MABINI COLLEGES, INC.

Daet, Camarines Norte

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
1st Sem., S.Y.2020-2021

Prof. Ed. 1 – The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principles
MODULE 2
Title: Concepts and Issues in Human Development

Name of Student: JOY A. VISITACION

Date Submitted: OCTOBER 25, 2021
Course/ year: 2021-2022
Class Schedule: Tuesday – Thursday ( 7:00 – 8:30)

Module Overview:
S meante t
Every living creature is called to become what it is meant to be. The caterpillar is meant to become a butterfly; a
seed into a full grow herb, bush or tree; and a human baby into a mature person, the person “ who is fully alive, the
glory of God” in the words of St. Irenaeus.
How this development happens is what we learn in our Biology class. We have seen it to be a fantastic process.
So wonderful a process that we can’t help but experience a feeling of awe for the Power or the Force of the Principle
(theists call this Power or Force or the Principle (God) behind all these.
The process of development involves beginnings and endings. What was this organism then? What will this
organism be?
A number of researches on human development have been conducted. A lot of theories on human
development have been forwarded. Researches on human development continue as existing theories get corrected,
complemented or replaced. Up to the present several issues on human development are unresolved and so the search
for explanations continue.

In this learning module, you will be acquainted with human development as a process, the developmental
principles, approaches, and other issues that are raised about human development.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this module, students can:

 define human development in their own words
 distinguish between the traditional and life-span approach of development

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 LECTURE NOTES
READ THIS…

Meaning of Human Development

Human development is the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the
life span. Development includes growth and decline. This means that development can be positive or negative (Santrock,
2002)

Some major principles of human development

Here are some major principles of human development:
1. Development is relatively orderly. The muscular control of the trunks and the arms comes earlier as compared to the
hands and fingers. This is the Proximodistal pattern. During infancy, the greatest growth always occurs at the top-the
head- with physical growth in size, weight and future differentiation gradually working its way down from top to bottom
(for example, neck, shoulders, middle trunk and so on). This is cephalocaudal pattern.

By understanding how characteristics develop, we can make relatively accurate and useful predictions about
learners and design effective instructional strategies based on our knowledge of development ( Santrock, 2002)

2. While the pattern of development is likely to be similar, the outcomes of developmental processes and the rate of
development are likely to vary among individuals. What two individuals may become were premised on many “ifs”.
Meaning if they come from a good home with loving and caring parents they may develop into warm and responsible
children, adolescents, and adults. If they come from a deprived environment, they may develop into carefree and
irresponsible adolescents and adults.

One person may develop faster and more favorably than the other due to differences in heredity and
environment. Since heredity and environment are different for different people, it seems obvious that individuals will
encounter factors that make them different from other individuals. As a result, we can expect individual differences in
developmental characteristics and variation in the ages when people will experience events that will influence their
development.

3. Development takes place gradually. It takes years before they become one. In fact, that’s the way of nature. The bud
does not blossom suddenly. The seed does not germinate overnight. While some changes occur in a flash of insight,
more often it takes weeks, months, or years, for a person to undergo changes that result in the display of developmental
characteristics.

4. Development as a process is complex because it is the product of biological, cognitive, and socio- emotional process
( Santrock, 2002).

Biological process involves changes in the individual’s physical nature. The brains of children develop. They will
gain height and weight. They will experience hormonal changes when they reach the period of puberty, and
cardiovascular decline as they approach late adulthood. All these show the biological processes in development.

Cognitive processes involve changes in the individual’s thought, intelligence, and language. Children develop
from mere sounds to a word becoming two words, the two words becoming a sentence. They would move on to
memorizing their first prayer, singing Bayang Magiliw in every flag ceremony to imagining what it would be like to be a
teacher or a pilot, playing chess and solving a complex math problem. All these reflect of cognitive processes in
development.

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 Socioemotional processes include changes in the individual’s relationships with other people, chages in
emotions, and changes in personality.

These biological, cognitive and socioemotional processes are inextricably intertwined. While these processes are
studied separately, the effect of one process or factor on a person’s development is not isolated from other processes.
If children where undernourished and troubled by the thought of father and mother about to separate, they could not
concentrate on their studies and consequently would fail and repeat. As a consequence, they may lose face and drop
out of school, revert to illiteracy, become unskilled, unemployed and so on and so forth.

