Introduction: The learning process

Learning is generally defined as relatively permanent changes in behavior, skills, knowledge, or

attitudes resulting from identifiable psychological or social experiences.
A key feature is permanence: changes do not count as learning if they are temporary. You do not
learn a phone number if you forget it the minute after you dial the number; you do not learn to like
vegetables if you only eat them when forced. The change has to last.
Learning can be physical, social, emotional, or cognitive.
You do not learn to sneeze by catching a cold, but you do have to learn many skills and behaviors
that are physically based, such as riding a bicycle or throwing a ball.
You can also learn to like (or dislike) a person, even though this change may not happen
deliberately.
Learning is not the same as teaching. The distinction between learning and teaching is especially
important for teachers to remember.
Teachers must be careful not to confuse their efforts (i.e. teaching) with what students get from
their efforts (i.e. learning).
The circumstances of teaching, e.g. the number of students in the classroom, can influence
teachers’ perceptions of learning, and therefore also influence how they teach.
There are several major theories of learning. The two main theories that are explained in this
course are behaviourism and constructivism.

Behaviourism Constructivism
Behaviourism: This theory emphasizes the links Constructivism: This theory emphasises the
that can often be observed among overt inner thoughts of learners.
behaviours and the circumstances of the
behaviours. There are many varieties of constructivism, but
the two main varieties are psychological
A variety of behaviourism called operant constructivism and social constructivism.
conditioning has been used by a number of
educators to explain and organise management Psychological constructivism emphasises the
strategies for certain students, especially those independence of learners’ thinking, and social
with behavioural problems. constructivism emphasises learners’ need for
social connections while learning.
Chapter 1: Teachers’ Perspective on Learning
For teachers, learning usually refers to things that happen in schools or classrooms, even though
every teacher can of course describe examples of learning that happen outside of these places.
Teachers’ perspectives on learning often emphasize the following three ideas:
1. Curriculum content and academic achievement
2. Sequencing and readiness
3. The importance of transferring learning to new or future situations
Sometimes teachers tend to emphasise whatever is taught in schools deliberately, including both
the official curriculum and the various behaviours and routines that make classrooms run smoothly.
In practice, defining learning in this way often means that teachers equate learning with the major
forms of academic achievement - especially language and mathematics - and to a lesser extent
musical skill, physical co-ordination, or social sensitivity (Gardner, 1999, 2006)
In the classroom, there is a lot of learning that takes place alongside the explicit learning of the
curriculum. This is called incidental learning and it occurs without the teacher or learner
deliberately trying to make it happen.
Teachers often see this incidental learning and welcome it in their classroom. But their
responsibility for curriculum goals more often focuses their efforts on what students can learn
through conscious, deliberate effort.
The distinction between teaching and learning creates a secondary issue for teachers: educational
readiness. This concept traditionally referred to how well students were prepared to cope with or
profit from the activities and expectations of school.
At older ages, e.g., university level, the term readiness is often replaced by a more specific term:
prerequisites.
Example:
A young child is ‘ready’ to start school if he or she:
 Is in good health
 Shows moderately good social skills
 Can use a pencil to make simple drawings
 Can take care of personal physical needs
It must be noted that this traditional meaning of readiness as preparedness focuses attention on
students’ adjustment to school and away from the reverse. Schools and teachers also have a
responsibility for adjusting to students.
Example:
If a 5-year-old child normally needs to play a lot and keep active, then a teacher needs to be ‘ready’
for this behaviour by planning an educational program that allows a lot of play and physical activity.
Another result of focusing the concept of learning on classrooms is that it raises issues of usefulness
or transfer.
This is the ability to use knowledge or skill in situations beyond the ones in which they are acquired.
Learning to read and learning to solve arithmetic problems are major goals of the initial school
curriculum because these skills are meant to be used not only inside the classroom, but outside as
well.
The main points from this module are as follows:
 Learning is generally defined as relatively permanent changes in behaviour, skills, knowledge, or
attitudes resulting from identifiable psychological or social experiences.
 Learning can be physical, social, emotional, or cognitive.
 Learning is not the same as teaching.
 Two of the main learning theories are behaviourism and constructivism.
 Behaviourism emphasises the links that can often be observed among overt behaviours and the
circumstances of the behaviours.
 Constructivism emphasises the inner thoughts of learners.

Chapter 2: Behaviourism
After completing this module, you will be able to:
 Identify the correct definition for 'behaviourism'
 Identify the correct definition for 'operant conditioning'
 Name the professor responsible for researching operant conditioning in laboratory rats
 Recognize the various features of the image entitled 'Skinner Box'
 Identify the 'reinforcement' in Skinner's experiment with laboratory rats
 Distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
 Identify the correct definition for 'extinction' in relation to operant conditioning
 Identify the correct definition for 'generalization' in relation to operant conditioning
Introduction to Behaviourism
Behaviourism is a perspective on learning that focuses on changes in individuals’ observable
behaviours: changes in what people say or do.
At some point we all use this perspective, whether we call it ‘behaviourism’ or something else.
Example:
When a person learns how to drive a car, he or she may be concerned primarily with whether he or
she can actually do the driving, not with whether he or she can describe or explain how to drive.
In the previous example about learning to drive, focusing attention on behaviour instead of on
‘thought’ may have been desirable at that moment, but not necessarily desirable indefinitely or all
of the time.
Even as a beginner, there are times when it is more important to be able to describe how to do an
activity rather than actually be able to do it.
Focusing on behaviour is not necessarily less desirable than focusing on students’ inner changes
such as gains in their knowledge or their personal attitudes.
Focusing on behaviour is merely looking at one form of learning: outward learning.
If you are teaching, you will need to attend to all forms of learning in students, whether inward or
outward.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is one of many behaviourist perspectives. It focuses on how the
consequences of behaviour affect the behaviour over time. It begins with the idea that certain
consequences tend to make certain behaviours happen more frequently.
Example:
If a teacher compliments a student for a good comment made during a discussion, there is more of
a chance that the teacher will hear further comments from the student in the future.
The original research about this model of learning was not done with people, but with animals.
One of the pioneers in the field was a Harvard professor named B.F. Skinner, who published
numerous books and articles about the details of the process.
He also pointed out many parallels between operant conditioning in animals and operant
conditioning in humans (Skinner, 1938, 1948, 1988).
Skinner observed the behaviour of some tame laboratory rats. He and his assistants put them in a
cage that only contained a lever and a tray just big enough to hold a small amount of food. The
image shows the basic set-up, which is sometimes nicknamed a ‘Skinner
Box’.
At first the rat would sniff and ‘putter around’ the cage at random, but
sooner or later it would find the lever and eventually happen to press it.
The lever released a small pellet of food, which the rat would promptly
eat.
Gradually the rat would spend more time near the lever and press the
lever more frequently, getting food more frequently. Eventually the rat
would spend most of its time at the lever and eating its fill of food. The
rat had ‘discovered’ that the consequence of pressing the lever was to receive food.
Skinner called the changes in the rat’s behaviour an example of operant conditioning and gave
special names to the different parts of the process. He called the pellets the reinforcement and the
lever-pressing the operant (because it operated on the rat’s environment).
Skinner and other behavioural psychologists experimented with using various reinforcers and
operants.
They also experimented with various patterns of reinforcement (or schedules of reinforcement) as
well as with various cues or signals to the animal about when reinforcement was available.
It turned out that all of these factors - the operant, the reinforcement, the schedule and the cues -
affected how easily and thoroughly operant conditioning occurred.
Examples:
Reinforcement was more effective if it came immediately after the crucial operant behaviour,
rather than being delayed. Reinforcements that happened intermittently (only some of the time)
caused learning to take longer, but also caused it to last longer.
Operant Conditioning and Students’ Learning
Since the original research about operant conditioning used animals, it is important to ask whether
operant conditioning also describes learning in human beings.
Here are countless classroom examples of consequences affecting students’ behaviour in ways that
resemble operant conditioning. However, the process certainly does not account for all forms of
student learning (Alberto and Troutman, 2005).
Consider the following examples showing operant conditioning in action. In the examples, the
operant behaviour tends to become more frequent on repeated occasions.
Examples:
A young boy makes a silly face (the operant) at another child sitting next to him. Classmates sitting
around them giggle in response (the reinforcement).
A child who is usually very restless sits for five minutes doing an assignment (the operant). The
teacher compliments him for working hard (the reinforcement).
The process of operant conditioning is widespread in classrooms - probably more widespread than
teachers realize. This fact makes sense, given the nature of public education.
To a large extent, teaching is about making certain consequences (like praise or marks) depend on
students’ engaging in certain activities (like reading material or doing assignments).
Learning by operant conditioning is not confined to any particular grade, subject area or style of
teaching. By nature, it happens in every imaginable classroom.
Teachers are not the only persons controlling the reinforcements. Sometimes they are controlled
by the activity itself or by classmates.
Finally, it must be noted that multiple examples of operant conditioning often happen at the same
time. As operant conditioning happens so widely, its effects on motivation are quite complex.
Operant conditioning can encourage intrinsic (internal) motivation, to the extent that the
reinforcement for an activity is the activity itself.
Example:
When a student reads a book for the sheer enjoyment of reading, he is reinforced by the reading
itself, and we can say that his reading is ‘intrinsically motivated’.
Operant conditioning can also encourage extrinsic (external) motivation. This is when another part
of the reinforcement comes from consequences or experiences not inherently part of the activity or
behaviour itself.
In the example about the boy who made a face at another classmate, the boy was reinforced not
only by the pleasure of making a face but also by the giggles of his classmates.
There is sometimes an impression of operant conditioning as ‘bribery in disguise’ and that only the
extrinsic reinforcements operate on students’ behaviour. It is true that extrinsic reinforcement may
sometimes alter the nature or strength of intrinsic reinforcement, but this does not necessarily
mean that it destroys or replaces intrinsic reinforcement.
Further Key Concepts about Operant Conditioning
There are further key concepts associated with operant conditioning.
These can be confusing because the ideas have names that sound rather ordinary but have special
meanings within the framework of operant conditioning.
 Extinction
 Generalization
 Discrimination
 Schedule of reinforcement
 Cues
Extinction
Extinction refers to the disappearance of an operant behaviour because of lack of reinforcement.
Examples:
A student who stops receiving gold stars or compliments for prolific reading of library books may
extinguish (i.e., decrease or stop) book-reading behaviour altogether.
A student who used to be reinforced for acting like a clown in class may stop clowning around once
classmates stop paying attention to the antics.
Generalization
Generalization refers to the incidental conditioning of behaviours similar to an original operant.
Example
If a student gets gold stars for reading library books, then she may read more of other material as
well, e.g., newspapers, comics, even if the activity is not reinforced directly.
Discrimination
Discrimination means learning not to generalize. In operant conditioning, what is not
overgeneralized (i.e. what is discriminated) is the operant behaviour
Example
If a student is complimented (reinforced) for contributing to discussions, he or she must learn to
discriminate when to make verbal contributions from when not to make them, e.g., when the
teacher is busy with other tasks.
Discrimination learning usually results from the combined effects of reinforcement of the target
behaviour and extinction of similar generalized behaviours.
Example
A teacher might praise a student for speaking during discussion but ignore him for making very
similar remarks out of turn.

