Brain Science Info:

Gross Anatomy of the Brain

Basic cellularbuilding blockof the brain:the Neuron.

Cell assemblies:building blocksfor all higher order thinking andlearning.

While (almost) all the neurons (100-200 billion) your brain willever have develop before you are born the numberof interconnections between neurons continues to change throughout your life. The number and type of connections can be likened to a spider web whose pattern of threadsis continuously changing.

Piaget Info:

Axioms of Piaget’s theory:1 Development is a form of adaptation to reality.

2. Children adapt to reality through various forms of scientific problem solving.

3. Children’s development is an active process (i.e. the child must perform physical and mental actions to integrate incoming information). Child constructs reality.

4. Cognitive development is Organismic:A process of biologicalunfolding (e.g. metamorphosis).

5. This process of unfolding is the driving force behind his stage theory. As child moves from one stage to the next she metamorphosizes into a better scientific problem solver.

Methodological Assumptions:•Piaget used a longitudinal, case-based, methodology in order to gain insight into the processes of development. This meant detailed observations, interviews, and informal experiments using small samples of children. The flexibility of his methods allowed him to follow up on unexpected observations in a very flexible manner.In fact, in his early work, Piaget’s subjects are his own children- Jacqueline, Laurent, and Lucien.

•He was less concerned with issues of statistical replication ofhis research findings than he was with accounting for the full richness of an individual child’s cognitive development.

The Process of Development:

•Adaptation= the process of altering existing knowledge structures through experience. Adaptation has 2 components: Assimilation and accommodation.

•Assimilation = representing new information in terms of existing knowledgeEX: calling a truck "car"

•Accommodation = adapting or modifying existing knowledge or behavior to new informationEX: learning that cars and trucks are similar, but different, kinds of vehicles

•Disequilibrium = cognitive conflict experienced when existing Knowledge structures cannot handle new information.EX: 6-year-old who believes that animals are the only living things. Then realizes that plants also have qualities of living things (e.g., they need nourishment to grow, they die). This puts her in state of disequilibirum. Her beliefs do not match reality.

•Equilibration = resolution of disequlibrium to reach state of equilibrium (in which child's thinking becomes more like reality). This is the mechanism by which a child's cognitive conflict is resolved and she progresses from one stage to the next stage.EX: Through assimilation and accommodation, child realizes thatboth plants and animals possess qualities of living things and concludes that both plants and animals are living things.

* This process of developmental change occurs only when a problem arises to disturb equilibrium. That is why Piaget focused on children's problem solving skills.

Equilibration

Equilibrium

Disequilibrium

Some other critical concepts:

Egocentrism= “assuming that others experience/perceive the world the way you do.”

Decentering= “Focusing on more than one aspect of a situation at a time.”

Object Permanence= “understanding that objects continue to exist even if you can no longer sense (i.e. see, feel, hear,touch, smell) them.”

Stages characterized by:1. child's thinking is qualitatively different at each stage2. child progresses abruptly from one stage to the next3. child's knowledge is an organized whole*4. All children go through all stages in the same order.*5. Unidirectional, only goes in one direction. Children do not go back.

The 4 Stages:1. sensorimotor (birth-2yrs)

2. preoperational (2-6 or 7 yrs)

3. concrete operational (6 or 7-11 or 12 yrs)

4. formal operational (11 or12; complete by age 15 or 16)

Limitations of The Piagetian Paradigm:

Attempts to validate Piaget’s findings usingincreasingly standardized procedures and larger samples of children have, by and large, succeeded in replicating his original findings.(Elkind, 1961; Goodnow, 1962).

But, this begs the question: is it possible that children possess conceptual understanding that is not revealed by Piaget’s experiments?

In other words, throughout development children seem to have basic understandings that are simply not revealed on Piaget’s tasks.

Recall, that Piaget said infants had no sense of object permanencebefore they reached 8 months of age. Baillargeon (1987) developed a measure showing that infants as young as 4 months have some concept of object permanence. Her task was based on the concept of habituation*.

