journal

Chapter 11 (continued) Physical Motor Development in Middle Childhood

Chapter 12

Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AND PLAY

• Gross Motor Development – During middle childhood, running, jumping,

hopping, and ball skills become more refined.

– Motor skills improve in flexibility, balance, agility, and force.

– Improvement in reaction time

Fine Motor Development

• Improves steadily - gains in writing and drawing

• Girls remain ahead in fine motor-balance and agility

• Boys outperform girls on other gross motor tasks. – Environment plays a large role in motor

development (opportunities to develop).

Fine Motor Development • Gains in writing and drawing

Berk, 2016

Organized Games With Rules • Gains in perspective allow understanding of several

players • Organized games with rules become common in middle

childhood. • Children gain:

– An understanding of different roles in a game that have specific rules for behavior – Develop a mature concept of fairness – Develop a mature concept of justice

• Adult-structured athletics may impede development. Adults may place additional pressures on children for performance and forget the important lessons to be learned

Physical Education

• Physical education classes that provide regularly scheduled opportunities for exercise and play ensure that all children have access to activity that supports: – a healthy body

– a sense of self-worth as physically active and capable people

– the development of cognitive and

social skills necessary for getting

along well with others.

Physical Education

• Average is only 20 minutes a week in middle school.

• National children and youth fitness study

– 2/3 of 10- to 12-year-old boys and

– 1/2 of 10- to 12-year-old girls

meet fitness standards

• Informal games and individual

exercise most likely to last into

later years

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

PIAGET'S THEORY CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE

• 7 to 11 years

– Piaget’s third stage

– Thought is more logical, flexible,

and organized.

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE

• Piaget regarded conservation tasks as the most important achievements of this stage because the tasks provided clear evidence of operations (mental actions that obey logical rules).

• Conservation

– Clear evidence of operations

• Mental actions that obey logical rules

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE

• Decentration

– Focus on several aspects of a problem at once

• Reversibility

– Mentally go through steps in a problem and then return to the starting point

CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE

• Hierarchical classification – Group objects into hierarchies

– Collections common

• Seriation – Order items by dimension

• Transitive inference – Ability to perform seriation mentally

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought

• Children think logically only when dealing with concrete information

• Gradual development occurs within stage

– Conservation of number, length, mass, and liquid grasped in this order

Children in Middle Childhood

can perform conservation task because their thinking is

logical, flexible and organized. Children at this age take more

information into consideration when making decisions.

Research on Concrete Operational Thought

• Cultural and school practices impact mastery.

• To master conservation etc., must take part in activities that promote thinking.

• School promotes mastery of tasks.

Memory in Middle Childhood Attention

• Attention is more selective, adaptable, and planned

• Scan details for similarities and differences more thoroughly

• Make decisions is conducted in an orderly fashion

• Learning and behavior problems can involve learning disorders such as ADHD.

Memory Strategies • Deliberate mental activities to store and retain information

take place in middle childhood.

– Rehearsal

• Repeating information over and over again

– Organization

• Grouping together related items

– Elaboration

• Creating a relation between two or more items

• Organization and elaboration combine into meaningful chunks.

Piaget and Education

Three educational principles derived from Piaget’s theory are:

– An emphasis on discovery learning

– Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn

– Acceptance to individual differences

Parents, caregivers and educators take these principles seriously in order to help children learn at their own pace and when they are ready.

Learning in School

• Class size can influence learning

– Study of small classes (13-14 students) indicates that students in grades K-3 scored higher in reading and math achievement than classes with higher number of students.

– Small classes benefit because the teacher is spending less time disciplining and more time giving individual attention.

– Students develop more positive attitudes toward school and peer interactions.

(Berk, 2016)

Educational Philosophies

• Traditional Classrooms – children are passive learners who acquire information presented by the teacher.

• Students are evaluated on the basis of how well they keep up with a uniform set of standards for all.

Educational Philosophies

• Open Classroom – children are active agents in their own development

• The teachers shares decision making with students, who learn at their own pace.

• Students are evaluated in relation to their own prior development and monitor their own improvement along with the teacher.

Berk, L. E., (2016). Infants, Children, and Adolescents. Boston, MA: Pearson. EIGHTH EDITION