Two approaches to human development

If you believe that children will show extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in
adulthood and decline in, late old age, your approach to development is traditional. In contrast, if you believe that even
in adulthood developmental change takes place as it does during childhood, your approach is termed life-span
approach.

Paul Baltes ( Santrock, 2002) , an expert in life-span development, gives the following characteristics:
1. Development is lifelong. It does not end in adulthood. No developmental stage dominates development.
2. Development is multidimensional. Development consists of biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional dimensions.
3. Development is plastic. Development is possible throughout life-span.
4. Development is contextual. Individuals are changing beings in a changing world.
5. Development involves growth, maintenance and regulation. Growth, maintenance and regulation are three(3) goals
of human development. The goals of individuals vary among developmental stages. For instance, as individuals
reach middle and late adulthood, concern with growth gets into the back stage while maintenance and
regulation take the center stage.

Principles of Child development and learning that inform practice

Below are the principles of child and learning which are the bases of developmentally appropriate practice
( DAP) in early childhood program for children from birth through age 8, which were stated in the position paper of the
National Association for the Education of Young Children (2009). They affirm the principles of human development and
characteristics of life-span development approach we just discussed. Find out which one is a re-statement of the
principles of human development.

1. All the domains of development and learning-physical, social, and emotional, and cognitive – are important, and they
are closely interrelated. Children’s development and learning in one domain influence and are influenced by what takes
place in other domains.

2. Many aspects of children’s learning and development follow well documented sequences, with later abilities, skills,
and knowledge building on those already acquired.

3. Development and learning proceed at varying rates from child to child, as well as at uneven rates across different
areas of a child’s individual functioning.

4. Development and learning result from a dynamic and continuous interaction of biological maturation and experience.

5. Early experiences have profound effects, both cumulative and delayed, on a child’s development and learning; and
optimal periods exist for certain types of development and learning to occur.

6. Development proceeds toward great complexity, self-regulation, and symbolic or representational capacities.

7. Children develop best when they have secure, consistent relationships with responsive adults and opportunities for
positive relationships with peers.
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8. Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple social and cultural contexts.

9. Always mentally active in seeking to understand the world around them, children learn in variety of ways; a wide
range of teaching strategies and interactions are effective in supporting all these kinds of learning.

10. Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation as well as for promoting language, cognition, and social
competence.

11. Development and learning advance when children are challenged to achieve at a level just beyond their current
mastery, and also when they have many opportunities to practice newly acquired skills.

12. Children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to learning, such as persistence, initiative, and
flexibility; in turn, these dispositions and behaviors affect their learning and development.

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Focus Questions
Thinking to learning thoroughly…

Make sure you processed the lecture notes with in-depth understanding. Now, I bet you are ready to
answer the following questions:
Write/ types your answers on the space provided below each question.

1. “Growth is an evidence of life” or “development is an evidence of life” What does it mean?

What does this imply to a person’s development?

Answers:

Growth/Development is an evidence of life because you shouldn't be living from the first place if you weren't
growing/developing as a human being or as an individual. We are human, we make mistakes and as experience,
we learn– we grow. That's the purpose of living; to learn, grow and develop ourselves; our character.

2. If your approach to human development is traditional, are the characteristics of human development from a
life-span perspective acceptable? Explain your answer.

Answers:
Approach to development emphasizes extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in
adulthood and decline in old age

-infancy is though to be a time of considerable change in the traditional approach

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 Learning Activities
Enriching what you have learned...

Do the following to ensure mastery of the big ideas presented in this module.

1. (State your using your own words the meaning of human development

Answers:
Human Development is about the real freedom ordinary people have to decide who to be, what to do, and how
to live.

2. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer.

Patterns of development

a. The direction of growth following the cephalocaudal pattern is from the top to the bottom.
b. The direction of growth following the Proximodistal pattern is from centre of the body to the.
moves towards the extremities

3. Through this graphic organizer, illustrate the key concepts from what were discussed about the characteristics
of human development from a life-span perspective. The key concepts should be typed/ encoded inside the
figures.

multidimensional

Growth,
Maintenance, contextual
Regulation
Characteristics
of human
development

lifelong Plastic

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