Development & Learning
Early brain development
Development of the midbrain, forebrain and hindbrain
When the foetus is about 3 or 4 weeks old, a long tube develops in the brain which is divided from the front into three distinct round sections.
In order from the top: forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain.
By five weeks old the forebrain and hindbrain split but the midbrain doesn’t split.
The forebrain splits into : anterior and posterior
Hindbrain splits through the middle.
Development of the cerebellum and medulla
The cerebellum can be seen at about 6 weeks and a year after birth.
Cerebellum : controls physical skills, involved in responses such as fear and processing sense information.
The medulla oblongata : in the hindbrain, controls involuntary responses such as sneezing and breathing, also heart rate and blood pressure. It forms by 20 weeks and connects the rest of the brain to the spinal cord.
Building neural connections from birth
A key part of development of a baby’s brain is the huge increase in the number of neural connections, with 700-1000 new connections forming every second.
These connections allow for very fast communication between the different parts of the brain.
Early connections are very important so it’s important that babies get plenty of stimulation.
Piaget’s stages of development
| Sensorimotor stage [birth to 2 years]They use their senses and movements to learn the world around them. They begin with reflex actions and learn to control their movements.At 6 months, they develop object permanence : learning that objects exist when they can’t see them.At 4 months old children may begin repeating their actions. | Preoperational stage [2 to 7 years] |
| Symbolic function [2 to 4 years]Kids start imitating others and can use objects as symbols.Symbolic play: using an object to represent anotherKids see the world through their own eyes not someone else’s [egocentrism] Animism : they believe objects can behave as if they are alive | |
| Intuitive thought stage [4 to 7 years]They don’t realise how conservation and irreversibility is achieved, like putting a tall glass into a smaller one | |
| Concrete operational stage [7 to 12 years]Children begin to apply rules and strategies to help their thinking and use concrete objects to aid understanding e.g. using counters to find a sum.They have difficulty with abstract ideas e.g. morality Abilities in this stage : Seriation – sorting objects e.g. in sizeClassification – naming or identifying objects according to size / appearanceReversibility – changing something back to its original formConservation – things don’t change depending on where you put themDecentration – ability to take multiple views of a situation | Formal operational stage [12+ years]They can think about more than two things.They have the ability to think about how time changes.They understand that events have a sequence.A young person can see that actions have consequences.They also understand that they and others exist in the real world and separate from each other. |
Using Piaget’s stages in education
He suggested that children’s actions and interactions affect their thinking.
They cannot do certain things until they reach the appropriate stage of development.
E.g.
- Young children are egocentric so they might not do as they are told because of their lack of understanding. They are not being naughty.
- Children build their own schemas, so they individually build their own knowledge and understanding.
Implications for teaching
Robert Salvin (2005) suggested:
- There should be a focus on the child’s thinking and not what they can do.
- Discovery learning is required and children must be able to engage freely with their environment rather than being told facts.
- Teaching should acknowledge that children learn and develop at different rates, they aren’t like adults.
- Classrooms must be managed to suit all individuals, whole-class teaching is not advised. They go through the stages in different ways.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Piaget’s explanation of understanding the world
- Piaget held that children develop through adaption – they adjust to the world as they experience new things.
- Through this, they build schemas. They change these and create new ones too.
Piaget’s theory and the development of intelligence
- This is about building knowledge and skills.
- Intelligence is acquired through stages of development, such as developing object permanence and formal reasoning.
Strengths and weaknesses of Piaget’s theory
| Strengths | Weakness |
| It has practical applications.Discovery learning draws on his ideas about focusing on the individual child’s stage of development when helping their learning.When they can discover things at their own pace, they build schemas and work according to their stage of development. | Other studies have shown that children can do things earlier than Piaget thought, challenging his ideas. |
| He did not look at the influence of social interactions or cultural settings.Pierre Dasen (1994) found that aboriginal children developed abilities to conserve later than Piaget’s swiss sample. This suggests that culture affects cognitive development. | |
| It has generated a great deal of research and experiments. These often support his ideas. | His data came from his interviews and observations with children. His interpretations may be subjective = bias in his findings. |
| Lack of validity.Other studies using similar methods but in realistic settings produced different findings. |
Dweck’s mindset theory and the effects of learning on development
Mindset theory suggests that children who think they can improve will continue to put in effort, whereas children who do not have a particular ability give up.