Schedule of Reinforcement
The schedule of reinforcement refers to the pattern or frequency by which reinforcement is linked
with the operant. If a teacher praises his student for his work, does he do it every time or only
sometimes? Frequently or only once in a while?
Behavioural psychologists found that partial or intermittent schedules of reinforcement generally
cause learning to take longer, but also cause extinction of learning to take longer.
This dual principle is important for teachers because so much of the reinforcement they give is
partial or intermittent. Typically, a teacher can compliment a student a lot of the time, but there
will inevitably be occasions when the teacher cannot do so he or she is busy elsewhere in the
classroom.
Cues
In operant conditioning, a cue is a stimulus that happens just prior to the operant behaviour and
that signals that performing the behaviour may lead to reinforcement. In classrooms, cues are
sometimes provided by the teacher deliberately, and sometimes simply by the established routines
of the class.
Example
Calling on a student to speak can be a cue that if the student does say something at that moment,
then he or she may be reinforced with praise or acknowledgement.
The main points from this module are as follows:
 Behaviourism is a perspective on learning that focuses on changes in individuals’ observable
behaviours: changes in what people say or do.
 Focusing on behaviour is merely looking at one form of learning: outward learning.
 Operant conditioning is one of many behaviourist perspectives. It focuses on how the
consequences of behaviour affect the behaviour over time.
 B.F. Skinner researched the process of operant conditioning using laboratory rats. He also
pointed out many parallels between operant conditioning in animals and operant conditioning
in humans.
 The process of operant conditioning is widespread in classrooms. There are countless classroom
examples of consequences affecting students’ behaviour in ways that resemble operant
conditioning.
 Example of operant conditioning: A young boy makes a silly face (the operant) at another child
sitting next to him. Classmates sitting around them giggle in response (the reinforcement).
 Operant conditioning can encourage intrinsic (internal) motivation, to the extent that the
reinforcement for an activity is the activity itself.
 Operant conditioning can also encourage extrinsic (external) motivation. This is when another
part of the reinforcement comes from consequences or experiences not inherently part of the
activity or behaviour itself.
 There are further key concepts associated with operant conditioning: Extinction, Generalization,
Discrimination, Schedules of Reinforcement and Cues.

Chapter 3: Constructivism
After completing this module, you will be able to:
 Identify the correct definition for 'constructivism'
 Identify two types of 'constructivism
 Distinguish between 'psychological constructivism' and 'social constructivism'
 Name two philosophers who researched psychological constructivism
 Distinguish between 'assimilation' and 'accommodation' in relation to constructivism
 Recognize the correct definition for 'cognitive equilibrium'
 Recognize the correct definition for 'schema' or 'schemata'
 Name an American psychologist who researched 'social constructivism' and 'instructional
scaffolding'
 Identify the correct definition for 'instructional scaffolding'
 Name a Russian psychologist who researched 'social constructivism' and the 'zone of proximal
development'
 Identify the six types of learning associated with Bloom's Taxonomy
 Identify the correct definition for 'metacognition'
Introduction to Constructivism
Constructivism is a perspective on learning that focuses on how students actively create (or
construct) knowledge out of experiences.
Behaviourist models of learning may be helpful in understanding and influencing what students do,
but teachers usually also want to know what students are thinking, and how to enrich what
students are thinking.
The various models of constructivist learning differ in two ways:
1. How much a learner constructs knowledge independently.
2. How much a learner takes cues from people who may be more of an expert.
There are two main types of constructivism called:
 Psychological constructivism
 Social constructivism
Both types focus on learners’ thinking rather than their behaviour, but they have distinctly different
implications for teaching.
Psychological Constructivism
The main idea of psychological constructivism is that a person learns by mentally organizing and
reorganizing new information or experiences.
The organization happens partly by relating new experiences to prior knowledge that is already
meaningful and well understood.

John Dewey
John Dewey (1859-1952) is a well-known educational philosopher of the early twentieth century
associated with constructivism.
Although Dewey did not use the term constructivism in most of his writing, his point of view relates
strongly to constructivism. He discussed in detail the implications of constructivism for educators.
Dewey argued that:
1. Students learn primarily by building their own knowledge.
2. Teachers should adjust the curriculum to fit students’ prior knowledge and interests.
3. A curriculum needs to relate to the activities and responsibilities that students will probably
have after leaving school.
To many educators these days, his ideas may seem merely like good common sense, but they were
innovative and progressive at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Jean Piaget
Another recent example of psychological constructivism is the cognitive theory of Jean Piaget.
Piaget described learning as interplay between two mental activities that he called assimilation and
accommodation.

Assimilation Accommodation
Assimilation is the interpretation of new Accommodation is the revision or modification
information in terms of pre-existing concepts, of pre-existing concepts in terms of new
information or ideas. information or experiences. It occurs alongside
assimilation.
Example:
A preschool child who already understands the Example:
concept of a bird might initially label any flying
A preschool child who initially generalizes the
object with this term, even butterflies or concept of a bird to include any flying object,
mosquitoes. eventually revises the concept to include only
particular kinds of flying objects, such as robins
and sparrows but not others like mosquitoes or
airplanes.
For Piaget, assimilation, and accommodation work together to enrich a child’s thinking and to
create cognitive equilibrium.
Cognitive equilibrium is a balance between reliance on prior information and openness to new
information.
It consists of an ever-growing repertoire of mental representations for objects and experiences.
Piaget called each mental representation a schema (plural: schemata).
A schema is a concept accompanied by an elaborated mixture of vocabulary, actions and
experiences related to that concept.
Example: A child’s schema for bird includes not only the relevant verbal knowledge, but also the
child’s experiences with birds, pictures of birds and conversations about birds.
As assimilation and accommodation about birds and other flying objects operate over time, the
child does not just revise and add to his vocabulary, but also adds and remembers relevant new
experiences and actions. From these collective revisions and additions, the child gradually
constructs whole new schemata about birds, butterflies, and other flying objects.

This diagram shows the relationship between the various elements of the Piagetian version of
psychological constructivist learning. This model is quite individualistic as it does not say much
about how other people involved with the learner might assist in assimilating or accommodating
information.
His theory is therefore often considered less about learning and more about development or long-
term change in a person resulting from multiple experiences that may not be planned deliberately.
Social Constructivism
Social constructivism (or socio-cultural theory) focuses on the relationships and interactions
between a learner and other individuals who are more knowledgeable or experienced.
Jerome Bruner
An early expression of this viewpoint came from the American psychologist Jerome Bruner (1960,
1966, 1996) who became convinced that students could usually learn more than was traditionally
expected as long as they were given appropriate guidance and resources.
Instructional scaffolding is the phrase that Bruner used to describe the support that learners should
be given as they learn.
Instructional scaffolding literally means a temporary framework like the ones used to construct
buildings, which allows a much stronger structure to be built within it.
Bruner believes in the importance of providing guidance in the right way and at the right time.
When scaffolding is provided correctly, students appear to be more competent, and they learn
more.
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, proposed similar ideas to Bruner’s ideas about social
constructivism.
Vygotsky’s focused on how a child’s or novice’s thinking is influenced by relationships with others
who are more capable, knowledgeable, or expert than the learner.
Vygotsky made the reasonable proposal that when a child (or novice) is learning a new skill or
solving a new problem, he or she can perform better if accompanied and helped by an expert than
if performing alone - though still not as well as the expert.
Example:
A person who has played very little chess will probably compete better against an opponent if he or
she is helped by an expert chess player rather than if competing against the opponent alone.
Vygotsky called the difference between solo performance and assisted performance the zone of
proximal development, meaning, symbolically speaking, the place or area of immediate change.
From this social constructivist viewpoint, learning is like assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore,
1991).
During learning, knowledge or skill is found initially ‘in’ the expert helper.
If the expert helper is skilled and motivated to help, then the expert arranges experiences that
allow the novice to practice crucial skills or to construct new knowledge.
The expert helper is like the coach of an athlete: offering help and suggesting ways of practicing,
but never doing the actual athletic work himself or herself.
Gradually by providing continued experiences matched to the novice learner’s emerging
competencies, the expert makes it possible for the novice or apprentice to appropriate (make his or
her own) the skills or knowledge that originally resided only with the expert.
Theoretical Differences between Psychological and Social Constructivism
Psychological constructivism and social constructivism have differences that suggest different ways
for teachers to teach most effectively.
The theoretical differences are related to three ideas in particular:
1. The relationship between learning and long-term development.
2. The role of generalizations and abstractions during development.
3. The mechanism by which development occurs.
1. The relationship between learning and long-term development
In general, psychological constructivism emphasises the way that long-term development
determines a child’s ability to learn, rather than the other way around.
The earliest stages of a child’s life are thought to be rather self-centered and to be dependent on
the child’s sensory and motor interactions with the environment.
When acting or reacting to his or her surroundings, the child has relatively little language skill
initially. This circumstance limits the child’s ability to learn in the usual, school-like sense of the
term.
As development proceeds, of course, language skills improve and hence the child becomes
progressively more ‘teachable’ and in this sense more able to learn. But whatever the child’s age,
ability to learn waits or depends upon the child’s stage of development.
From this point of view, a primary responsibility of teachers is to provide a very rich classroom
environment, so that children can interact with it independently and gradually make themselves
ready for verbal learning.
2.The role of generalizations and abstractions during development
Alternatively, social constructivists emphasise the importance of social interaction in stimulating
the development of the child.
Language and dialogue therefore are primary, and development is seen as happening as a result -
the converse of the sequence by psychological constructivists.
Obviously, a child does not begin life with a lot of initial language skill, but this fact is why
interactions need to be scaffolded by more experienced experts, i.e., people capable of creating a
zone of proximal development in their conversations and other interactions.
In the preschool years, the experts are usually parents. After the child begins school, the experts
broaden to include teachers.
A teacher’s primary responsibility is therefore to provide very rich opportunities for dialogue, both
among children and between individual children and the teacher.
A teacher’s responsibility can therefore include engaging the child in dialogue that uses potentially
abstract reasoning, but without expecting the child to understand the abstractions fully at first.
Example:
Young children can not only engage in science experiments like creating a volcano out of baking
soda and water but can also discuss and speculate about their observations of the experiment.
They may not understand the experiment as an adult would, but the discussion can begin moving
them toward adult-like understandings.
3. The mechanism by which development occurs
In psychological constructivism, development is thought to happen because of the interplay
between assimilation and accommodation - between when a child or youth can already understand
or conceive of, and the change required of that understanding by new experiences.
Acting together, assimilation and accommodation continually create new states of cognitive
equilibrium.
A teacher can therefore stimulate development by provoking cognitive dissonance (conflict)
deliberately, e.g., by confronting a student with sights, actions or ideas that do not fit with the
student's existing experiences and ideas.
In practice the dissonance is often communicated verbally, by posing questions that are new or that
students may have misunderstood in the past.
Dissonance can also be provoked through pictures or activities that are unfamiliar to students, e.g.,
students could engage in community service projects that brings them in contact with people who
they had previously considered ‘strange’ or different from themselves.
In social constructivism, development is believed to happen largely because of scaffolded dialogue
in a zone of proximal development.
Such dialogue is by implication less like ‘disturbing’ students' thinking and is more like ‘stretching’ it
beyond its former limits.
This image of the teacher therefore is more one of collaborating with students' ideas rather than
challenging their ideas or experiences. In practice, however, the actual behaviour of teachers and
students may be quite similar in both forms of constructivism.
Any significant new learning requires setting aside, giving up or revising former learning, and this
step inevitably ‘disturbs’ thinking, if only in the short term and only in a relatively minor way...
Implications of Constructivism for Teaching
As an educator, whether you follow psychological constructivism or social constructivism, there are
constructivist strategies for helping students to develop their thinking.
There are two major strategies:
1. Organization of the content systematically
2. Metacognition: thinking about learning
Strategy 1 - Organization of the content systematically
One strategy that teachers often find helpful is to organise the content to be learned as
systematically as possible. Doing this allows the teacher to select and devise learning activities that
are better tailored to students’ cognitive abilities and/or promote better dialogue.
One of the most widely used frameworks for organizing content is a classification
scheme proposed by the educator Benjamin Bloom.
Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956; Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) describes
six kinds of learning goals that teachers can in principle expect from students.
These range from simple recall of knowledge to complex evaluation of
knowledge.
Bloom’s taxonomy makes useful distinctions among possible kinds of
knowledge needed by students, and therefore potentially helps in
selecting activities that truly target students’ zone of proximal development. Decide whether
Goldilocks was a bad girl, and justify your position. Bloom’s categories of cognitive thinking are
outlined below using the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ as an example.
Knowledge:
Definition - Remembering or recalling facts, information, or procedures.
Example - List three things Goldilocks did in the three bears’ house.
Comprehension
Definition - Understanding facts, interpreting information.
Example – Explain why Goldilocks liked the little bear's chair the best.
Application
Definition - Using concepts in new situations, solving particular problems.
Example - Predict some of the things that Goldilocks might have used if she had entered your
house.
Analysis
Definition - Distinguish parts of information, a concept, or a procedure.
Example - Select the part of the story where Goldilocks seemed most comfortable.
Synthesis
Definition - Combining elements or parts into a new object, idea, or procedure.
Example - Tell how the story would have been different if it had been about three fishes.
Evaluation
Definition - Assessing and judging the value or ideas, objects, or materials in a particular situation.
Example - Decide whether Goldilocks was a bad girl and justify your position.
Strategy 2 – Metacognition: thinking about learning
As students gain experience of being a learner, they become able to think about how they
themselves learn best. The teacher can explicitly encourage such self-reflection and self-assessment
as a learning goal. This allows the teacher to transfer some of the responsibility for arranging
learning to the students themselves.
This self-assessment and self-direction of learning by the students themselves is known as
metacognition. Metacognition is an ability to think about and regulate one’s own thinking (Israel,
2005).
Metacognition can sometimes be difficult for students to achieve, but it is an important goal for
social constructivist learning because it gradually frees learners from dependence on expert
teachers to guide their learning. Reflective learners become their own expert guides.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Constructivism is a perspective on learning that focuses on how students actively construct
knowledge out of experiences.
The main idea of psychological constructivism is that a person learns by mentally organizing and
reorganizing new information or experiences.
John Dewey is an educational philosopher of the early twentieth century associated with
constructivism.
Jean Piaget described learning as interplay between two mental activities called assimilation and
accommodation. For Piaget, assimilation, and accommodation work together to enrich a child’s
thinking and to create cognitive equilibrium.
Social constructivism (or socio-cultural theory) focuses on the relationships and interactions
between a learner and other individuals who are more knowledgeable or experienced.
Instructional scaffolding is the phrase that the American psychologist Bruner used to describe the
support that learners should be given as they learn.
Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist, proposed similar ideas to Bruner’s ideas about social
constructivism. Vygotsky’s writing focused on how a child’s or novice’s thinking is influenced by
relationships with others who are more capable, knowledgeable, or expert than the learner.
The theoretical differences between social constructivism and psychological constructivism are
related to three ideas in particular:
1. The relationship between learning and long-term development of the child
2. The role of generalizations and abstractions during development
3. The mechanism by which development occurs
As an educator, whether you follow psychological constructivism or social constructivism, there are
strategies for helping students to develop their thinking.
There are two major strategies:
1. Organization of the content systematically
2. Metacognition: thinking about learning
3. Learning according to Piaget
Learning According to Piaget
Assimilation + accommodation  Equilibrium  Schemata
Broom’s Taxonomy to Learning
1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

