Student Development
Introduction
▪ Development
▪ Learning
Why Development Matters
Physical Development During the School Years
▪ Trends in height and weight
▪ Puberty and its effects on students
▪ Development of motor skills
▪ Health and illness
Cognitive Development: The Theory of
Jean Piaget
▪ The sensorimotor stage: birth to age 2
– Object permanence
▪ The preoperational stage: age 2 to 7
– Dramatic play
– Metacognition
▪ The concrete operational stage: age 7 to 11
– Reversibility
– Decenter
– Conservation
▪ The formal operational stage: age 11 and beyond
– Hypothetical reasoning
Social Development: Relationships,
Personal Motives, and Morality
▪ 3 areas relevant to the classroom
1. Changes in self-concept and in relationships among students and teachers
2. Changes in basic needs or personal motives
3. Changes in sense of rights and responsibilities
▪ Erik Erikson
▪ Abraham Maslow
▪ Lawrence Kohlberg and critic, Carol Gilligan
Erik Erikson: 8 Psychosocial Crises of Development
▪ Crisis of infants and preschoolers: trust, autonomy, and initiative
– Trust and mistrust
– Autonomy and shame
– Initiative and guilt
▪ The crisis of childhood: industry and inferiority
▪ The crisis of adolescence: identity and role confusion
▪ The crises of adulthood: intimacy, generativity, and integrity
– Intimacy and isolation
– Generativity and stagnation
– Integrity and despair
Abraham Maslow: a hierarchy of motives and needs
▪ 2 types of needs
– Deficit needs (a.k.a. deficiency needs)
– Being needs (a.k.a. growth needs)
▪ Deficit needs: getting the basic necessities of life
– Physiological needs
– Safety and security needs
– Love and belonging needs
– Esteem needs
▪ Being needs: becoming the best that you can be
– Cognitive needs
– Aesthetic needs
– Self-actualization needs
Moral Development: Forming a Sense of
Rights and Responsibilities
▪ Morality
▪ Moral development
▪ Morality of justice
▪ Morality of care
Kohlberg’s Morality of Justice
▪ Preconventional justice: obedience and mutual advantage
– Stage 1: Obedience and punishment
– Stage 2: Market exchange
▪ Conventional justice: conformity to peers and society
– Stage 3: Peer opinion
– Stage 4: Law and order
▪ Postconventional justice: social contract and universal principles
– Stage 5: Social contract
– Stage 6: Universal principles
Gilligan’s Morality of Care
▪ Position 1: caring as survival—survival orientation
▪ Position 2: conventional caring—caring for others
▪ Position 3: integrated caring—takes into account including yourself
not everyone except yourself
▪ Character Development: integrating ethical understanding,
care, and action
– Character education
▪ Schoolwide programs of character education
▪ Classroom programs of character education
▪ Understanding “The Typical Student” Versus Understanding
Students
Resources
Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton, Educational Psychology. Lumen Learning.
2009
[Link]