- rubber bands
- ski pole
- (Harvard grads video)
Overview
- Introduction to Development
- Piaget's Theory of Development
- Selection Theory Critique of Piaget
- Vygotsky's Theory of Development
- A Perceptual-Control-Theory Critique of Vygotsky
- A Biologically-Based, Unified View of Child Development
- Why This Stuff is Important for Teachers (and maybe parents, too)
Introduction to Development
Important questions concerning development- What develops?
- perceptual abilities
- motor abilities (skills)
- language (comprehension & production)
- knowledge
- values
- increasing control of the physical and social environment
- this development of increasing control of the environment
is particularly striking in humans
- from helpless infants (dependent on adults for food, warmth, shelter, protection)
- to engineers and architects (control rivers, build skyscrapers)
- this development of increasing control of the environment
is particularly striking in humans
- How does it develop?
- provided by God or evolution?
- transmitted (instructed) from environment?
- somehow created by child based on his/her biological endowment?
- What are the implications for application?
- how can we facilitate development
- basic job of parents and educators
- how can we facilitate development
- What develops?
Piaget's Theory of Development
- trained as biologist -> knowledge as adaptation
- 058.3 "He {Piaget} came to understand that many actions
of living creatures are adaptations to their environments and
that these actions help creatures organize their environments
(Wadsworth, 1971, p. 9).
- "control" instead of "organize" their environments
- 058.3 "He {Piaget} came to understand that many actions
of living creatures are adaptations to their environments and
that these actions help creatures organize their environments
(Wadsworth, 1971, p. 9).
- genetic epistemology
- children have qualitatively different perceptions and abililties than adults, not just "less"
- importance of interaction with physical environment
Piaget's four stages of cognitive development- 1. sensorimotor intelligence (0 to 2 years)
- manipulation of physical environment
- 2. preoperational thought (2 to 7 years)
- begins to think conceptually
- can solve physical problems
- 3. concrete operations (7 to 11 years)
- can think logically in dealing with physical problems
- 4. formal operations (11 to 15 years)
- can think abstractly
- can develop and test mental hypotheses
- can reason and think logically
- 1. sensorimotor intelligence (0 to 2 years)
Schema = "a concept, mental category, or cognitive structure" (p. 58)
Processes of development- assimilation: sees butterfly, says "bird" (uses old, known word for a new concept)
- accommodation: sees butterfly, says "bird" first but then later "butterly"
- equilibrium: schemata are consistent with each other
- child says "bird" when adult says "bird"
- disequilibrium: schemata are not consistent
- child says "bird" but adult says "butterfly"
- conservation of clay or water
->Small-Group Discussions: four to six students- Discuss why it is warmer in the summer than in the winter.
- Watch for examples of disequilibrium, assimilation and accomodation both within yourself and among your group members.
- Did anyone develop cognitively as a result of this discussion? How and why?
Show "Harvard Grad" videotape segment for their explanations of same phenomenon
- why do these misperceptions exist (do someone teach them this stuff?)
Selection Theory Critique of Piaget
Questions & problems (How)- What general mechanism is used for assimilation and accomodation?
- How does child know what when something can be assimilated into a current schema, or when a schema must be accomodated (changed) or new one created?
- More generally, how can a child's knowledge and skills increase
(can one ever learn anything really new?)
- Meno dilemma from Socrates
- Novel, unpredictable entities can result the combination of other
entities
- H2 + 0 = H20
- Na + Cl = NaCl
- new sequences of genes (A, T, G, C) provide new, unpredictable protein shapes
- Humans and chimpanzees share 95% of their genes
- Any two humans have about 99.92% identical genes
- Blind Watchmaker applet
http://www.rennard.org/alife/english/biomgb.html
- just 9 genes give 50,000 billion possible combinations!
- humans have about 30,000 protein-coding genes (C. elegans (roundworm) has 20,000)
- What does this have to do with learning new concepts and new skills?
- new concepts and skills as combinations of old ones
- need a way to generate variations (new combinations) and select among them
- newly selected combinations become the building blocks for still newer
more complex combinations, etc.
- human brain has about 11 billion nerve cells, each having up to 10,000 connections (synapses) with other neurons
Universal Selection Theory (I advocate; you critique)- Among- and Within-Organism Variation and Selection
- Prior and Current Variation and Selection
- Among- and Within-Organism Variation and Selection
->"Gang-up-on-Professor" Criticism: groups of four to six students: choose reporter- What do you find most confusing about the UST framework for understanding development?
- What criticisms do you have for the notion that all development, all knowledge and skill growth, is based on some form of variation and selection?
- Critique the practical use of such a theory for educating children
- reporter critiques; professor defends
Demo: pole balancing- have student volunteer balance ski pole on end and observe how variation and selection leads to development of a new skill
Piaget's rejection of selection theory- believed in the Lamarckian theory that what an organism learns can be passed on genetically to offspring
- found variation and selection too "wasteful"
Vygotsky's Theory of Development
- child is an active creator of knowledge
- importance of interaction with social environment
- cultural differences
- language influences thought: private speech
- zone of proximal development
- scaffolding
A Perceptual-Control-Theory Critique of Vygotsky
- Questions and problems (Why)
- Why do children adapt to their culture?
- How can child development be understood as meeting the goals (purposes) of children and adults?