Special Education
 Identify the correct definition for 'special education'
 Identify three responsibilities of teachers who teach students with special educational needs
 Recognize the correct definition for 'assessment'
 List three methods for modifying assessment for students with special educational needs
 Recognize the correct definition for a 'least restrictive environment'
 Identify the correct definition of an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP)
 List the various elements of an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP)
 Recognize ways that students and teachers benefit from inclusive education
 Identify the five most frequent types of disabilities encountered by teachers
Special Education and Legalisation
Special education is education that addresses the individual differences and requirements of a
student with special needs.
Statistically, the most frequent forms of special needs are learning disabilities: impairments in
specific aspects of learning and especially of reading.
Learning disabilities account for about half of all special educational needs: as much as all other
types put together. Speech and language disorders, intellectual disabilities and attention deficit
hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) are less common.
Since the 1970s, support for people with disabilities and special educational needs has grown
significantly. Political and social attitudes have moved increasingly toward including people with
disabilities into a wide variety of ‘regular’ activities.
Case Study: Legalisation changes in the United States and its effects
Three major laws were passed in the United States since the 1970’s that guaranteed the rights of
persons with disabilities, and of children and students with disabilities in particular. American laws
that related to students with special educational needs were:
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
This law required that individuals with disabilities be accommodated in any program or activity that
receives funding from the government funding.
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
This law prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability. This law is responsibility for some of the
minor renovations in schools in recent years like wheelchair-accessible doors, ramps and
bathrooms.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 1975/2004
This law guarantees the following rights related to education for anyone with a disability from birth
to age 21:
 Free appropriate education
 Due process
 Fair evaluation of performance in spite of disability
 Education in the ‘least restrictive environment’
 An individualized educational plan
These new laws affected teachers’ work in the classroom and had a big impact on education in
general in the United States.
Similar changes in laws have occurred in countries all over the world. While most teachers certainly
support these changes in broad terms, others have found the prospect of applying it in the
classroom leads to a number of questions and concerns.
Possible concerns from teachers:
1. Will a student with a disability disrupt the class?
2. Will the student interfere with covering the curriculum?
3. Will the student be teased by classmates?
These are legitimate concerns from teachers. One step towards reducing levels of concern is to
learn more about the general responsibilities of teachers for students with disabilities.
Teachers’ Responsibilities for Special Education
Changes in educational legalisation have affected the work of teachers by creating three new
expectations.
These expectations are:
 To provide alternative methods of assessment for students with disabilities.
 To arrange a learning environment that is as normal or as ‘least restrictive’ as possible.
 To participate in creating individual educational plans for students with disabilities.
Expectation 1: Provide Alternative Assessments
In the context of students with disabilities, assessment refers to gathering information about a
student in order to identify the strengths of the student and to decide what special educational
support, if any, the student needs. In principle, of course, these are tasks that teachers have for all
students.
Assessment is a major reason why teachers give tests and assignments, for example, and why they
listen carefully to the quality of students’ comments during class discussions.
For students with disabilities, such traditional strategies of assessment as tests and assignments,
often seriously underestimate the students’ competence (Koretz & Barton, 2003/2004; Pullin,
2005).
Depending on the disability, a student may have trouble with:
 Holding a pencil
 Hearing a question clearly
 Focusing on a picture
 Recording an answer in time even when he or she knows the answer
 Concentrating on a task in the presence of other people
 Answering a question at the pace needed by the rest of the class
Traditionally, teachers have assumed that all students either have these skills or can learn them
with just modest amounts of coaching, encouragement and will power.
Example:
For many students it may be enough to say something like: “Remember to listen to the question
carefully!”. For students with disabilities, however, a comment like this may not work and may even
be insensitive.
There are a number of strategies for modifying assessments in ways that attempt to be fair and that
at the same time recognize how busy teachers usually are.
These strategies include:
 Supplementing conventional assignments with portfolios. A portfolio is a collection of a
student’s work that demonstrates a student’s development over time. It usually includes some
sort of reflective or evaluative comments from the student, the teacher, or both (Carothers &
Taylor, 2003; Wesson & King, 1996).
 Devising a system for observing the student regularly and informally recording notes about the
observations.
 Recruiting help from teacher assistants who are sometimes present to help a student with a
disability.
Expectation 2: Arrange a Least Restrictive Environment
A ‘least restrictive environment’ is defined as the combination of settings that involve the student
with regular classrooms and school programs as much as possible.
The precise combination is determined by the circumstances of a particular school and of the
student. See next page for related examples.
Examples:
A young child with a mild cognitive disability may spend the majority of time in a regular classroom,
working alongside and playing with non-disabled classmates and relying on a teacher assistant for
help where needed.
An individual with a similar disability in high school, however, might be assigned primarily to classes
specially intended for slow learners, but nonetheless participate in some school-wide activities
alongside non-disabled students.
The correct ‘least restrictive environment’ for each individual student will vary depending on the
following types of factors:
 The severity of the disability
 The level of resources in a given school, e.g., number of teaching assistants
 The teacher’s perception of how difficult it is to modify the curriculum
Expectation 3: Create an Individual Education Plan
An individual education plan (IEP) should be created by a team of individuals who know the
student’s strengths and needs.
This team should include:
 The classroom teacher
 The resource or special education teacher
 The student’s parents or guardians
 A school administrator e.g., a vice-principal
 Other external professionals depending on the disability, e.g., a psychologist, physician or
speech therapist
An IEP can vary from student to student, but it usually includes the following core elements:
 The student’s current social and academic strengths
  The student’s current social or academic needs
 The educational goals or objectives for the student for the coming year
 Details about special services to be provided to the student
 Details about how progress will be assessed at the end of the year
Individual Educational
Plan (IEP)
This image shows a
simple, imaginary
Individual Educational
Plan (IEP).
The actual visual
formats of an IEP vary
widely from country to
country.
This particular plan is
for a student named
Sean, who has difficulty
with reading.
The different sections
of this IEP will be
reviewed in the
following pages.

Core Details
This part of the form supplies general details about the student and the student's school.

The Support Team

This part of the form lists the people responsible for creating and facilitating the IEP e.g. parents,
class teacher, speech and language therapist. The members of this team will depend on the nature
of the child's disability.

Strengths and Needs

This part of the form outlines the student's current social and academic strengths as veil as the
student's social or academic needs.
It also specifies educational goals or objectives for the coming year, lists special services to be
provided, and describes how progress towards the goals will be assessed at the end of the year.

Resources Needed
This part of the form lists the special materials or equipment that the student needs on a day to day
basis to enable him to meet his educational goals.

The Value of Inclusive Education

Including students with disabilities in regular classrooms is valuable for everyone concerned.
The students with disabilities themselves tend to experience a richer educational environment,
both socially and academically.
Classmates of students with disabilities also experience a richer educational environment. They
potentially meet a wider range of students and also see a wider range of educational purposes in
operation in the classroom
Teachers also experience benefits from including students with disabilities in regular classrooms.
The most notable overall benefit is an increased focus on diversity among students.
The presence of students with disabilities reminds everyone, students as well as teachers, that
everyone is truly unique, whether or not they are officially designated as having a disability.
Many teaching strategies help students with disabilities precisely because they are individualized
and differentiate among students' needs more than conventional whole-group teaching practices.
This differentiation turns out to benefit all students, regardless of their levels of skill or readiness.
Everyone, not just students with disabilities, benefits from:
 Careful planning of objectives
 Attention to individual differences among students
 Establishment of a positive social atmosphere in the classroom
Categories of Disabilities
There are several categories of disabilities ranging from a mild learning disability to a severe
intellectual disability.
Describing the exact nature of students’ disabilities can be difficult. Part of the reason for this is
because disabilities are essentially ambiguous.
Naming and describing ‘types’ of them implies that disabilities are relatively fixed, stable and
distinct, like different kinds of fruit or vegetables.
As many teachers discover, the reality is different. The behaviour and qualities of a particular
student with a disability can be hard to categorize. The student may be challenged by the disability,
but also by experiences common to all students, disabled or not. Any particular disability can pose
problems more in some situations than in others.
Examples:
A student with a reading difficulty may have trouble in a language class but not in a physical
education class.
A student with a hearing impairment may have more trouble ‘hearing’ a topic that he dislikes
compared to one that he likes.
As official descriptions of types or categories of disabilities overlook these complexities, they risk
stereotyping the real, live people to whom they are applied (Green, et al., 2005).
The simplifications might not be a serious problem if the resulting stereotypes are complimentary,
e.g. most people would not mind being called a ‘genius’ even if the description is not always true.
Stereotypes about disabilities, however, are usually stigmatizing, not complimentary.
Categories of disabilities do serve useful purposes by giving teachers, parents and other
professionals a language or frame of reference for talking about disabilities. They can also help
educators when arranging special support services for students, since a student has to ‘have’ an
identifiable, nameable need if professionals are to provide help.
Educational authorities have therefore continued to use categories (or ‘labels’) to classify
disabilities in spite of expressing continuing concern about whether the practice hurts students’
self-esteem or standing in the eyes of peers (Biklen & Kliewer, 2006).
For classroom teachers, the best strategy may be simply to understand how categories of
disabilities are defined, while also keeping their limitations in mind and being ready to explain their
limitations to parents or others who use the labels inappropriately.
The disabilities encountered by teachers most frequently are:
 Learning Disabilities
 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
 Intellectual Disabilities
 Behavioural Disorders
 Physical Disabilities and Sensory Impairments
The main points from this module are as follows:
 Special education is education that addresses the individual differences and requirements of a
student with special needs.
 Since the 1970s, support for people with disabilities and special educational needs has grown
significantly.
 Changes in educational laws have affected the work of teachers by creating three new
expectations in relation to special education. These expectations are:
- To provide alternative methods of assessment for students with disabilities.
- To arrange a learning environment that is as normal or as ‘least restrictive’ as possible.
- To participate in creating individual educational plans for students with disabilities.
 In the context of students with disabilities, assessment refers to gathering information about a
student in order to identify the strengths of the student and to decide what special educational
support, if any, the student needs.
 An individual education plan (IEP) should be created by a team of individuals who know the
student’s strengths and needs. It describes a student’s current social and academic strengths as
well as the student’s social or academic needs.
 Including students with disabilities in regular classrooms is valuable for everyone concerned.
 The disabilities encountered by teachers most frequently are:
- Learning Disabilities
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Intellectual Disabilities
- Behavioural Disorders
- Physical Disabilities and Sensory Impairments

