1 Topic 5: Benchmark; Approaches to Learning Scenarios David Springfield College of Education, Grand Canyon University SEC-505: Adolescent Development and Psychology Dr. Carlton 3/23/22 2 Educators in the middle/high school level face one of the greatest challenges in a career—trying to effectively teach content to students who often don’t seem to want to learn it. Adolescence is one of the most complex and challenging stages of life for both the adolescent themself, their parents, and teachers. Not only are they experiencing radical physical changes, but they are also in the process of crucial cognitive and social development that will ultimately help or hinder their success in life. Throughout adolescence teens must navigate school, relationships, family, life circumstances, and must try to emerge with an identity and sense of purpose. The role of the teacher in the storm of adolescence is to be a support and a guide by utilizing a strong knowledge of adolescent development and their specific students, using scaffolded differentiation to provide individual choices, involving parents and communities as much as possible, and effectively integrating technology to support learning. Adolescent development has wide-ranging effects on learning and it starts with the physical side of development. Adolescents experience physical changes unlike any other time in their lives including significant growth in height and weight, development of sexual organs, new hair growth, changes in voice, and changes in hormones to facilitate the aforementioned changes that can contribute to other physical side effects such as oily skin and acne. These changes can cause both positive and negative effects for students. For students who develop earlier and are perceived as attractive by their peers, these changes can lead to increased self-esteem and confidence. For students who develop late or who have perceived issues with weight or acne, these changes can cause a lack of self-esteem and significant struggles with their confidence. Physical changes can even affect social groups through how students are perceived by their peers. 3 Physical development is not the only thing occurring during adolescence, as important cognitive and social development also occurs during this stage. According to Piaget’s stages, adolescents are becoming more and more able to understand complex and abstract ideas. While in early adolescence they can struggle with abstract concepts, as they move through middle and high school, students become highly capable in engaging with concepts like morality, long-term consequences, and their own identity and purpose. According to Erikson’s stages, adolescents must develop cognitively to develop their own sense of identity. He describes how adolescents distance themselves from their parents and begin to experiment with social groups, new interests, and more, all in the goal of figuring out who they are. If they are stifled in this pursuit or suffer traumas such as bullying or significant life challenges, they may fail to gain this identity and will fall into confusion as to their role in life. In the classroom, cognitive and social developmental behaviors can have challenging effects, but as an educator, the best response to these behaviors is to know and have strong relationships with students and to guide them to mature behaviors while still allowing for room to experiment and fail. Students can seem to facilitate daily or hourly between different modes of behavior, acting like children one moment and young adults the next. This is part of the processes of maturing and developing an identity, and it is important for educators to allow for some experimentation and room for failure while still maintaining a disciplined classroom. This may look like letting students talk to each other a small amount while working on group projects so that they develop socially while maintaining a strong ratio of 90% work and 10% talking. Students can also be affected by disabilities that make their cognitive and social development slowed. For educators, the same guidelines as before apply. Knowing both the student and the 4 disability in depth will allow them to make the right classroom decisions to promote their growth and success (some strategies will be further discussed later on). Students will also engage in a variety of social behaviors such as teasing, joking, forming cliques, and pushing boundaries. Again, helping the students learn what behaviors are acceptable and positive while not completely stifling them is crucial, as trying will only lead to frustration on both sides. If the educator has developed a strong relationship with the student, then the best approach is to mentor them with calmness, directing them to better behaviors and explaining the reasons why. If a student is acting particularly badly on a certain day, keeping an attitude of compassion and understanding while still maintaining control is the best approach since adolescents are experiencing a lot of struggle, some more than others. One effective approach is to have the student step outside the classroom and to talk to them about the reasons for their behavior and how they can work together with the teacher to ensure the behavior changes for the better. This method of cooperative and end-positive mentoring is effective for adolescent students since they are seeking to be individual and push boundaries, and this allows them to be an equal part of the classroom management process. Another important factor to consider regarding social development is the potential source of embarrassment and separation that can occur when students with disabilities are separated excessively from their peers. Adolescents need to grow socially and separation works against this goal. Thus, it is crucial that educators maintain an integrated environment where students with disabilities are mixed in throughout the classroom and are not singled out in obvious or shaming ways. Since adolescents are seeking individuality, identity, and choice, and since they include students with a wide range of strengths, weaknesses, and interests, a powerful tool for middle/high school teachers is differentiation and utilizing multiple intelligence strategies in 5 their lessons and assignments. Middle schoolers