Human Development and Lifespan

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Directions for Discussion of Adolescent Risky and Rebellious Behaviors

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLIOIS AT CHICAGO COLLEGE OF NURSING

NUEL 250: Human Development across the Life Span

Directions for Discussion of Group Members’ Posts on

Their Risky or Rebellious Behavior as an Adolescent

(Between Saturday, March 6 and Sunday, March 14)

Between Saturday, 3/6 and Sunday, 3/14 discuss the three (3) questions about risky and rebellious behavior below, incorporating examples from your group members’ posts about their adolescent behaviors:

1) Overall, would you say that group members’ responses closely correspond to or differ noticeably from the material about adolescent behavior that is presented in the textbook, lectures and video? Use examples to explain your assessment.

2) What factors at various levels of the ecology in Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development contribute to the behavior that is perceived to occur frequently among teens? Provide examples to illustrate the factors that you identify; for these examples, draw upon the your fellow group members’ posts about their “risky and rebellious adolescent behaviors (or lack thereof) if you can; if you cannot (for example if your fellow group members who have posted before you have “used them up” so that ours would be repetitive, use examples from other adolescents that you have known. Really try to incorporate in your analysis concepts related to the Bioecological Model. The objective of discussion is to help students to reflect on and understand major perspectives on development as well as important concepts and, in particular, to think about how they apply or do not seem to apply to their own development and that of people around them . (And in case you haven’t guessed this already, this course emphasizes the importance of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model as a model of influences on development across the life span!)

3) What, if anything, can adults do to curb risky and/or rebellious behavior by adolescents? Think about such questions as,

a) Do teenagers need to have their freedoms limited so that they will be

protected from the dangers of today?

b) If freedoms must be limited, whose responsibility is it to limit them? Does it “take a village” in the words of Hillary Clinton when she was first lady? Again, try to think about what adults at various “levels” of the ecology might do.

c) How do issues of confidentiality, privacy, consent and autonomy apply to

the behavior of adolescents? Again, use examples from your own experience and from your fellow group members’ posts

You may comment to a fellow group member about the risky behavior or rebelliousness that he or she posted in the initial post (for example to ask the author to clarify something in the post or to express how similar the author’s experience was to yours--or how different), but don’t stop there; the main task is for the group to synthesize multiple posts as well as material from textbook, lectures and video to address the questions above. Be sure that the group has addressed all 3 questions by the end of Sunday, 3/14 ; if it has not, we will deduct points from all members (a larger deduction, of course, for members who have not posted at all). We suggest that you go back on Sunday to be sure that your group has addressed all 3 questions.

There won’t be many posts for you to synthesize because discussion groups are small (on the other hand, the class is too large to carry out a single discussion among members of the entire class). So start with the posts of group members, but you may want to incorporate your observations of behaviors of other young people who are not in the class (friends, siblings, even characters in movies or TV shows); just be clear in your post that you are doing that—i.e. that you are not referring to behavior specifically described in the initial posts but to that of another adolescent whose behavior that you have actually observed (limit your comments to behaviors you have observed; do not describe a behavior that you have not observed as though you have observed it even though that behavior might qualify as what some people describe as “typical” adolescent behavior).

More than one student may address the same question as long as the group has addressed all of the questions by the end of the discussion (i.e. the 3 “main” questions and each of the “sub questions” a, b & c under Question #3). That means” that if previous posts have pretty much answered a question, your post should address a different question. You may give us your opinion, but also please be sure to bring in assigned material. As emphasized above, the purpose of these discussions is to foster your understanding, synthesis, and application of course concepts.

Please do your best to “talk to” one another about how you interpret the “data” provided in class members’ posts (and perhaps your observations of friends, relatives and classmates who are not in the course). Specifically, how might the concepts from the textbook, video and lectures apply to your observations? The point of discussion is to play off one another’s ideas with the goal of coming up with some new insights (remember Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory about how we all learn!)

Let’s try posting a single, separate thread for each of the above questions. That means that the first group member to post his or her thoughts about each question should begin the thread for that question. Then everyone who addresses the same question can add to that thread. I think that will encourage the interchange that we’re looking for. However, you may certainly start a new thread if you think of an additional question or issue of interest.