After completing this module you will be able to:

 Identify the correct definition for a 'learning disability'
 Distinguish a learning disability from other types of disabilities
 Identify strategies to help a student with a learning disability
Introduction to Learning Disabilities
A learning disability is a specific impairment of academic learning that interferes with a specific
aspect of schoolwork and that reduces a student’s academic performance significantly.
A learning disability shows itself as a major discrepancy between a student’s ability and some
feature of achievement.
The student may be delayed in reading, writing, listening, speaking or doing mathematics, but not
in all of these at once.
A learning problem is not considered a learning disability if it stems from physical, sensory or motor
handicaps or from generalized intellectual impairment (or mental retardation).
It is also not a learning disability if the learning problem really reflects the challenges of learning
English as a second language.
Genuine learning disabilities are the learning problems left over after these other possibilities are
accounted for or excluded.
Typically, a student with a learning disability has not been helped by teachers’ ordinary efforts to
assist the student when he or she falls behind academically.
What counts as an ‘ordinary effort’, of course, differs among teachers, schools and students.
Most importantly, though, a learning disability relates to a fairly specific area of academic learning,
e.g. a student may be able to read and compute well enough but not be able to write.
Learning disabilities are by far the most common form of special educational need.
Example:
In the United States, learning disabilities account for half of all students with special educational
needs and anywhere from 5% to 20% of all students, depending on how the numbers are estimated
(United States Department of Education, 2005; Ysseldyke & Bielinski, 2002).
Students with learning disabilities are so common, in fact, that most teachers regularly encounter at
least one per class in any given school year, regardless of the class level they teach.
Defining Learning Disabilities Clearly - With so many students defined as having learning disabilities,
it is not surprising that the term itself becomes ambiguous in the truest sense of ‘having many
meanings’.Specific features of learning disabilities vary considerably as outlined in the examples
below.

The following students qualify as having a learning disability, assuming that they have no other
disease, condition or circumstance to account for their behaviour:
Albert has trouble solving word problems that he reads but can solve them easily if he hears them
orally.
Bill has the reverse problem; he can solve word problems only when he can read them, not when
he hears them.
Emily has terrible handwriting; her letters vary in size and wobble all over the page, much like a first
or second grader.
Sarah adds multiple-digit numbers as if they were single-digit numbers stuck together: 42 + 59
equals 911 rather than 101, though 23 + 54 correctly equals 77.
With so many expressions of learning disabilities, it is not surprising that educators sometimes
disagree about their nature and about the kind of help students need as a consequence.
Such controversy may be inevitable because learning disabilities by definition are learning problems
with no obvious origin.
Common to all educators though is a belief that a variety of strategies for helping students with
learning disabilities should be experimented with.
Case Study: Assisting a Student with a Learning Disability
Introduction
There are various ways to assist students with learning disabilities, depending not only on the
nature of the disability, of course, but also on the concepts or theory of learning being used.
This case study looks at a girl with a learning disability called Sarah. She adds two-digit numbers as
if they were one-digit numbers.
Stated more formally, Sarah adds two-digit numbers without carrying digits forward from the one’s
column to the tens column, or from the tens to the hundreds column.
Example of Sarah's Homework

This is an example of Sarah’s math homework involving two-digit addition.

Three out of the six problems are done correctly, even though Sarah seems to use an incorrect
strategy systematically on all six problems.

Behaviourism and Reinforcement

One possible approach to assist Sarah is based on the behaviourist theory. It seems that Sarah was
rewarded so much for adding single-digit numbers (3+5, 7+8 etc.) correctly that she generalized this
skill to adding two-digit problems.
Changing Sarah’s behaviour is tricky since the desired behaviour (borrowing correctly) rarely
happens and therefore cannot be reinforced very often. It might help for the teacher to reward
behaviours that compete directly with Sarah’s inappropriate strategy.
The teacher might reduce credit for simply finding the correct answer and increase credit for a
student showing her the work of carrying digits forward correctly. Or the teacher might discuss
Sarah’s math’s work with Sarah frequently, so as to create more occasions when she can praise
Sarah for working problems correctly.
Reflective Learning
Part of Sarah’s problem may be that she is thoughtless about doing her maths. The minute she sees
numbers on a worksheet, she stuffs them into the first arithmetic procedure that comes to mind.
Her learning style seems too impulsive and not reflective enough.
As a solution, the teacher could encourage Sarah to think out loud when she completes two-digit
problems-literally get her to ‘talk her way through’ each problem
Constructivism and the Zone of Proximal Development
Perhaps Sarah has in fact learned how to carry digits forward, but not learned the procedure well
enough to use it reliably on her own.
In that case her problem can be seen in the constructivist terms. Sarah has lacked appropriate
mentoring from someone more expert than herself, someone who can create a ‘zone of proximal
development’ in which she can display and consolidate her skills more successfully.
She still needs mentoring or ‘assisted coaching’ more than independent practice. The teacher can
arrange some of this in much the way she encourages to be more reflective, either by working with
Sarah herself or by arranging for a classmate or even a parent volunteer to do so.
The main points from this module are as follows:
A learning disability is a specific impairment of academic learning that interferes with a specific
aspect of schoolwork and that reduces a student’s academic performance significantly.
Learning disabilities are by far the most common form of special educational need.
There are various ways to assist students with learning disabilities, depending not only on the
nature of the disability, of course, but also on the concepts or theory of learning being used:
- Behaviourism and reinforcement for wrong strategies
- Metacognition and responding reflectively
- Constructivism, mentoring and the zone of proximal development

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

After completing this module you will be able to:
 Identify the correct definition for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
 List some behavioural signs of ADHD
 Name the drug that students with ADHD take to reduce their symptoms
 List two practical problems associated with students taking a drug to reduce their symptoms
 Identify three strategies that a teacher can use to teach students with ADHD
Introduction to ADHD
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a problem with sustaining attention and
controlling impulses.
Almost all students have these problems at one time or another, but a student with ADHD shows
them much more frequently than usual and often at home as well as at school.
In the classroom, a student with ADHD may:
 Fidget and squirm a lot
 Have trouble remaining seated
 Continually get distracted and go off task
 Have trouble waiting for a turn
 Blurt out answers and comments
 Shift continually from one activity to another
 Have trouble playing quietly
 Talk excessively without listening to others
 Misplace things and seem generally disorganized
 Be inclined to try risky activities without giving enough thought to the consequences
Although the list of problem behaviours is obviously quite extensive, keep in mind that the student
will not do all of these things.
It is just that over time, the student with ADHD is likely to do several of them chronically or
repeatedly and in more than one setting (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
In the classroom, of course, these types of behaviours can annoy classmates and frustrate teachers.
Differences in perceptions: ADHD versus high activity
It is important to note that classrooms are places that make heavy demands on not showing ADHD-
like behaviours.
In classrooms, students are often supposed to:
- Sit for long periods
- Avoid interrupting others
- Finish tasks after beginning them
- Keep their minds (and materials) organized
Ironically, classroom life may sometimes aggravate ADHD without the teacher intending for it to do
so
A student with only a mild or occasional tendency to be restless, for example, may fit in well
outdoors playing soccer, but feel unusually restless indoors during class.
It also should not be surprising that teachers sometimes mistake a student who is merely rather
active for a student with having ADHD, since any tendency to be physically active may contribute to
problems with classroom management.
The tendency to ‘over-diagnose’ is more likely for boys than for girls (Maniadaki et al., 2003),
presumably because gender role expectations cause teachers to be especially alert to high activity
in boys.
Over-diagnosis is also especially likely in students who are culturally or linguistically non-Anglo
(Chamberlain, 2005), presumably because cultural and language differences may lead teachers to
misinterpret students’ behaviour.
To avoid making such mistakes, it is important to keep in mind that in true ADHD, restlessness,
activity and distractibility are widespread and sustained.
Example:
A student who shows such problems at school but never at home may not have ADHD. He may
simply not be getting along with his teacher or classmates.
Causes of ADHD
Most psychologists and medical specialists agree that true ADHD, as opposed to mere intermittent
distractibility or high activity, reflects a problem in how the nervous system functions. They do not
know the exact nature or causes of the problem though (Rutter, 2004, 2005).
Research shows that ADHD tends to run in families. Children (especially boys) of parents who had
ADHD, are somewhat more likely to experience the condition themselves.
The association does not necessarily mean, though, that ADHD is genetic. It seems that parents who
formerly had ADHD may raise their children more strictly in an effort to prevent their own condition
in their children.
Their strictness, ironically, may trigger a bit more tendency, rather than less, towards the restless
distractibility characteristic of ADHD. The parents’ strictness may also be a result, as well as a cause
of, a child’s restlessness.
The bottom line for teachers is that sorting out causes from effects is confusing, if not impossible.
Secondly, sorting out causes from effects may not help much in determining actual teaching
strategies to help the students learn more effectively.