are diverse. A diverse population cannot be effectively educated with homogenous lessons and assignments. To address students with varying levels of ability in school and those with IEP’s, an effective tool to use is differentiation. Differentiated lessons allow teachers to teach the same content while allowing students to interact with it in methods that fit their ability level. For example, in a social studies class, a lesson on geography could include a variety of mediums for students to learn through. These could include audio, visual, and hands-on formats, which help students learn to their strengths. The assessment for this lesson could also be differentiated for students' different strengths relating to multiple intelligences. Students could have the choice of completing a hands-on and visual assessment like a physical map to fill out and annotate or could write a short analysis on the different geographical structures/locations in the lesson. This would help students play to their strengths and learn the content in a way that will stick. Differentiation also allows for successful integration of students with learning disabilities into the classroom as it plays to their strengths and supports them without singling them out. Adolescents do not develop successfully by themselves. It takes strong collaboration between teachers, parents, the community, and the students themselves to ensure success through this phase of life. While adolescent students are likely most impacted by their interactions with peers, the effect that mentors such as teachers and parents can have can be multiplied by how well those mentors communicate and work together. Teachers can facilitate this by communicating frequently with parents and building relationships with them. Handling difficult student behaviors and creating a positive classroom culture is made 1000 times easier by having the support of parents. Teachers also have an opportunity to communicate their knowledge of adolescent development and effective strategies to parents and to other educators. The 6 community is also a useful battleground for the positive development of adolescents. Teachers can foster connections with community resources such as after-school programs or food banks both to help students who use them and to foster a sense of community pride and engagement among the class as a whole. A final strategy for facilitating positive growth for adolescents is to integrate technology into the learning environment in a controlled and effective way. There are countless educational technologies out there, many of them offering similar services. Regardless of the specific platform, the goal for the educator in implementation has to be to facilitate ease of communication and opportunities for unique learning experiences. Technologies like Google Classroom can help teachers, parents, and students all communicate easier and give them a single location for all assignments and resources, which is useful for adolescent students in general and especially for those with a learning disability. Educational technologies such as website builders or video editors can allow teachers to diversify their assignment types and to teach students skills that will be useful for the rest of their lives. Even less traditional tech like virtual/augmented reality can be useful in providing differentiation and exposing students to potential interests. The educator must ensure that they are familiar with the tech and know how students can both use and abuse it so that issues such as cyberbullying do not occur, although allowing students a regulated platform to share their thoughts and discuss topics in a safe environment can help mitigate these concerns from the start. From middle school to high school, students have to navigate stormy waters full of challenge and change. Obstacles can originate from their own bodies, their peers, their life circumstances, and more. Educators, working together with parents and the community, play the role of the rudder, guiding them through the storm and providing direction while still allowing 7 them to develop their own identity and purpose, with the eventual goal of them taking the rudder themselves. Through the variety of cognitive and social developmental factors, educators must make sure they know these factors well and know their students better. They must ensure they are respectful and mindful of students with disabilities and effectively integrate them into the classroom so they can grow both socially and in their education. Educators must differentiate and utilize multiple intelligence theory to provide students choices that fit their strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Finally, they must use technology to promote student learning and to provide positive platforms for communication. While adolescence is a challenging time for all involved, it is also one of the most important, and it can end in success if teachers know how to leverage their role to help them in the right direction. 8 References Henderson, J. B., & Lewis, A. (2020). Integrating Technology to Support Classroom Argumentation. Science Scope, 43(8), 16–21. Marenus, M. (1970, January 1). Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. https://www.simplypsychology.org/multiple-intelligences.html. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/multiple-intelligences.html Mcleod, S. (1970, January 1). Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. Erik Erikson | Psychosocial Stages | Simply Psychology. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html#identity Mcleod, S. (2020, December 7). Jean Piaget's theory and stages of cognitive development. Jean Piaget's Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development | Simply Psychology. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html Noonan, M. (2012). An Inclusive Learning Initiative at NUI Maynooth: The Search for a Model of Best Practice for Integrating Students with Intellectual Disability. Adult Learner: The Irish Journal of Adult and Community Education, 107–114. Riccomini, P. J., Sanders, S., Bright, K., & Witzel, B. S. (2009). 20 Ways to Facilitate Learning Experiences through Differentiated Instructional Strategies. Journal on School Educational Technology, 4(4), 7–14.
