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When planning, designing, and implementing an educational program, as an educator one must carefully consider the characteristics of learners with respect to their developmental stage in life.

The more heterogeneous the target audience, the more complex the development of an educational program to meet the diverse needs of the population.

Conversely, the more homogeneous the population of learners, the more straightforward the approach to teaching.

Growth and development interact with

  • experiential background,
  • physical and emotional health status,
  • and personal motivation,

as well as numerous environmental factors such as

stress, and the surrounding conditions,

These affects a person’s ability and readiness to learn.

Musinski (1999) describes three phases of learning: dependence, independence, and interdependence. These passages of learning ability from childhood to adulthood, labeled by Covey (1990) as the “maturity continuum,” are identified as follows:

• DEPENDENCE is characteristic of the infant and young child, who are totally dependent on others for direction, support, and nurturance from a physical, emotional, and intellectual standpoint.

  • INDEPENDENCE occurs when a child develops

the ability to physically, intellectually, and emotionally care for himself and make his own choices, including

taking responsibility for learning.

  • INTERDEPENDENCE occurs when an individual

has advanced in maturity to achieve self-reliance, a sense of self-esteem, the ability to give and receive, and when that individual demonstrates a level of respect for others. Full physical maturity does not guarantee simultaneous emotional and intellectual maturity.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

From his observation of children, Piaget understood that children were creating ideas. They were not limited to receiving knowledge from parents or teachers; they actively constructed their own knowledge. Piaget's work provides the foundation on which constructionist theories are based.

Constructionists believe that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs when children create products or artifacts. They assert that learners are more likely to be engaged in learning when these artifacts are personally relevant and meaningful.

In studying the cognitive development of children and adolescents, Piaget identified four major stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Piaget believed all children pass through these phases to advance to the next level of cognitive development.

In each stage, children demonstrate new intellectual abilities and increasingly complex understanding of the world. Stages cannot be "skipped"; intellectual development always follows this sequence. The ages at which children progress through the stages are averages--they vary with the environment and background of individual children. At any given time a child may exhibit behaviors characteristic of more than one stage.

The first stage, sensorimotor, begins at birth and lasts until 18 months-2 years of age. This stage involves the use of motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge is limited in this stage, because it is based on physical interactions and experiences.

Infants cannot predict reaction, and therefore must constantly experiment and learn through trial and error. Such exploration might include shaking a rattle or putting objects in the mouth.

As they become more mobile, infants' ability to develop cognitively increases. Early language development begins during this stage.

Object permanence occurs at 7-9 months, demonstrating that memory is developing. Infants realize that an object exists after it can no longer be seen.

Early

Childhood

The preoperational stage usually occurs during the period between toddlerhood (18-24months) and early childhood (7 years).

In the preoperational stage, children engage in make believe and can understand and express relationships between the past and the future.

More complex concepts, such as cause and effect relationships, have not been learned. Intelligence is egocentric and intuitive, not logical.

Late Childhood

The concrete operational stage typically develops between the ages of 7-11 years.

Intellectual development in this stage is demonstrated through the use of logical and systematic manipulation of symbols, which are related to concrete objects.

Thinking becomes less egocentric with increased awareness of external events, and involves concrete references.

Adolescent

The period from adolescence through adulthood is the formal operational stage.

Adolescents and adults use symbols related to abstract concepts.

Adolescents can think about multiple variables in systematic ways, can formulate hypotheses, and think about abstract relationships and concepts.

Early Adulthood

Intellectual development in adults involves developing more complex schema through the addition of knowledge.

Educational Implications

An important implication of Piaget's theory is adaptation of instruction to the learner's developmental level. The content of instruction needs to be consistent with the developmental level of the learner.

The teacher's role is to facilitate learning by providing a variety of experiences. "Discovery learning" provides opportunities for learners to explore and experiment, thereby encouraging new understandings. Opportunities that allow students of differing cognitive levels to work together often encourage less mature students to advance to a more mature understanding.

One further implication for instruction is the use of concrete "hands on" experiences to help children learn.

Additional suggestions include:

  •  Provide concrete props and visual aids, such as models and/or time line
  •  Use familiar examples to facilitate learning more complex ideas, such as story problems in math.
  •  Allow opportunities to classify and group information with increasing complexity; use outlines and hierarchies to facilitate assimilating new information with previous knowledge.
  •  Present problems that require logical analytic thinking; the use of tools such as "brain teasers" is encouraged.

Huitt and Hummel (1998) assert that "only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal operations; many people do not think formally during adulthood". This is significant in terms of developing instruction and performance support tools for students who are chronologically adults, but may be limited in their understanding of abstract concepts.

For both adolescent and adult learners, it is important to use these instructional strategies:

  •  Use visual aids and models.
  •  Provide opportunities to discuss social, political, and cultural issues.
  •  Teach broad concepts rather than facts, and to situate these in a context meaningful and relevant to the learner.

The Learner's

Stages

of Development

Infancy

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