Teaching Students with ADHD

Research shows that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can be reduced for many
students if they take certain medications, of which the most common is methylphenidate,
commonly known by the name Ritalin (Wilens, 2005; Olfson, 2003).
This drug and others like it act by stimulating the nervous system, which reduces symptoms by
helping a student pay better attention to the choices he or she makes and to the impact of actions
on others.
Unfortunately the medications do not work on all students with ADHD, especially after they reach
adolescence. Its long-term effects are uncertain also (Breggin, 1999).
In any case Ritalin and similar drugs have certain practical problems:
- Drugs cost money which is a problem for a family without much money to begin with, or for a
family lacking medical insurance that pays for medications.
- Drugs must be taken regularly in order to be effective, including on weekends. Keeping a regular
schedule can be difficult if parents’ own schedules are irregular or simply differ from the child’s, e.g.
due to night shifts at work or if parents are separated and share custody of the child.
In any case, since teachers are not doctors and medications are not under teachers’ control, it may
be more important simply to provide an environment where a student with ADHD can organise
choices and actions easily and successfully.
Strategies for teaching students with ADHD include:
Strategy 1 - Providing clear rules and procedures
Strategy 2 - Breaking down tasks into manageable chunks
Strategy 3 - Modelling suitable behaviour
Strategy 1: Providing clear rules and procedures
Clear rules and procedures can reduce the ‘noise’ or chaotic quality in the child’s classroom life
significantly.
The rules and procedures can be generated jointly with the child; they do not have to be imposed
arbitrarily, as if the student were incapable of thinking about them reasonably.
Strategy 2: Breaking down tasks into manageable chunks
Sometimes the teacher can help by making lists of tasks or of steps in long tasks.
It can help to divide focused work into small, short sessions rather than grouping it into single,
longer sessions.
Strategy 3: Modelling suitable behaviour
Sometimes a classmate can be enlisted to model slower, more reflective styles of working. This
must be carried out in ways that do not imply undue criticism of the student with ADHD.
Any strategy that a teacher uses should be consistent, predictable and generated by the student as
much as possible. By having these qualities, the strategies can strengthen the student’s self-
direction and ability to screen out the distractions of classroom life.
The goal for teachers, in essence, is to build the student’s metacognitive capacity, while at the same
time, of course, treating the student with respect.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a problem with sustaining attention and
controlling impulses.
Classrooms are places that make heavy demands on not showing ADHD-like behaviours. However,
classroom life may sometimes aggravate ADHD without the teacher intending for it to do so.
Most psychologists and medical specialists agree that true ADHD, as opposed to mere intermittent
distractibility or high activity, reflects a problem in how the nervous system functions, but they do
not know the exact nature or causes of the problem (Rutter, 2004, 2005).
Research shows that ADHD can be reduced for many students if they take certain medications, of
which the most common is methylphenidate, commonly known by the name Ritalin (Wilens, 2005;
Olfson, 2003).
Strategies that a teacher can use when dealing with students with ADHD include:
o Providing clear rules and procedures
o Breaking down tasks into manageable chunks
o Modelling suitable behaviour

After completing this module you will be able to:

 Identify the correct definition for 'intellectual disability'
 Distinguish between a learning disability and an intellectual disability
 Recognize the various terms used to describe students with intellectual disabilities
 Identify three strategies that teachers use when teaching students with intellectual disabilities
introduction to Intellectual Disabilities
An intellectual disability is a significant limitation in a student’s cognitive functioning and daily
adaptive behaviours (Schalock & Luckasson, 2004; American Association on Mental Retardation,
2002).
The student may have limited language or impaired speech and may not perform well academically.
Compared to students with learning disabilities, students with intellectual disabilities have
impairments to learning that are broader and more significant:
 They score poorly on standardised tests of intelligence.
 Everyday tasks that most people take for granted, like getting dressed or eating a meal may be
possible, but they may also take more time and effort than usual.
 Health and safety can sometimes be a concern, e.g. knowing whether it is safe to cross a street.
 For older individuals, finding and keeping a job may require help from supportive others.
 The exact combination of challenges varies from one person to another, but it always (by
definition) involves limitations in both intellectual and daily functioning.
There are many terms used to describe students with intellectual disabilities. If the disability is mild,
teachers sometimes refer to a student with the disability simply as a slow learner, particularly if the
student has no formal, special supports for the disability, e.g. a teaching assistant.
If the disability is more marked, then the student is more likely to be referred to as having an
intellectual disability or as having mental retardation.
In this course the term intellectual disability is used, because it has fewer negative connotations
while still describing one key educational aspect of the disability, cognitive impairment.
Levels of support for individuals with intellectual disabilities
Intellectual disabilities happen in different degrees or amounts, though most often are relatively
mild.
Traditionally the intensity or ‘amount’ of the disability was defined by scores on a standardized test
of scholastic aptitude (or ‘IQ test’), with lower scores indicating more severe disability.
Nowadays, due to the insensitivity of such tests to individuals’ daily social functioning, levels of
intellectual disability are more often defined by the amount of support needed by the individual.
Levels of support range from intermittent (just occasional or ‘as needed’ for specific activities) to
pervasive (continuous in all realms of living).
The intellectual disabilities that a classroom teacher is most likely to see are the ones requiring the
least support in the classroom.
A student requiring only intermittent support may require special help with some learning activities
or classroom routines, but not others.

Example:
A student might need help with reading or putting on winter clothes but primarily on occasions
when there is pressure to do these things relatively quickly
Students requiring somewhat more support are likely to spend less time in the mainstream
classroom and more time receiving special help from other professionals, e.g. a special education
teacher or a speech and language specialist.
These circumstances have distinct implications for the ways to teach students with intellectual
disabilities.
Teaching Students with Intellectual Disabilities
There are many specific techniques that can help in teaching students with mild or moderate
intellectual disabilities.
Most of these techniques can be summarized into three general strategies as follows:
1. Give more time and practice than usual to the student.
2. Embed activities into the context of daily life or functioning where possible.
3. Include the student in both social and academic activities.
Strategy 1: Give more time and practice than usual to the student
If a student has only a mild intellectual disability, he or she can probably learn important
fundamentals of the academic curriculum, e.g. basic arithmetic and basic reading. As a result of the
disability, though, the student may need more time or practice than most other students.
Example:
A student may know that 2 + 3 = 5, but need help applying this math fact to real objects.
The teacher or teaching assistant might need to show the student that two pencils plus three
pencils make five pencils.
Giving extra help takes time and perseverance for the teacher and can try the patience of the
student. To deal with this problem, it may help to reward the student frequently for effort and
successes with well-timed praise, especially if it is focused on specific, actual achievements.
Example:
“You added that one correctly”, may be more helpful than “You’re a hard worker”, even if both
comments are true.
Giving appropriate praise is in turn easier if the teacher sets reasonable, ‘do-able’ goals by breaking
skills or tasks into steps that the student is likely to learn without becoming overly discouraged.
At the same time, it is important not to insult the student with goals or activities that are too easy
or by using curriculum materials clearly intended for children who are much younger.
Setting expectations too low actually deprives a student with an intellectual disability of rightful
opportunities to learn, a serious ethical and professional mistake (Bogdan, 2006).
Fortunately, in many curriculum areas, there are already existing materials that are simplified, yet
also appropriate for older students (Snell, et al., 2005).
Special education teacher-specialists can often help in finding them and in devising effective ways
of using them.
Strategy 2: Embed activities into the context of daily life where possible
One basis for selecting activities is to relate learning goals to students’ everyday lives and activities,
just as a teacher would with all students.
This strategy addresses one of the defining features of an intellectual disability; the student’s
difficulties with adapting to and functioning in everyday living.
Example:
When teaching addition and subtraction, the teacher could create examples about the purchasing
of common familiar objects, e.g. food, and about the need to receive change for the purchases.
An adaptive, functional approach can help in non-academic areas as well.
Example:
In learning to read or ‘tell time’ on a clock, the teacher should focus initially on telling the times
important to the student, such as when he or she gets up in the morning or when schools starts.
As the teacher adds additional times that are personally meaningful to the student, he or she works
gradually towards full knowledge of how to read the hands on a clock. Even if the full knowledge
proves slow to develop, the student will at least have learned the most useful clock knowledge first.
Strategy 3: Include the student in both social and academic activities
The key word here is inclusion. The student should participate in and contribute to the life of the
class as much as possible.
Examples:
The student should wherever possible:
 Attend special events with the class, e.g. assemblies, field days and educational excursions
 Take part in whole class games
 Take part in group assignments within the class
The changes resulting from these inclusions are real, but can be positive for everyone:
o The changes foster acceptance and helpfulness toward the child with the disability.
o Classmates learn that school is partly about providing opportunities for everyone and not just
about evaluating or comparing individuals’ skills.
o The changes caused by inclusion stimulate the student with the disability to learn as much as
possible from classmates, socially and academically.
o Group activities can give the student chances to practice social skills, e.g. how to greet
classmates appropriately or when and how to ask the teacher a question.

These are skills that are beneficial for everyone to learn, disabled or not.
The main points from this module are as follows:
An intellectual disability is a significant limitation in a student’s cognitive functioning and daily
adaptive behaviours (Schalock & Luckasson, 2004; American Association on Mental Retardation,
2002).
Compared to students with learning disabilities, students with intellectual disabilities have
impairments to learning that are broader and more significant.
There are many terms used to describe students with intellectual disabilities, e.g. a slower learner.
There are many techniques that can help in teaching students with mild or moderate intellectual
disabilities, but most can be summarized into three general strategies as follows:
- Give more time and practice than usual to the student.
- Embed activities into the context of daily life or functioning where possible.
- Include the student in both social and academic activities

After completing this module you will be able to:

 Identify the correct definition for a 'behavioural disorder'
 List examples of problematic behaviour that a student with a behavioural disorder might display
 List three strategies for teaching students with behavioural disorders
 Name three potential types of triggers of inappropriate behaviour
Introduction to Behavioural Disorders
Behavioural disorders are a diverse group of conditions in which a student chronically performs
highly inappropriate behaviours.
Students with this condition might seek attention, e.g. acting out disruptively in class.
Other students with the condition might:
- Behave aggressively
- Be distractible and overly active
- Seem anxious or withdrawn or seem disconnected from everyday reality
As with learning disabilities, the sheer range of signs and symptoms defies concise description. But
the problematic behaviours do have several general features in common (Kauffman, 2005; Hallahan
& Kauffman, 2006).
The problematic behaviours tend to:
- Be extreme
- Affect school work
- Persist for extended periods of time
- Be socially unacceptable, e.g. unwanted sexual advances or vandalism against school property
- Have no other obvious explanation, e.g. a health problem or temporary disruption in the family
The variety among behavioural disorders means that estimates of their frequency tend to vary
across educational systems.
It also means that in some cases, a student with a behavioural disorder may be classified as having
a different condition, such as ADHD or a learning disability.
In other cases, a behavioural problem shown in one school setting may seem serious enough to be
labelled as a behavioural disorder, even though a similar problem occurring in another school may
be perceived as serious, but not serious enough to deserve the label.
In any case, available statistics suggest that only about 1% to 2% of students, or perhaps less, have
true behavioural disorders. This figure is only about one half or one third of the frequency for
intellectual disabilities (Kauffman, 2005).
Due to the potentially disruptive effects of behavioural disorders, however, students with this
condition are of special concern to teachers.
Just one student who is highly aggressive or disruptive can interfere with the functioning of the
entire class and challenge even the best teacher’s management skills and patience.
Teaching Students with Behavioural Disorders
The most common challenges of teaching students with behavioural disorders are related to
classroom management. These challenges can be minimized using the types of strategies set out
below.
Strategies for teaching students with behavioural disorders include:
 Identifying circumstances that trigger inappropriate behaviours.
 Teaching of interpersonal skills explicitly.
 Disciplining a student fairly.
Strategy 1: Identifying circumstances that trigger inappropriate behaviours
Dealing with a disruption is more effective if the teacher can identify the specific circumstances or
the event that triggers it, rather than focusing on the personality of the student doing the
disrupting.
A wide variety of factors can trigger inappropriate behaviour (Heineman, Dunlap, & Kincaid,
2005):
Physiological effects including:
 Illness
 Fatigue
 Hunger
 Side-effects from medications
Physical features of the classroom including:
 The classroom being too warm or too cold
 The chairs being exceptionally uncomfortable for sitting
 Seating patterns that interfere with hearing or seeing
Instructional choices or strategies that frustrate learning including:
 Restricting students’ choices unduly
 Giving instructions that are unclear
 Choosing activities that are too difficult or too long
 Preventing students from asking questions when they need help
By identifying the specific variables often associated with disruptive behaviour in a student, it is
easier to devise ways to prevent the behaviours by:
 Avoiding the triggers if this is possible.
 Teaching the student alternative but quite specific ways of responding to the triggering
circumstance.

