
compared to differences in short-term experiences. 

Knowledge about long term changes is still useful, however, in planning

appropriate activities and in holding appropriate expectations about students. 

What changes in students can a teacher expect relatively soon simply from
his current program of activities, and which ones may take a year or more to
show up? 

This is a question that developmental psychology can help to answer.

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 If a teacher teaches multiple class levels then his need for developmental
knowledge will be more obvious because he will confront wide age differences
on a daily basis. 

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Example:

A physical education teacher may teach kindergarten children at one time

during the day, but sixth-graders at another time, or teach seventh-graders at
one time but twelfth-graders at another.

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Students will differ more obviously because of age, in addition to differing

because of other factors like their skills or knowledge learned recently. 

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Nonetheless, the instructional challenge will be the same as the one faced by
teachers of single-level classes: all teachers want to know what activities and
expectations are appropriate for their students. 

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To answer this question, teachers need to know not only about how students
are unique, but also about general trends of development during childhood
and adolescence.
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Developmental Trends
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Developmental trends in human beings vary in two important ways.

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 Their Generality
 Sequence and Hierarchy

1) Developmental trends differ in their generality

Some theories or models of development boldly assert that certain changes happen to
virtually every person on the planet, and often at relatively predictable points in life. 

A theory may assert that toddlers acquire a spoken language, or that teenagers form a
sense of personal identity. Individuals who do not experience these developments would
be rare, though not necessarily disabled as a result. Other theories propose
developmental changes that are more limited, claiming only that the changes happen to
some people or only under certain conditions. 

Example:
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Developing a female gender role does not happen to everyone, but only to the females in
a population, and the details vary according to the family, community or society in which
a child lives.

2) Developmental trends differ in how strictly they are sequenced and hierarchical

In some views of development, changes are thought to happen in a specific order and to
build on each other like a sort of “staircase” model of development (Case, 1991, 1996). 

Example:

A developmental psychologist might argue that young people must have tangible, hands-
on experience with new materials before they can reason about the materials in the
abstract. The order cannot be reversed. 

In other views of development, change happens, but not with a sequence or

end point that is uniform. This sort of change is more like a “kaleidoscope”
than a staircase (Levinson, 1990; Lewis, 1997; Harris, 2006). 

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 Example:

A person who becomes permanently disabled may experience complex long-

term changes in personal values and priorities that are different both in timing
and content from most people's developmental pathway.

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The preference for integrative perspectives makes sense given educators’

need to work with and teach large numbers of diverse students both efficiently
and effectively. 

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But the approach also risks over generalising or over simplifying the
experiences of particular children and youth. It can also confuse what does
happen as certain children (like middle-class ones) develop with what should
happen to children.

To understand this point, imagine two children of about the same age who
have dramatically very different childhood experiences - for example, one who
grows up in poverty and another who grows up financially well-off. 

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 In what sense can we say that these two children experience the same
underlying developmental changes as they grow up? 

And how much should they even be expected to do so? 

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Developmental psychology highlights the “sameness” or common ground

between these two children. As such, it serves as counterpoint to knowledge
of their obvious uniqueness, and places their uniqueness in broader
perspective.

The main points from this module are as follows:

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Development refers to long-term personal changes that have multiple sources

and multiple effects. The faster and simpler the change is, the more likely it is
to be called “learning” instead of development.

Students’ development matters for teachers, but the way it matters depends
partly on how schooling is organised. 

Developmental trends in human beings vary in two important ways.

Developmental trends differ in:
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

1. Their generality

2. How strictly they are sequenced and hierarchical




In some views of development, changes are thought to happen in a specific

order and to build on each other like a sort of “staircase” model of
development (Case, 1991, 1996). 

In other views of development, change happens, but not with a sequence or

end point that is uniform. This sort of change is more like a “kaleidoscope”
than a staircase (Levinson, 1990; Lewis, 1997; Harris, 2006).