Experimental Condition Control Condition

HabituationEvent

TestEvents

(with box) (without box)

Impossible Event 180 Event

112 EventPossible Event

o

o

*Habituation=when infants are repeatedly shown a stimulus, after a time,they lose interest in it and look at it less and less

Vygotsky Info:

Main ideas of his theory:1. Emphasizes the role of historical, cultural, and social factors inCognition.The stages Piaget observed are not so much universal aspects of cognitive development. Rather, they are specific to the particular Culture he was observing. One implication of this is that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of children.

2. Tools- culturally devised ways of thinking, searching, planning, doing

3. Language is the most important symbolic tool provided by societyfor cognitive development. Children’s gradual interiorization of their self talk helps them regulate their thinking. Audible private speech (e.g. Monologues)-ages 4-7 converted to silent inner speech -circa age 9.Ed. Implication- teach children self talk - so they can talk themselvesthrough (e.g. slow down, what do I have to do, what’s my plan etc.) a learning situation.

Main ideas cont...4. ScaffoldingScaffolding (Bruner) = "adults create supportedsituations in which children can extend currentskills and knowledge to a higher level of competence”. An apprenticeship approach to learning (Rogoff, 1991).

According to Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976) scaffolding should:1. recruit the child's attention to the task2. simplify the task by reducing the number of steps needed to solve the problem3. motivate the child to stay on-task4. mark critical discrepancies between the child's work and the ideal outcome5. control frustration and risk6. demonstrate an idealized version of the act to be performed

5. The Zone of 5. The Zone of Proximal DevelopmentProximal Development

Teacher, Parent, or Peer

Learnedtasks

Panic Zone

ZPD-distance between ZPD-distance between independent performance andindependent performance andlevel of assisted performancelevel of assisted performance

Unlearned tasks not yet within learner’sUnlearned tasks not yet within learner’sability and cultural tools for learning.ability and cultural tools for learning.

ChildChild

Comfort Zone

Interaction

ZPD

Main ideas cont...

Some practical educational applications of Vygotsky/Rogoff (p.52)•Tailor scaffolding to the needs of students:

provide models, prompts, coaching, feedback when studentsare starting a new topic/task. As the students grow in competence diminish the scaffolds.

Give students choices about the level of difficulty or degreeof independence in projects.

•Provide students access to tools that support thinking:use learning and organizational strategies, research tools,language tools (dictionaries or computer searches),spreadsheets, word processing programs.

Model the use of tools-e.g. show students how you use a datebook to manage your time.

•Capitalize on dialogue and group learning:experiment with peer tutoringexperiment with cooperative learning.

Language Dev. Info:

The Study of language is divided into 5 domains:The Study of language is divided into 5 domains:

1.PHONOLOGY= producing and combining sounds

2. MORPHOLOGY= involves manipulating morphemes = smallest unit of meaning

3. SYNTAX= grammar or rules for how to combine words

4. SEMANTICS= word meaning or vocabulary 5. PRAGMATICS= using language in socially appropriate ways to communicate

I. PhonologyI. Phonology1. phoneme = smallest unit of raw speech sound2. Production of speech sounds involves vocal tract = mouth and respiratory tract (Prosody-intonation,pitch, etc.). 3. There are somewhere around 50 phonemes in English.Specific sound->how much is mouth open, position of lips and tongue, amount of airstream friction in mouth.Vowel sounds only involve vocal cord and tongue position.

Major class soundsConsonant Place Manner VoicingF Labiodental Fricative (air escapes) No(no vocal cord vibration)V Labiodental Fricative Yes(vocal cord vibrates)S Alveolar Fricative NoZ Alveolar Fricative YesT Alveolar Stop (no air escapes) NoD Alveolar Stop YesEX: Vowel = air is unobstructed as it moves through vocal tract; vocal cord vibration is sound source

(Siegler, p. 146):1. Reflexive sounds (e.g., crying): birth

-Production of sounds is limited by size of head and neck region.2. Cooing: 1-2 mos

-"Comfort-state vocalizations" are made with tongue in back of mouth and rounded lips.-Also, laughter begins.

3. Vocal play and simple articulation: 3-4mos-Test sounds: loud vs. soft, high vs. low, raspberries, sustained vowels.-Also, increased number of consonants, some simple syllables.