Strategy 2: Teaching interpersonal skills explicitly

As a result of their history and behaviour, some students with behaviour disorders have had little
opportunity to learn appropriate social skills.
Simple courtesies, e.g. remembering to say please or thanks, may not be totally unknown, but may
be unpracticed and seem unimportant to the student.
This could also be the case with body language, e.g. making eye contact or sitting up to listen to a
teacher rather than slouching and looking away
These skills can be taught in ways that do not make them part of a punishment or put a student to
shame in front of classmates.
How to explicitly teach interpersonal skills:
1. Read or assign books and stories in which the characters model has good social skills.
2. Play games that require courteous language to succeed, e.g. ‘Mother, May I?’.
3. Design programs that link an older student or adult from the community as a partner to the
student at risk for behaviour problems.
Example:
A program in the United States called Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, arranges for older
individuals to act as mentors for younger boys and girls (Tierney, Grossman, & Resch, 1995;
Newburn & Shiner, 2006).
In addition, strategies based on behaviourist theory have proved effective for many students,
especially if a student needs opportunities simply to practice social skills that he has learned
recently and may still feel awkward or self-conscious in using (Algozzine & Ysseldyke, 2006).
Teachers can also arrange contingency contracts. Contingency contracts are agreements between
the teacher and a student about exactly what work the student will do, how it will be rewarded and
what the consequences will be if the agreement is not fulfilled (Wilkinson, 2003).
An advantage of all such behaviourist techniques is their precision and clarity: there is little room
for misunderstanding about just what the expectations of the teacher are.
This precision and clarity in turn makes it less tempting or necessary for the teacher to become
angry about infringements of rules or a student’s failure to fulfil contracts or agreements. The
consequences of such infringements tend already to be relatively obvious and clear.
Strategy 3: Fairness in disciplining
Strategies for helping a student with a behaviour disorder should be described in the student’s
individual educational plan (IEP).
The plan can serve as a guide in devising daily activities and approaches with the student. It should
be kept in mind that since an IEP is similar to a legal agreement among a teacher, other
professionals, a student and the student’s parents, departures from it should be made only
cautiously and carefully, if ever.
Although such departures may seem unlikely, a student with a behaviour disorder may sometimes
be exasperating enough to make it tempting for the teacher to use stronger or more sweeping
punishments than usual, e.g. isolating a student for extended times.
A teacher must remember that every IEP guarantees the student and the student’s parents due
process before an IEP can be changed.
In practice this means consulting with everyone involved in the case, e.g. the student, the parents
and other specialists, and reaching an agreement before adopting new strategies that differ
significantly from the past.
Instead of ‘increasing the volume’ of punishments, a better approach is for the teacher to keep
careful records of the student’s behaviour and his or her own responses to it. These records should
document the reasonableness of the rules or responses to any major disruptions.
By having these records, collaboration with parents and other professionals can be more productive
and fair-minded. It can increase others’ confidence in the teacher’s judgements about the student’s
needs. In the long term, more effective collaboration leads both to better support and to more
learning for the student.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Behavioural disorders are a diverse group of conditions in which a student chronically performs
highly inappropriate behaviours.
Available statistics suggest that only about 1% to 2% of students, or perhaps less, have true
behavioural disorders - a figure that is only about one half or one third of the frequency for
intellectual disabilities (Kauffman, 2005).
The most common challenges of teaching students with behavioural disorders are related to
classroom management.
Strategies for teaching students with behavioural disorders include:
- Identifying circumstances that trigger the inappropriate behaviours.
- Teaching of interpersonal skills explicitly.
- Disciplining a student fairly.
A wide variety of factors can trigger inappropriate behaviour:
- Physiological effects.
- Physical features of the classroom.
- Instructional choices or strategies that frustrate learning.

After completing this module you will be able to:

 List ways that a child may acquire a hearing loss
 Describe the signs of a hearing loss
 Identify the correct definition for a 'visual impairment'
 Identify the correct definition for 'legal blindness'
 Describe the signs of a visual impairment
 List three strategies for teaching students with hearing loss
 List three strategies for teaching students with visual impairment
Introduction to Physical Disabilities and Sensory Impairments
Some students have serious physical, medical or sensory challenges that interfere with their
learning. Usually, the physical and medical challenges are medical conditions or diseases that
require ongoing medical care. The sensory challenges are usually a loss either in hearing or in
vision, or more rarely in both.
These types of physical disabilities and sensory impairments are often serious enough to interfere
with activities in regular classroom programs. These types of disabilities also often qualify the
student for special educational services or programs.
Hearing Loss
A child can acquire a hearing loss for a variety of reasons, ranging from disease early in childhood,
to difficulties during childbirth, to reactions to toxic drugs. In the classroom, however, the cause of
the loss is virtually irrelevant because it makes little difference in how to accommodate a student’s
educational needs.
More important than the cause of the loss is its extent. Students with only mild or moderate loss of
hearing are sometimes called hearing impaired or hard of hearing. Only those with nearly complete
loss are called deaf.
As with other sorts of disabilities, the milder the hearing loss, the more likely it is that the student is
in a regular classroom, at least for part of the day.
Signs of Hearing Loss
Although determining whether a student has a hearing loss may seem quite straightforward, i.e. by
administering a hearing test, the assessment is often not clear cut if it takes the student’s daily
experiences into account.
A serious or profound hearing loss tends to be noticed relatively quickly and therefore can often
receive special help sooner.
Mild or moderate hearing loss is much more common and is more likely to be overlooked or
mistaken for some other sort of learning problem (Sherer, 2004).

Examples:
Students with a mild hearing loss sometimes have somewhat lower language and literacy skills but
so do some students without any loss.
Students with a mild hearing loss may seem not to listen to a speaker because of trouble in locating
the source of sounds, but then again, sometimes students without loss also fail to listen.
In addition, partial hearing loss can be hidden if the student teaches himself or herself to lip read or
is careful in choosing which questions to answer in a class discussion.
Systematic hearing tests given by medical or hearing specialists can resolve some of these
ambiguities. But even they can give a misleading impression, since students’ true ability to manage
in class depends on how well they combine cues and information from the entire context of
classroom life.
In identifying a student who may have a hearing loss, therefore, teachers need to observe the
student over an extended period of time and in as many situations as possible.
In particular, a teacher must look for a persistent combination of some of the following
behaviours over repeated or numerous occasions (Luckner & Carter, 2001):
- Delayed language or literacy skills, both written and oral
- Some ability (usually partial) to read lips
- Less worldly knowledge than usual because of lack of involvement with oral dialogue and/or
delayed literacy
- Tendency to social isolation because of awkwardness in communication
Visual Impairment
Students with visual impairments have difficulty seeing and focusing even with corrective lenses.
Most commonly the difficulty has to do with refraction (the ability to focus), but some students may
also experience a limited field of view (called tunnel vision) or be overly sensitive to light in general.
As with hearing loss, labels for visual impairment depend somewhat on the extent and nature of
the problem.
Legal blindness means that the person has significant tunnel vision or else visual acuity (sharpness
of vision) of 20/200 or less. This means that he or she must be 20 feet away from an object that a
person with normal eyesight can see at 200 feet.
Low vision means that a person has some vision usable for reading, but often needs a special optical
device such as a magnifying lens for doing so.
As with hearing loss, the milder the impairment, the more likely that a student with a vision
problem will spend some or even all the time in a regular class.

Signs of Visual Impairment

Students with visual impairments often show some of the same signs as students with simple,
common nearsightedness.
Students with visual impairments may:
- Rub their eyes a lot
- Blink more than usual
- Hold books very close to read them
- Complain of itchiness in their eyes
- Complain of headaches, dizziness, or even nausea after doing a lot of close eye work
The difference between the students with visual impairment and those with ‘ordinary’
nearsightedness is primarily a matter of degree: the ones with impairment show the signs more
often and more obviously.
If the impairment is serious enough or has roots in certain physical conditions or disease, they may
also have additional symptoms, such as crossed eyes or swollen eyelids.
As with hearing loss, the milder forms ironically can be the most subtle to observe and therefore
the most prone to being overlooked at first.
For classroom teachers, the best strategy may be to keep track of a student whose physical signs
happen in combination with learning difficulties and for whom the combination persists for many
weeks.
Teaching Students with Hearing Loss
In principle, adjustments in teaching students with hearing loss are relatively easy to make though
they do require deliberate actions or choices by the teacher and by fellow students. Interestingly,
many of the strategies are good advice for teaching all students.
The three main strategies are:
 Take advantage of the student’s residual hearing.
 Use visual cues liberally.
 Include the student in the community of the classroom.
Strategy 1: Take advantage of the student’s residual hearing
The teacher should:
- Sit the student close to him or her while talking or close to key classmates if the students are in a
work group.
- Keep competing noise to a minimum, e.g. any unnecessary talking or whispering, as this type of
noise is particularly distracting to someone with hearing loss.
- Keep instructions concise and to-the-point.
- Ask the student occasionally whether he or she understands what is being explained.
Strategy 2: Use visual cues liberally
The teacher should:
o Make charts and diagrams wherever appropriate to illustrate what he is saying.
o Look directly at the student when he is speaking to him or her (to facilitate lip reading).
o Gesture and point to key words or objects but within reason, not excessively.
o Provide hand-outs or readings to the student to visually review the points that are being made.

Strategy 3: Include the student in the community of the classroom

The teacher should:
o Recruit one or more classmates to assist in ‘translating’ oral comments that the student may
have missed.
o Learn a few basic, important sign language signals, e.g. ‘Hello’, ‘thank you’, ‘How are you?’.
o Teach a few basic, important signals to classmates as well.

Teaching Students with Visual Impairment

In general, advice for teaching students with mild or moderate visual impairment parallels the
advice for teaching students with hearing loss, though with obvious differences because of the
nature of the students’ disabilities.
The three main strategies are:
 Take advantage of the student’s residual vision.
 Use non-visual information liberally.
 Include the student in the community of the classroom.
Strategy 1: Take advantage of the student’s residual vision
The teacher should:
o Place the student (if the student still has some useful vision) where he or she can easily see the
most important parts of the classroom - whether that is the teacher, the chalkboard, a video
screen or particular fellow students.
o Make sure that the classroom, or at least the student’s part of it, is well lit. Good lighting makes
reading easier for students with low vision.
o Make sure that handouts, books and other reading materials have good, sharp contrast.

Strategy 2: Use non-visual information liberally

The teacher should:
o Remember not to expect a student with visual impairment to learn information that is by
nature only visual, such as the layout of the classroom, the appearance of photographs in a
textbook or of story lines in a video. These need to be explained to the student.
o Use hands-on materials wherever they will work, such as maps printed in three-dimensional
relief or with different textures.
o Allow the student to use Braille, if the student knows how to read it (Braille: an alphabet for
the blind using patterns of small bumps on a page).
Strategy 3: Include the student in the community of the classroom
The teacher should:
- Make sure that the student is accepted as well as possible into the social life of the class.
- Recruit classmates to help explain visual material when necessary.
- Learn a bit of basic Braille and encourage classmates of the student to do the same.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Some students have serious physical, medical or sensory challenges that interfere with their
learning, e.g. blindness.
A child can acquire a hearing loss for a variety of reasons, ranging from disease early in childhood,
to difficulties during childbirth, to reactions to toxic drugs.
A student with hearing loss may present some of the following behaviours repeatedly (Luckner &
Carter, 2001):
- Delayed language or literacy skills, both written and oral
- Some ability (usually partial) to read lips
- Less worldly knowledge than usual because of lack of involvement with oral dialogue and/or
delayed literacy
- Tendency to social isolation because of awkwardness in communication
Students with visual impairments have difficulty seeing even with corrective lenses. Most
commonly the difficulty is related to refraction, tunnel vision or sensitivity to light in general.
Students with visual impairments often show some of the same signs as students with simple,
common nearsightedness.
The three main strategies for teaching students with hearing loss are:
1. Take advantage of the student’s residual hearing.
2. Use visual cues liberally.
3. Include the student in the community of the classroom.
The three main strategies for teaching students with visual impairment are:
1. Take advantage of the student’s residual vision.
2. Use non-visual information liberally.
3. Include the student in the community of the classroom

After completing this module you will be able to:

 Differentiate between learning and development
 List ways that students development is relevant to teachers
 List ways that developmental trends differ from each other
 Differentiate between the "staircase" and the "kaleidoscope" model of development
Introduction to Student Development
Development refers to long-term personal changes that have multiple sources and multiple effects.
Some human developments are especially broad and take years to unfold fully.
Example:
A person's ever-evolving ability to “read” other's moods may take a lifetime to develop fully. Other
developments are faster and more focused, like a person's increasing skill at solving crossword
puzzles.
The faster and simpler the change is, the more likely it is to be called “learning” instead of
development. The difference between learning and development is a matter of degree.
Example:
When a child learns to name the planets of the solar system the child may not need a lot of time, or
does the learning involve a multitude of experiences. So it is probably better to think of that
particular experience, learning to name the planets, as an example of learning rather than of
development (Salkind, 2004; Lewis, 1997).
Students’ development matters for teachers, but the way it matters depends partly on how
schooling is organized.
In teaching a single, “self-contained” class level, the benefits of knowing about development will be
less explicit, but just as real, as if teaching many class levels.
Working exclusively with a single class highlights differences among students that happen in spite of
their similar ages, and obscures similarities that happen because of having similar ages.
Under these conditions it is still easy to notice students’ diversity, but harder to know how much of
it comes from differences in long-term development, compared to differences in short-term
experiences.
Knowledge about long term changes is still useful, however, in planning appropriate activities and in
holding appropriate expectations about students.
What changes in students can a teacher expect relatively soon simply from his current program of
activities, and which ones may take a year or more to show up?
This is a question that developmental psychology can help to answer.
If a teacher teaches multiple class levels then his need for developmental knowledge will be more
obvious because he will confront wide age differences on a daily basis.