This theory suggests that children with a fixed mindset can change to a growth mindset.
Fixed and growth mindset: ability and effort
It is better to praise a child for effort so they believe that they can achieve something and carry on trying.
They need to avoid thinking they do or do not have an ability and instead believe they can put in effort.
Key points of Dweck’s mindset theory
- With a fixed mindset, children will think they don’t have an ability and stop taking on challenges.
- They can become depressed and stop trying.
- Growth mindset: brings success and feedback is taken notice of.
- A teacher with a fixed mindset can see children as lacking an ability but teachers with growth mindsets see that a child can improve with perseverance.
Experimental evidence
- In one of her experiments (Mueller and Dweck, 1998), it was found that praising children’s ability led to a fixed mindset. They were vulnerable in coping with setbacks.
- Praising effort led to a growth mindset.
- Yeager and Dweck (2012) of more than 1500 students, low achieving students who learned to use a growth mindset did better compared to a control group who did not have that learning.
Strengths and weaknesses of mindset theory
| Strengths | Weakness |
| Practical applications.We can focus on praising effort.The theory is positive – shows that change is possible, which helps society. | Many studies that look at mindset use artificial settings. Results may not represent real life. Data may lack validity. |
| Gunderson et al (2013) used a natural environment when gathering data on parent praise, giving the study validity. | Studying the mindset of a child may result in the child becoming the focus if there are problems with their progress rather than the quality of what is being taught.This can affect the usefulness of the theory. |
| The way that studies are done leads to the type of praise being the most important variable, but there is a need to consider behaviour where praise doesn’t feature. |
Willingham’s learning theory and the effects of learning on development
Factual knowledge precedes skill
- Knowing facts helps when building the skills of problem solving and reasoning.
- Knowledge can free up space in our working memory to allow us to use mental skills such as problem solving.
- Willingham suggests that what someone already knows leaves them more processing power to solve a problem and aids understanding.
The importance of practice and effort
- Willingham emphasises that practice and effort enable us to master knowledge and skills.
- It’s important to practise something enough to be able to do it automatically.
- This is necessary to leave enough working memory for learning new things.
Importance of building knowledge
- Short term memory involves practice. What is learned then goes into the long term memory where material has to be reviewed and practised to be remembered.
- There comes a time where practise and effort is enough and it sticks in LTM.
Strategies to support development
Cognitive development
- Use problems that are new and require effort.
- Understand a student’s likely stage of development when planning activities.
- Remember that a student’s abilities are variable and can change day to day.
- Consider factors other than development. Like not understanding a task.
Physical development
- Focus on suitable movements and what order needs to be carried out.
- Practice movements enough times to make the muscle commands automatic.
- Use conscious effort. Make changes in order to develop the motor skill.
Social development
- Once able to take another’s viewpoint, a child can behave in helpful ways. This is the start of forming social relationships.
- Demonstrate social behaviour – social learning.
- Help a child to stop impulsive behaviour. Use an organised classroom environment and remove anything that can trigger such behaviours.
- Encourage practice which requires self-regulation (doing something because you know you have to). This is required because there are things we would rather do.
- Delay giving a reward for a task to encourage a child to keep working at it, which requires them to have self control.
Strengths and weaknesses of Willingham’s learning theory
| Strength | Weakness |
| Can be applied to education and life to promote a child’s development in a positive way. | He did not emphasise the importance of individual differences. He suggested that self-regulation and impulsiveness are to some extent, inherited. This cannot easily be changed using strategies. |
| Studies support his work and his arguments against Piaget’s view that development is in stages.Experiments control the effects of a study. This is a strength because it is controlled. Arguably, it is artificial. | His ideas come from many areas of cognitive science, memory theory and cognitive development. Drawing on evidence from other theories can be a strength. However it does mean his ideas are not one singular theory that can be tested by gathering data. |
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