Holt - Chapters 2 and 3

Chapter 2

1.      State Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development. (knowing)

2.      Formulate a few ways you could cultivate, within your students, the ability to “relate abstract and hypothetical ideas to concrete objects and observable events” (37).   (Creating)

Chapter 3

Cognitive, social, and emotional development – Considering Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development it seems likely that the senior boys of my case study are experiencing “identity versus role confusion”.  These students will soon be graduating and moving on.  These students are likely to torn between the fact that they must still come to class and participate, as well as the idea that soon they will be “free” from the constraints the school walls, rules and culture place on them.  As a result, it could be possible that their poor behavior choices stem from this role confusion:  they are still teenagers that must conform as school children do, but they will soon be “adults” no longer subjected to their current management system.   This confusion surely has profound effects on their social selves, how they think of their current situation and how they feel while in it.

Additionally, these students seem to be having problems with containing their aggression.  As teenagers it is possible that they have inappropriate or misguided beliefs about the appropriateness of their aggression.  Also, based on their behavior they have “poor perspective taking ability” as they cannot see the purpose of the class and consequently do not take the class seriously.

Moral Development – These students, based on Table 3.3 (“Moral Reasoning and Prosocial Behavior at Different Grade Levels”) on page 91 of our text, lack the ability to believe that classroom rules and “conventions” are helpful and important in order that the class run well.  There seem to be gaps in their moral development.