Example:
A physical education teacher may teach kindergarten children at one time during the day, but sixth
graders at another time, or teach seventh-graders at one time but twelfth-graders at another.
Students will differ more obviously because of age, in addition to differing because of other factors
like their skills or knowledge learned recently.
Nonetheless, the instructional challenge will be the same as the one faced by teachers of single-
level classes: all teachers want to know what activities and expectations are appropriate for their
students.
To answer this question, teachers need to know not only about how students are unique, but also
about general trends of development during childhood and adolescence.
Developmental Trends
Developmental trends in human beings vary in two important ways.
Generality
1) Developmental trends differ in their generality
Some theories or models of development boldly assert that certain changes happen to virtually
every person on the planet, and often at relatively predictable points in life.
A theory may assert that toddlers acquire a spoken language, or that teenagers form a sense of
personal identity. Individuals who do not experience these developments would be rare, though
not necessarily disabled as a result. Other theories propose developmental changes that are more
limited, claiming only that the changes happen to some people or only under certain conditions.
Example:
Developing a female gender role does not happen to everyone, but only to the females in a
population, and the details vary according to the family, community or society in which a child lives.
Sequence and Hierarchy
2) Developmental trends differ in how strictly they are sequenced and hierarchical
In some views of development, changes are thought to happen in a specific order and to build on
each other like a sort of “staircase” model of development (Case, 1991, 1996).
Example:
A developmental psychologist might argue that young people must have tangible, hands-on
experience with new materials before they can reason about the materials in the abstract. The
order cannot be reversed.
In other views of development, change happens, but not with a sequence or end point that is
uniform. This sort of change is more like a “kaleidoscope” than a staircase (Levinson, 1990; Lewis,
1997; Harris, 2006).

Example:
A person who becomes permanently disabled may experience complex long-term changes in
personal values and priorities that are different both in timing and content from most people's
developmental pathway.
The preference for integrative perspectives makes sense given educators’ need to work with and
teach large numbers of diverse students both efficiently and effectively.
But the approach also risks over generalizing or over simplifying the experiences of particular
children and youth. It can also confuse what does happen as certain children (like middle-class
ones) develop with what should happen to children.
To understand this point, imagine two children of about the same age who have dramatically very
different childhood experiences - for example, one who grows up in poverty and another who
grows up financially well-off.
In what sense can we say that these two children experience the same underlying developmental
changes as they grow up?
And how much should they even be expected to do so?
Developmental psychology highlights the “sameness” or common ground between these two
children. As such, it serves as counterpoint to knowledge of their obvious uniqueness, and places
their uniqueness in broader perspective.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Development refers to long-term personal changes that have multiple sources and multiple effects.
The faster and simpler the change is, the more likely it is to be called “learning” instead of
development.
Students’ development matters for teachers, but the way it matters depends partly on how
schooling is organized.
Developmental trends in human beings vary in two important ways. Developmental trends differ in:
1. Their generality
2. How strictly they are sequenced and hierarchical
In some views of development, changes are thought to happen in a specific order and to build on
each other like a sort of “staircase” model of development (Case, 1991, 1996).
In other views of development, change happens, but not with a sequence or end point that is
uniform. This sort of change is more like a “kaleidoscope” than a staircase (Levinson, 1990; Lewis,
1997; Harris, 2006).

After completing this module, you will be able to:

 Discuss the developmental trends of height and weight in students
 List two contributing factors to a rise in obesity levels
 Define the word 'puberty' in relation to development
 Identify the types of changes that occur during puberty
 Discuss the importance of the development of motor skills in young children
 Explain why children are more prone to being ill than adults are
 List ways that illness affects school life
Trends in Height and Weight
Although it may be tempting to think that physical development is the concern of physical
education teachers only, it is actually a foundation for many academic tasks, e.g. it is important to
know whether children can successfully manipulate a pencil or how long students can be expected
to sit still without discomfort.
At all class levels, it is important to have a sense of students’ health needs related to their age or
maturity, if only to know who may become ill, and with what illness, and to know what physical
activities are reasonable and needed.
The table below shows typical height and weight for well-nourished, healthy students. The figure
shows averages for several ages, but it does not show the diversity among children, e.g. at age 6,
the average boy or girl is about 115cm tall, but some are 109cm and others are 125cm. Average
weight at age 6 is about 20kg, but ranges between about 16kg and 24kg - about 20% variation in
either direction.

There are three other main points about average height and weight that are not evident from the
previous table:
1 The first is that boys and girls, on average, are quite similar in height and weight during
childhood, but diverge in the early teenage years, when they reach puberty.
For a time (approximately age 10-14), the average girl is taller, but not much heavier, than the
average boy. After that the average boy becomes both taller and heavier than the average girl-
though there remain individual exceptions (Malina, et al., 2004).
The pre-teen difference can be awkward for some children, at least among those who aspire to look
like older teenagers or young adults.
For young teens less concerned with “image”, though, the fact that girls are taller may not be
especially important, or even noticed (Friedman, 2000).
2 A second point is that as children get older, individual difference in weight diverge more
radically than differences in height.
Among 18-year-olds, the heaviest youngsters weigh almost twice as much as the lightest, but the
tallest ones are only about 10% taller than the shortest.
Nonetheless, both height and weight can be sensitive issues for some teenagers. Most modern
societies tend to favor relatively short women and tall men, as well as a somewhat thin body build,
especially for girls and women. Yet neither “socially correct” height nor thinness is the destiny for
many individuals.
Being overweight, in particular, has become a common, serious problem in modern society
(Tartamella, et al., 2004) due to the prevalence of diets high in fat and lifestyles low in activity.
The educational system has unfortunately contributed to the problem as well, by gradually
restricting the number of physical education courses and classes in the past two decades.
3 The third point is that average height and weight is related somewhat to racial and ethnic
background.
In general, children of Asian background tend to be slightly shorter than children of European and
North American background. The latter in turn tend to be shorter than children from African
societies (Eveleth & Tanner, 1990).
Body shape differs slightly, though the differences are not always visible until after puberty. Asian
youth tend to have arms and legs that are a bit short relative to their torsos, and African youth tend
to have relatively long arms and legs. The differences are only averages; there are large individual
differences as well, and these tend to be more relevant for teachers to know about than broad
group differences.
The Effects of Puberty
A universal physical development in students is puberty, which is the set of changes in early
adolescence that bring about sexual maturity.
The changes include:
- Internal changes in reproductive organs.
- Outward changes such as growth of breasts in girls and the penis in boys.
- Increases in height and weight.
By about age 10 or 11, most children experience increased sexual attraction to others that affects
their social life, both in school and out (McClintock & Herdt, 1996).
By the end of second level school, more than 50% of teenagers report having had sexual
intercourse at least once, though it is hard to be certain of the proportion because of the sensitivity
and privacy of the information (Center for Disease Control, 2004b; Rosenbaum, 2006).
At about the same time that puberty accentuates gender, role differences are also accentuated by
some teenagers. Some girls who excelled at math or science early on may curb their enthusiasm
and displays of success at these subjects for fear of limiting their popularity or attractiveness as
girls.
Some boys who were not especially interested in sports previously may begin dedicating
themselves to athletics to affirm their masculinity in the eyes of others.
Some boys and girls who once worked together successfully on class projects may no longer feel
comfortable doing so - or alternatively may now seek to be working partners, but for social rather
than academic reasons.
Such changes do not affect all youngsters equally or affect any one youngster equally on all
occasions. An individual student may act like a young adult on one day, but more like a child the
next. When teaching children who are experiencing puberty, teachers need to respond flexibly and
supportively.
Development of Motor Skills
Students’ fundamental motor skills are already developing when they begin pre-school, but are not
yet perfectly coordinated.
Five-year-olds generally can walk satisfactorily for most school-related purposes. For some five year
olds, running still looks a bit like a hurried walk, but usually it becomes more coordinated within a
year or two.
Similarly with jumping, throwing, and catching: most children can do these things, though often
clumsily, by the time they start school, but improve their skills noticeably during the early school
years (Payne & Isaacs, 2005)
Similarly with jumping, throwing, and catching: most children can do these things, though often
clumsily, by the time they start school, but improve their skills noticeably during the early school
years (Payne & Isaacs, 2005)
Assisting such developments is usually the job either of physical education teachers, where they
exist, or else of classroom teachers during designated physical education activities.
Whoever is responsible, it is important to notice if a child does not keep more-or-less to the usual
developmental timetable, and to arrange for special assessment or supports if appropriate.
Even if physical skills are not a special focus of a classroom teacher, they can be quite important to
students themselves. Whatever their class level, students who are clumsy are aware of that fact
and how it could potentially negatively affect respect from their peers.
In the long term, self-consciousness and poor self-esteem can develop for a child who is clumsy,
especially if peers (or teachers and parents) place high value on success in athletics.
Example:
One research study found what teachers and coaches sometimes suspect: that losers in athletic
competitions tend to become less sociable and are more likely to miss subsequent athletic practices
than winners (Petlichkoff, 1996).
Health and Illness
By world standards, children and youth in economically developed societies tend to be remarkably
healthy. Even so, much depends on precisely how well-off families are and on how much health
care is available to them.
Children from higher-income families experience fewer serious or life-threatening illnesses than
children from lower-income families. Whatever their income level, parents and teachers note that
children, especially the youngest ones, get far more illnesses than adults.
Example:
In 2004, an American government survey estimated that children get an average of 6-10 colds per
year, but adults get only about 2-4 per year (National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases,
2004).
The difference probably exists because:
- Children’s immune systems are not as fully formed as adults.
- Children at school are continually exposed to other children.
An indirect result of children’s frequent illnesses is that teachers also report more frequent minor
illnesses than do adults in general.
The illnesses are not life threatening, but they are responsible for:
o Many lost days of school for both students and teachers.
o Days when a student may be present physically, but functions below par while simultaneously
infecting classmates.
In these ways, learning and teaching often suffer because health is suffering.
The problem is not only the prevalence of illness as such, but the fact that illnesses are not
distributed uniformly among students, schools, or communities
Whether it is a simple cold or something more serious, illness is particularly common where:
o Living conditions are crowded.
o Health care is scarce or unaffordable.
o Individuals live with frequent stresses of any kind.
o Often, but not always, these are the circumstances of poverty.
o As students get older, illnesses become less frequent, but other health risks emerge. The most
widespread is the consumption of alcohol and the smoking of cigarettes.
Example:
As of 2004 in America, about 75% of teenagers reported drinking an alcoholic beverage at least
occasionally, and 22% reported smoking cigarettes (Center for Disease Control, 2004a).
The good news is that these proportions show a small, but steady decline in the frequencies over
the past 10 years or so. The bad news is that teenagers also show increases in the abuse of some
prescription drugs, such as inhalants, that act as stimulants (Johnston, et al., 2006).
As with the prevalence of illnesses, the prevalence of drug use is not uniform, with a relatively small
fraction of individuals accounting for a disproportionate proportion of usage.
Example:
One survey found that a teenager was 3-5 times more likely to smoke or to use alcohol, smoke
marijuana, or use drugs if she has a sibling who has also indulged these habits (Fagan & Najman,
2005). Siblings, it seems, are more influential in this case than parents.
The main points from this module are as follows:
The table below shows typical height and weight for well-nourished, healthy students.

