write 5 page essay; add 3 pages for title with running head, abstract page, and references.

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Kathleen Stassen Berger

Part V

Adolescence: Cognitive Development

Chapter Fifteen

  • Neurological Development
  • Adolescent Thinking
  • Teaching and Learning

Neurological Development

  • The limbic system…
  • fear, emotional impulse
  • matures before the prefrontal cortex.
  • planning ahead, emotional regulation

  • Uneven Growth
  • As in the rest of the teenager’s body, brain growth is uneven.
  • The immature prefrontal cortex may allow: “troublesome adolescent behavior.”
  • Adolescents are capable of rational thinking.

Adolescent Thinking

  • Adolescent egocentrism
  • Characteristic of adolescent thinking that leads young people to focus on themselves to the exclusion of others.
  • Young person might believe his or her thoughts, feelings, and experiences are unique.

  • The Invincibility Fable
  • Adolescent’s egocentric conviction he or she cannot be harmed by anything that might defeat a normal mortal.
  • unprotected sex
  • drugs
  • high speed driving

  • imaginary audience: Other people who are watching, and taking note of, his or her appearance, ideas, and behavior.
  • belief makes many teenagers very self-conscious

Egocentrism Reassessed

  • Recent research has found that many adolescents do not feel invincible.

  • Egocentrism may signal growth towards cognitive maturity.

Formal Operational Though

  • Piaget’s theory, the fourth and final stage of cognitive development.
  • Characterized by more systematic logic and the ability to think about abstract ideas.

Piaget’s Experiments

Abstract Thinking

  • deductive reasoning: Reasoning from a general statement, premise, or principle, through logical steps, to figure out specifics.
  • top-down thinking
  • inductive reasoning: Reasoning from one or more specific experience or facts to a general conclusion, may be less cognitively advanced than deduction.
  • bottom-up reasoning

Two Modes of Thinking

  • dual-process model: notion that two networks exist within the human brain.
  • one for emotions and one for analytical processing of stimuli

Two Modes of Thinking

  • intuitive thought: Thought that arises from an emotion or a hunch, beyond rational.

  • analytic thought: Thought that results from analysis.
  • systematic ranking of pros and cons
  • risks and consequences
  • possibilities and facts
  • depends on logic and rationality

Comparing Intuition and Analysis

  • Sunk cost fallacy: The belief that if time or money has already been invested in something, then more time or money should be invested.
  • trying to fix a “lemon” of a car
  • sending more troops to win a losing war

Teaching and Learning

  • What and how should teenagers be taught?

  • secondary education: The period after primary education and before tertiary education.
  • about age 12 to18
  • some variation by school and by nation
  • traditionally grades 7 through 12

Middle School

  • between elementary and high school
  • can begin with 5th grade
  • usually ends with 8th grade

  • Intermediate middle schools have been established to educate 6th graders with 7th and 8th graders.
  • puberty earlier

  • 9th graders have been reassigned to high schools.

Technology and Cognition

  • No longer limited only to developed nations.
  • Teenagers worldwide use the Internet.
  • Adults hope that computers will be a boon to learning.
  • Some fear that technology will undercut respect for adults and schools.

The Digital Divide

  • Gap between people who have access to computers and those who do not.

  • In the U.S., age is now greatest divider between Internet users and nonusers.

The Transition to a New School

  • Changes, even positive ones, are disruptive.
  • Transitions difficult
  • decrease person’s ability to function and learn.

  • Changing schools just when the growth spurt and sexual characteristics develop is bound to create stress.

High School

  • Adolescents think:
  • abstractly, analytically, hypothetically, logically, personally, emotionally, intuitively and experientially.

  • By high school, curriculum and teaching style is often analytic and abstract.

Focus on the College-Bound

  • High-stakes test: an evaluation that is critical in determining success or failure.
  • Developed nations typically require students to stay in school between 14 and 18.
  • In the U.S. and Canada 90% are high school graduates.
  • Most dropouts leave at the age of 17.

Student Engagement

  • Many students express boredom and unhappiness with school

  • Teachers hired for their expertise in one or more academic fields, rather than their ability to relate to adolescents.

  • possible improvements:
  • keep high schools small
  • 200 to 400 students
  • encourage extracurricular activities
  • reduce harassment

  • School violence
  • Students are less likely to be destructive or afraid if they:
  • are engaged in learning.
  • bond with teachers and fellow students.
  • are involved in school activities.