Personalize Meaningful Learning Experiences

Who are our children? They are the most important and integral part, most often, of our interest in acquiring knowledge to enhance their development. So, our observations and primary focus as caregivers, be it parent(s) or as education professionals often start in the home. Parents are a child’s first and foremost teachers and teachers, both home and at school, are also constantly attempting to disentangle the child’s best manner of learning and the enabling of development to their maximum potential. Here in my blog, we will look at child development through the eyes of conscientious partners in childhood development. Children are one of the most important and integral parts of our interest in acquiring our own knowledge in the pursuit of their advancement. Be you a parent or a professional educator, knowledge and understanding about the methods and proclivities our young pass through on the way to adulthood and maturity both mental and physical is of critical importance. Our observations and primary focus as caregivers, be it parental or as a professional educator, often starts at home. Parents are a child’s first and foremost teachers and teachers at school also constantly attempt to disentangle the child’s best manner of learning and developing to their maximum potential. Here in this blog, we will look at child development as conscientious partners in childhood development while also studying and learning about multiple theories that will attempt to personalize meaningful learning experiences that highlight cognitive and language development.

This blog will attempt to explain the theories of four classical theorists, Jean Piaget, Erik Erickson, Kohlberg and Lev Vygotsky, and what they have contributed to developing skills in assessment and advancing early childhood and adolescent cognitive development with a concentration of development of language skills written and oral.

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist considered at the forefront of the development of educational psychology and generally considered the “Father of Educational Psychology”. He was also a father and took enormous interest in studying his own children thereby arriving at some of the very first modern theories regarding educational psychology. The chart below illustrates the four stages in a child’s cognitive development he developed and are still currently accepted today.

Stage	Age	Characteristics	Goal
Sensorimotor	Birth to 18–24 months old	Motor activity without use of symbols. All things learned are based on experiences, or trial and error.	Object permanence
Preoperational	2 to 7 years old	Development of language, memory, and imagination. Intelligence is both egocentric and intuitive.	Symbolic thought
Concrete operational	7 to 11 years old	More logical and methodical manipulation of symbols. Less egocentric, and more aware of the outside world and events.	Operational thought
Formal operational	Adolescence to adulthood	Use of symbols to relate to abstract concepts. Able to make hypotheses and grasp abstract concepts and relationships.	Abstract concepts

Table 1: Marcin & Gill (2018)

It must be recognized that Piaget’s research would not be considered empirical since his study group consisted of his own children. The age ranges for a child’s movement through these stages are not absolute as onset in age will vary and there is almost invariably a great deal of overlap. In examining where any specific child lies upon the above graphic one must consider the four specific features of educational development which are language, morals, memory, and reasoning. We recognize that a child’s learning capability and capacity is internal thus all knowledge is developed only through personal experience and that learning is an inherent trait so will occur without resort to parents, teachers, peers, or older children. For this reason, rewards are not really required to motivate any child into learning. The previous forms the basis for Piaget’s assumptions regarding this subject. (Marcin & Gill, 2018) Here also Maria Montessori promotes from her Montessori method she describes this reward/ punishment concept as the downfall of education. Bobby George sums it up best in her blog.

Montessori takes rewards and punishments very seriously. She even calls them an assault on our freedom. Why? Well, because it shifts the focus. It imprisons us, she says. Instead of engaging in an activity because you are interested in learning about it, you are now pursuing the work because you were instructed to or because you were conditioned to anticipate the judgement of praise when you finish the task. It no longer becomes a passion, it becomes a chore. Imagine, instead, that you engage in and accomplish a task because it’s something you love. What a different world…. (George, nd)

Lev Vygotsky theorized that social interaction is a critical component of learning. Cognition is the result of learning; he created the concept of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The zone itself is defined as the difference between what a student knows and what is desired to be learned. The student relies on individuals that they themselves perceive as having the desired knowledge. This indicates that parent(s) and older siblings are the initial targets of knowledge and, as the child ages, this zone increases in size and availability. This is where areas such as language, morals, culture, tradition, and so on have great impact. The student must be in a receptive state. Recognition and promotion of that state is often the key to the education of our students and children. “Vygotsky’s primary contribution was in developing a general approach that brought education, as a fundamental human activity, fully into a theory of psychological development. Human pedagogy in all its forms, is the defining characteristic of his approach, the central concept in his system.” (Moll, pg. 15, 1990) “The Vygotskian perspective and dynamic assessment have profound implications for diagnosis and instruction.” (Moll, pg. 148, 1990)

A visual of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development can be accessed here or from the link on the home page. Lawrence Kohlberg a renowned American psychologist also developed theories on the stages of development. His are self-explanatory through the graphic on this link or can be accessed through the link on our home page.

            Equity needs to be a thoughtful and sensitive consideration throughout the entire process. To paraphrase Reed, each child and/or student brings with them a unique cultural background as well as very different outside relationships. Since our specific goal in this particular project is language development the ZPD can almost always be achieved through interviews with parents, the community at large and the child or student themselves. Having the individuals recount personal stories will engage a variety of senses and provide the scaffold of interest. If you have a child or student that is described as a challenge, find out what those challenges consist of and discuss methods by which they can be turned into strengths. (Wayne Ed., pg. 13, 2014)