4. Babbling: 6mos-Seem to be producing words (e.g., mama, dada).-Begin with reduplicated babbles (e.g., bababa), then variegated babbles (varying consonant & vowels, e.g., bagidabu).

5. Patterned speech: 12mos-Increase in sound patterns of language; decrease in other sound patterns.

-Say first word.(mama, papa, dada)

II. MorphologyII. MorphologyMorphemes=smallest units of language that carry meaning, May be a complete word or smaller (e.g. strange, er, s)-stems, roots, prefixes, suffixes are all morphemes.Combination of morphemes is rule governed. Q:What is a word? Give a definition.Avg. adult speaker of English knows 50,000 or so morphemes words.Developmental Sequence:12-18 mos. 3-22 words. 18-21 mos. 22-118 wds.21-24 mos. 118-272 wds.24-36 mos. 272-896 wds.36-48 mos. 896-1,540 wds.48-60 mos. 1,540-2,072 wds

A typical 1st grader understands at least 10,000 wds. On average typically developing children are learning approximately 10 new words a day.

III. SyntaxIII. Syntax (from the Greek term-”arranging together”)The system (ie. The Grammar) for arranging words into phrases and then into sentences.Phrases-how words are put togetherE.g. The boy hit the ball (The boy) (hit the ball)First noun phrase, Verb Phrase(embedded 2nd noun phrase)Noam Chomsky:2 types of phrase structure (surface and underlying)Surface=sequence of phrases as spoken-can be very similar yet very different in meaningE.g. The boy hit the ball v. The ball hit the boyUnderlying= the meaning of the sentence.Phrasing may look different but meaning is the same.E.g. The boy hit the ball What the boy hit was the ball.

IV. SemanticsIV. Semantics-- what do words mean?a. shift to 2-word utterances -Stage I consists mostly of open-class (content) words. Limited closed-class (function) words, although no, more are common. -Begin with holophrases = one-word utterances. -Then two-word utterances = "telegraphic speech".EX: no more, more cookie, all gone, eat itb. Common errors:-Overextensionse.g., "doggie" to refer to all animals-Underextensionse.g., "ring" to refer only to mom's wedding ringGradually diminish, with assimilation & accommodation?c. production lags behind comprehensionE.g comprehend 50 words by 13 mos, but produce 50 words by 19 mosd. Use preferential-looking paradigm used to test Vocabulary comprehension.Infants and toddlers prefer to look at monitor that "matches" spoken words. E.g., dog, vs. cow, with "doggie".

Is meaning in the words themselves?Is meaning in the words themselves?

“(I) argue against the tacit assumption that sentences ‘carry meaning.’ People carry meaning, and linguistic inputs merely act as cues which people can use to recreate and modify their previous knowledge of the world. What is comprehended and remembered depends on the individual’s general knowledgeof his [or her] environment.”

John BranfordJohn Branford

V. Pragmatics:Studying the context of language use(language as it is used by real people to communicate)

A.Establishing referents- the who, what, where, and WhenHe did it.

B.Requests for clarificationPlease repeat what you just said?What do you mean by that?

C.Conversational Organizationturn taking-Motherese (prosody)

D.Grice’s Maxims:Quantity-keep it to a minimum. No more than is required.Quality-Do not say what you believe to be false. Relation-Be relevant.Manner-Avoid obscurity & ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly.

Phonetics Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics

Illiteracy Vocabulary Mechanics Vocabulary Verbal Tense Meaning Etiquette

Decoding Peer tutoring Feedback Read for main Model ideas Rules

RT-Reciprocal Teaching (Brown and Campione, 1987(Brown and Campione, 1987•heterogeneous reading groups are formed- heterogeneous reading groups are formed- •Student’s take turns reading paragraphs. Student’s take turns reading paragraphs. •After reading a paragraph the students- After reading a paragraph the students- 1. Ask an interesting 1. Ask an interesting questionquestion about the paragraph about the paragraph2. Create a 2. Create a summarysummary of the paragraph of the paragraph3. 3. PredictPredict what the author will talk about next what the author will talk about next4. Work together to 4. Work together to ClarifyClarify words or ideas they don’t understand words or ideas they don’t understand