Overview
This lecture covered key theories and principles in child and adolescent development, emphasizing major psychological frameworks, stages, and their application in teaching and classroom management. The session included exam-type questions and explanations designed to prepare students for the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).
Theories of Moral Development
- Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development: preconventional (obedience/punishment, self-interest), conventional (approval, law/order), postconventional (social contract, universal principles).
- Preconventional focuses on avoiding punishment and self-gain.
- Conventional revolves around social approval and obeying laws.
- Postconventional is guided by personal principles and justice.
Personality Theories
- Sigmund Freud: id (pleasure principle), ego (reality, decision-making), superego (moral conscience).
- Freud’s psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital; fixations may occur if needs are unmet.
Cognitive Development
- Jean Piaget’s stages: sensorimotor (object permanence), preoperational (animism, egocentrism, centration, irreversibility), concrete operational (seriation, reversibility), formal operational (abstract thinking).
- Metacognition: thinking about one’s own thinking processes.
Social Learning & Motivation
- Albert Bandura: social learning/modeling—live, symbolic, and verbal instructional models.
- Motivation: intrinsic (internal passion), extrinsic (external rewards).
- Operant conditioning (Skinner): behavior shaped by reinforcement or punishment.
Development Principles and Stages
- Development is predictable and occurs in stages (e.g., Erikson's psychosocial stages: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, generativity, integrity).
- Maturation: internal ripening/aging process.
- Growth is quantitative (size/weight), development is qualitative/quantitative (function, behavior).
Learning, Intelligence & Classroom Application
- Maslow’s hierarchy: physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, self-actualization.
- Gardner’s multiple intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, musical, linguistic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist.
- Bruner’s scaffolding and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development: support learners as they master new skills.
Special Topics
- Parenting styles: authoritative (best), authoritarian, permissive, neglectful.
- Learning disabilities: dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing), dyscalculia (math), dyspraxia (motor).
- Primary reinforcers: innate needs (food, water, sleep); tokens are secondary reinforcers.
Key Terms & Definitions
- Animism — Attributing life to inanimate objects; common in preoperational children.
- Centration — Focusing on one aspect of a situation.
- Metacognition — Awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes.
- Learning plateau — Point where no further improvement is seen.
- Scaffolding — Support given to students to help them achieve tasks.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Practice exam questions on child/adolescent development.
- Review major child development theories and stages.
- Study key terms and definitions for LET.
- Complete related readings from the Lar book and other recommended sources.