How Does Knowledge Grow

1. How Does Knowledge Grow Relationships – Doing - Thinking

2. What is a Theory? • The term theory is used with surprising frequency in everyday language. It is often used in to mean a guess or hunch. • You may even hear people dismiss certain information because it is "only a theory.” as the colloquial use of the term. • In science, a theory is not merely a guess. A theory is a fact-based framework for describing a phenomenon. • In psychology, theories are used to provide a model for understanding human thoughts, emotions and behaviors.

3. Depending on Theorist – Explanation Emphasis Will Differ

4. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs • Maslow presented the idea that human actions are directed toward goal attainment. • The lower level needs mustbe satisfied before higher-order needs can develop. • http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp

6. Esteem • Two levels: • The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for recognition, attention, reputation, appreciation, dignity, even dominance. • The higher form involves the need for self-respect, including such feelings as confidence, competence, achievement, mastery, independence, and freedom. Note that this is the higher form because, unlike the respect of others, once you have self-respect, it’s a lot harder to lose!

7. What do you need to reachSelf-Actualization • In order to be happy you need: • Truth, rather than dishonesty. 
 • Goodness, rather than evil. • Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity. 
 • Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices. 
 • Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life. 
 • Uniqueness, not bland uniformity. • Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident. 
 • Completion, rather than incompleteness. • Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness. 
 • Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity. • Richness, not environmental impoverishment. 
 • Effortlessness, not strain. • Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery. • Self-sufficiency, not dependency. • Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness.

8. EriksonPsychosocial Theory • Eight stages of social-emotional development across the life span. Relevant to modern life, from several different perspectives, for understanding and explaining how personality and behavior develops in people. • Personality strengths or weaknesses are formed based on the resolution of the crisis during each stage, one acquires new skills through conflict resolution. • Erikson's theory is useful for teaching, parenting, self-awareness, managing and coaching, dealing with conflict, and generally for understanding self and others.

9. Erikson

10. Maslow/EriksonSelf – Reflect Activity – Summiting the Mounting of Life • What social concern do you want to impact? What do you need to acquire or accomplish to make a difference? • Erikson: Identity or Role Confusion • What are you most proud of about yourself – what have you stood up for? Who are you? • Who is there for you – What groups do you associate with? • Where do you feel the most secure, who and what is there? • Do you have your basic rights met: shelter, clothing, medical care, nutritional meals, clean water?

11. Piaget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtLEWVu815o • This theory suggests that our prior knowledge can facilitate or enhance transfer of a learning task. It is also true that prior knowledge can inhibit or interfere with our acquisition of new information • Young children are “egocentric”: they are focused only on their point of view – The sun follows me and the sun goes to bed when I go to bed. • Language alone doesn’t represent a child’s knowledge and understanding; children know a lot more than they can say. • Children think about the world very differently than adults do. Children are thinkers; children are scientists. • Biology and experience play equal roles in developing a human.

12. His research in developmental psychology had one unique goal: How does knowledge grow?

13. Answer Knowledge is built upon. • During all development stages, the child experiences his or her environment using the mental maps s/he has been able to construct. • If the experience is a repeated, it fits easily--or is assimilated--into the child's cognitive structure so that he or she maintains mental "equilibrium." • If the experience is different or new, the child loses disequilibrium. The child has to alter his/her cognitive structure to accommodate the new conditions.

14. Logic? All things in the air are birds. Then they learn the difference between bird and plane

15. Logical Thinking Another Example Theseare all apples because they are red

16. 4 Development Stages • Sensorimotor stage • Preoperational stage • Concrete operation • Formal operations

17. Sensorimotor Stage:Birth - 2 years of age The child, through physical interaction with his or her environment, builds a set of concepts about reality and how it works. This is the stage where a child does not know that objects remain in existence even when out of sight, object permanence.

18. Sensorimotor Stage • 12 to 18 months • Trial and Error: Push a cracker off a high chair and watch it fall to the floor. Then does it again • Can find hidden objects • Understands that objects exist independently

19. Preoperational Stage2 - 7 years old The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations. The child is quite egocentric during this stage, that is, he sees things pretty much from one point of view: his own! His thinking is influenced by fantasy -- the way he'd like things to be -- and he assumes that others see situations from his viewpoint. He takes in information and then changes it in his mind to fit his ideas.

20. Conservation Quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance. If you show a child four marbles in a row, then spread them out, the preoperational child will focus on the spread, and tend to believe that there are now more marbles than before.

21. Preoperational Stage Conservation • They think the same amount of liquid is more when poured into a tall thin glass. • To them taller means more!

22. Concrete Operation7-11 years old During this stage, the child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgments about concrete or observable phenomena. In the past, the child needed to manipulate physically to understand. In teaching this child, giving him the opportunity to ask questions and to explain things back to allows him to mentally manipulate information.

23. Formal Operations11 - 15 years old This person no longer requires concrete objects to make rational judgments. At this point, he is capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. Teaching for the adolescent may be wide ranging because he'll be able to consider many possibilities from several perspectives.

24. Formal Operations Stage • Can think in abstract ways • Understand loyalty and freedom

45. Piaget

46. Vygotsky • After age two, the growth of the mind is highly influenced by the child’s culture. Learning occurs when children interact with both the environment and people around them. Children are active participants in their own learning. • In play, children often behave beyond their average age; play is a major source of development. To master and remember these new skills the child needs assistance. • Scaffolding is how an adult or another child can assist the learner by asking questions, posing problems, modeling or offering new materials that move the child to a new level of learning – Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). • Growing and learning doesn’t always happen naturally. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

47. Cognitive Constructivist vs. Social Constructivist

48. How would Piaget & Vogotsky teach a skill? • Introduce • Model • Practice – Hands on experience • Build Upon Prior Skills

49. Howard Gardner • Proposed the notion that human beings have not just one type of intelligence, but several. Previously intelligence had been defined by intelligence tests. • Rarely do intelligences work alone, rather they are combined in our activities as one can enhance another. *What intelligence will you use to analyze, synthesis, and evaluate how knowledge grows?

50. Reggio Emilia100 Languages • Depending on the ages and skills of the children, activities engaged are sparked by the children’s interest and moves into project work include drawing, writing, reading, recording observations, and interviewing experts. • The information gathered is summarized and represented in the form of graphs, charts, diagrams, paintings and drawings, murals, models and other constructions, and reports to peers and parents. • In the early years, an important component of a project is dramatic play, in which new understanding is expressed and new vocabulary is used. • Environment plays an important role as ‘third teacher’, the first teacher (the parent) and the second (the classroom teacher, who co-explores with children)