- Perceptual Control Theory (I advocate, you critique)
Purpose and feedback *- What is purposeful behavior? *
- Rubber-band demonstration of purposeful behavior
- phenomenon
- model
- implications
- Rubber-band demonstration of purposeful behavior
- Elementary control system
- Language use depends on perceptual feedback
- Different levels of feedback in speaking
- proprioceptive
- Why it's difficult to speak after dental anaesthesia
- auditory
- clarity
- pitch
- loudness
- Try speaking with food/spoon/cigarette in mouth, or while keeping tongue pressed against upper or lower teeth to show how we can adjust our motor output to control sound input.
- reaction of listener
- Did he or she understand?
- proprioceptive
- 007.4 "This feedback component allows the speaker to make constant corrections so that ouput is as finely tuned as possible in terms of conveying thoughts and accurately."
- Language behavior is purposeful
- Different levels of feedback in speaking
- All behavior depends on perceptual feedback
- What is purposeful behavior? *
->Think-Pair-Share- What do you find most confusing about the PCT framework for understanding purposeful behavior?
- What criticisms do you have for the notion that all purposful behavior involves controlling perceptions?
- Be prepared to share your partner's confusion and criticisms in class.
Demo: pole balancing- have student volunteer to balance ski pole on end and observe what student perceptual variables the student is controlling during the task
- what are lower-level goals?
- what are higher-level goals?
A Biologically-Based, Unified View of Child Development
Brief description- Humans are born with knowledge, skills, abilities, and preferences
(goals) that have been shaped by natural selection
- physical comfort
- preference for sugar, fat and salt
- aversion to things and objects associated with sickness and death
- sex differences in mating strategies
- social contact
- acceptance and respect of others
- New goals (purposes) develop as the means to achieve these
more basic goals
- Child example
- wants to eliminate hunger or pain
- wants to obtain assistance of parent
- wants to tell parent what is wrong
- wants to learn language
- Adult example
- wants to be attractive to other sex
- wants to have nice car/attractive clothes
- wants to get good-paying job to obtain these
- wants to get education to get good-paying job
- Child example
- New skills and knowledge develop are motivated by goals,
and depend on variation and selection.
- variation: actions, ideas, values
- selection: requires feedback from physical and/or social environment
- knowledge gained via previous variation and selection constrains and aids new variation and selection
- Humans are born with knowledge, skills, abilities, and preferences
(goals) that have been shaped by natural selection
Strengths- Recognizes importance of human evolution
- human abilities as adaptations for survival and reproduction
- human desires/preferences as adaptations for survival and reproduction
- Recognizes that organisms do not react to their environments (the "behavioral illusion"), instead they control their environments
- Recognizes how the development of new skills and knowledge is an active, creative, evolutionary process that leads to new adaptations to the environment (physical and social) in the form of useful skills, knowledge, and preferences
- Explains what is universal and what is culture-specific
in development
- basic universal needs and preferences for food, shelter, resources, status, social contact, sex
- skills, knowledge and preferences for meeting these needs
depends on opportunities provided by the physical and social
environment
- Universal: need for carbohydrates, protein and fat
- Particular: diet
- rice in Asia
- corn in Latin America
- sorghum in Africa
- wheat in North America
- seal and whale meat in Arctic
- Recognizes importance of human evolution
Weaknesses- not accepted by mainstream psychologists and educators
- ignorance or rejection of role of biological evolution in human behavior, skills and preferences
- ignorance of rejection of the notion of within-organisms variation and selection to account for human development and learning
- ignorance or rejection of idea that humans use behavior to control their perceptions (environments); acceptance of "behavioral illusion" that perceptions (stimuli, environment) cause behavior (responses)
- (students fill in valid criticisms here?)
- not accepted by mainstream psychologists and educators
- Biological evolution (among-organism variation
& selection) provides an understanding of our abilities,
difficulties and goals
- every child possesses the most complex object ever discovered in the universe: a human brain
- this brain has has been "honed"
by millions of years of evolution to undergo development during
the years of childhood
- general cognitive development
- born to talk (easy, robust)
- not born to read, write, give lectures or listen to lectures (difficult, fragile)
- humans (including children) have certain common goals & desires
- Within-organism variation & selection
provides an explanation of how children develop new skills
- trial and error elimination
- requires an environment that is free, supportive and critical
- new tasks should not be too easy nor too hard (Vygotsky's ZPD; scaffolding)
- Perceptual control theory provides an
explanation of how purposeful behavior is possible
- humans behave to control important aspects of their physical (Piaget) and social (Vygotsky) environment
- teachers can use their knowledge of children's goals to facilitate their development of "hard" language skills
Recap
- Introduction to Development
- Piaget's Theory of Development
- Selection Theory Critique of Piaget
- Vygotsky's Theory of Development
- A Perceptual-Control-Theory Critique of Vygotsky
- A Biologically-Based, Unified View of Child Development
Resources
- Universal Selection Theory and cognitive development
- See chapter 9 of Cziko (1995) Without miracles at www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/g-cziko/wm
- Introduction to Perceptual Control Theory
- See chapter 8 of Cziko (1995) Without miracles at www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/g-cziko/wm>
- Also see The Control Systems Group at www.ed.uiuc.edu/csg
- A biologically-based, unified view of child development
- Cziko (in press) The Things We Do (in press) at www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/g-cziko/twd
- The role of evolution in human behavior
- Human Behavior and Evolution Society at www.hbes.com