There are three other main points about average height and weight that are not evident from the
previous table:
1. Boys and girls, on average, are quite similar in height and weight during childhood, but diverge
in the early teenage years, when they reach puberty.
2. As children get older, individual differences in weight diverge more radically than differences in
height.
3. Average height and weight is related somewhat to racial and ethnic background.
A universal physical development in students is puberty, which is the set of changes in early
adolescence that bring about sexual maturity.
Changes during puberty include:
o Internal changes in reproductive organs
o Outward changes such as growth of breasts in girls and the penis in boys
o Increases in height and weight
o When teaching children who are experiencing puberty, teachers need to respond flexibly and
supportively.
o It is important to notice if a child does not keep more-or-less to the usual development of motor
skills, and to arrange for special assessment or supports if appropriate.
Children are more prone to being ill than adults because:
o Children’s immune systems are not as fully formed as adults'
o Children at school are continually exposed to other children

The illnesses are not life threatening, but they are responsible for:
o Many lost days of school for both students and teachers
o Days when a student may be present physically, but functions below par while simultaneously
infecting classmates.
In these ways, learning and teaching often suffer because health is suffering.
After completing this module you will be able to:
 Name the famous Swiss psychologist responsible for developing a four stage cognitive
development theory
 Outline the four stages of Piaget's theory of cognitive development
 Identify the age when each of Piaget's stages occur
 Define 'stability object permanence'
 Outline the importance of dramatic play during the preoperational stage
 List two ways that concrete operational thinking differs from preoperational thinking
 Provide everyday examples of reversibility and decentration
Jean Piaget’s Theory and Cognitive Development
Cognition refers to thinking and memory processes, and cognitive development refers to long-term
changes in these processes.
One of the most widely known perspectives about cognitive development is the cognitive stage
theory of a Swiss psychologist named Jean Piaget.
Piaget created and studied an account of how children and youth gradually become able to think
logically and scientifically. His theory is especially popular among educators.
Piaget was a psychological constructivist. In his view, learning occurs through the interplay of
assimilation (adjusting new experiences to fit prior concepts) and accommodation (adjusting
concepts to fit new experiences). The to-and-fro of these two processes leads not only to short-
term learning but also to long-term developmental change. The long-term developments are really
the main focus of Piaget’s cognitive theory.
After observing children closely, Piaget proposed that cognition developed through distinct stages
from birth through to the end of adolescence.

By stages he meant a sequence of thinking patterns with four key features:

1. The stages always happen in the same order
2. No stage is ever skipped.
3. Each stage is a significant transformation of the stage before it.
4. Each later stage incorporated the earlier stages into itself.
Basically this is the “staircase” model of development mentioned in an earlier topic.

Piaget proposed four major stages of cognitive development. Each stage is correlated
approximately with an age period of childhood.
The Sensorimotor Stage
In Piaget’s theory, the sensorimotor stage is birth to age two. It is defined as the period when
infants “think” by means of their senses and motor actions.
As every new parent will attest, infants continually touch, manipulate, look, listen to, and even bite
and chew objects. According to Piaget, these actions allow them to learn about the world and are
crucial to their early cognitive development.
The infant’s actions allow the child to represent (or construct simple concepts of) objects and
events. A toy animal may be just a confusing array of sensations at first, but by looking, feeling, and
manipulating it repeatedly, the child gradually organizes her sensations and actions into a stable
concept.
The representation acquires a permanence lacking in the individual experiences of the object,
which are constantly changing. As the representation is stable, the child “knows”, or at least
believes, that toy animal exists even if the actual toy animal is temporarily out of sight.
Piaget called this sense of stability object permanence, a belief that objects exist whether or not
they are actually present.
It is a major achievement of sensorimotor development and marks a qualitative transformation in
how older infants (24 months) think about experience compared to younger infants (6 months).
During much of infancy, of course, a child can only barely talk, so sensorimotor development
initially happens without the support of language.
It might therefore seem hard to know what infants are thinking, but Piaget devised several simple,
but clever experiments to get around their lack of language, and that suggest that infants do indeed
represent objects even without being able to talk (Piaget, 1952).
In one experiment, Piaget simply hid an object (like a toy animal) under a blanket.
He found that doing so consistently prompts older infants (18-24 months) to search for the object
but fails to prompt younger infants (less than six months) to do so.
“Something” motivates the search by the older infant even without the benefit of much language,
and the “something” is presumed to be a permanent concept or representation of the object.
The Preoperational Stage
In the preoperational stage from age two to seven, children use their new ability to represent
objects in a wide variety of activities, but they do not yet do it in ways that are organized or fully
logical.
One of the most obvious examples of this kind of cognition is dramatic play, the improvised make-
believe of preschool children.
Example:
Ashley holds a plastic banana to her ear and says:
“Hello, Mom? Can you be sure to bring me my baby doll? OK!”
Then she hangs up the banana and pours tea for Jeremy into an invisible cup. Jeremy giggles at the
sight of all of this and exclaims:
“Ringing! Oh Ashley, the phone is ringing again! You better answer it.”
And on it goes.
In a way, children immersed in make-believe play seem “mentally insane” as they do not appear to
be thinking realistically.
But they are not truly insane because they have not really taken leave of their senses.
At some level, Ashley and Jeremy always know that the banana is still a banana and not really a
telephone; they are merely representing it as a telephone.
They are thinking on two levels at once:
- one imaginative and
- the other realistic.
This dual processing of experience makes dramatic play an early example of metacognition or
reflecting on and monitoring of thinking itself.
Metacognition is a highly desirable skill for success in school, one that teachers often encourage
(Bredekamp & Copple, 1997; Paley, 2005).
Partly for this reason, teachers of young children (both pre-school and early school years) often
make time and space in their classrooms for dramatic play, and sometimes even participate in it
themselves to help develop the play further.

The Concrete Operational Stage

As children continue into formal schooling, they become able to represent ideas and events more
flexibly and logically.
Their rules of thinking still seem very basic by adult standards and usually operate unconsciously.
These rules allow children to solve problems more systematically than before, and children at this
stage can be successful with many academic tasks.
In the concrete operational stage from age seven to eleven a child may unconsciously follow the
rule: “If nothing is added or taken away, then the amount of something stays the same.”
This simple principle helps children to understand certain arithmetic tasks, such as in adding or
subtracting zero from a number, as well as to do certain classroom science experiments, such as
ones involving judgments of the amounts of liquids when mixed.
Piaget called this period the concrete operational stage because children mentally “operate” on
concrete objects and events. They are not yet able, however, to operate (or think) systematically
about representations of objects or events. Manipulating representations is a more abstract skill
that develops later, during adolescence.
Concrete operational thinking differs from preoperational thinking in two ways:
1. Reversibility
2. Decentration
Each of these elements renders children more skilled as students.
Reversibility is the ability to think about the steps of a process in any order.
Example (reversibility):
Imagine a simple science experiment, such as one that explores why objects sink or float by having
a child place an assortment of objects in a basin of water.
Both the preoperational and concrete operational child can recall and describe the steps in this
experiment, but only the concrete operational child can recall them in any order.
This skill is very helpful on any task involving multiple steps - a common feature of tasks in the
classroom.
Example (reversibility):
In teaching new vocabulary from a story, a teacher might tell students:
“First make a list of words in the story that you do not know.”
"Then find and write down their definitions".
"Finally, get a friend to test you on your list”.
These directions involve repeatedly remembering to move back and forth between a second step
and a first.
This is a task that concrete operational students find easy, but that preoperational children often
forget to do or find confusing.
If the younger children are to do this task reliably, they may need external prompts, such as having
the teacher remind them periodically to go back to the story to look for more unknown words.
In real classroom tasks, reversibility and decentration often happen together simultaneously.
A well-known example of joint presence is Piaget’s experiments with conservation, the belief that
an amount or quantity stays the same even if it changes apparent size or shape. Overall, the
development of concrete operational skills support students in doing many basic academic tasks. In
a sense these types of skills make ordinary day-to-day schoolwork possible.
Example (reversibility and decentration):
Imagine two identical balls made of clay. Any child, whether preoperational or concrete
operational, will agree that the two balls have the same amount of clay in them simply because
they look the same. But if one ball is squished into a long, thin “hot dog”, the preoperational child is
likely to say that the amount of that ball has changed - either because it is longer or because it is
thinner, but at any rate because it now looks different.
The concrete operational child will not make this mistake, thanks to new cognitive skills of
reversibility and decentration: for him or her, the amount is the same because “you could squish it
back into a ball again” (reversibility) and because “it may be longer, but it is also thinner”
(decentration). Piaget would say the concrete operational child “has conservation of quantity”.
The Formal Operational Stage
In the last of the Piagetian stages, the child, aged 11 and beyond, becomes able to reason not only
about tangible objects and events, but also about hypothetical or abstract ones. Hence it has the
name formal operational stage - the period when the individual can “operate” on “forms” or
representations.
With students at this level, the teacher can pose hypothetical problems:
What if the world had never discovered oil?
What if the first European explorers had settled first in California instead of on the East Coast of the
United States?
To answer such questions, students must use hypothetical reasoning, meaning that they must
manipulate ideas that vary in several ways at once, and do so entirely in their minds.
The hypothetical reasoning that concerned Piaget primarily involved scientific problems. His studies
of formal operational thinking therefore often look like problems that teachers pose in science
classes with older students.

Example:
A student is presented with a simple pendulum, to which different amounts of weight can be hung
(Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). The experimenter asks: “What determines how fast the pendulum swings:
the length of the string holding it, the weight attached to it, or the distance that it is pulled to the
side?”
The student is not allowed to solve this problem by trial-and-error using the materials but must
reason a way to the solution mentally. To do so systematically, she must imagine varying each
factor separately, while also imagining the other factors that are held constant
The hypothetical reasoning that concerned Piaget requires facility at manipulating mental
representations of the relevant objects and actions. These are precisely the skills that defines
formal operations.
As one might suspect, students with an ability to think hypothetically have an advantage in many
kinds of schoolwork: by definition, they require relatively few “props” to solve problems.
In this sense they can in principle be more self-directed than students who rely only on concrete
operations - certainly a desirable quality in the opinion of most teachers.
It must be noted that formal operational thinking is desirable but not sufficient for school success,
and that it is far from being the only way that students achieve educational success.
Formal thinking skills do not insure that a student is motivated or well-behaved, or does it
guarantee other desirable skills, such as ability at sports, music or art.
The fourth stage in Piaget’s theory is really about a particular kind of formal thinking, the kind
needed to solve scientific problems and devise scientific experiments.
Since many people do not normally deal with such problems in the normal course of their lives, it
should be no surprise that research finds that many people never achieve or use formal thinking
fully or consistently, or that they use it only in selected areas with which they are very familiar (Case
& Okomato, 1996).
For teachers, the limitations of Piaget's ideas suggest a need for additional theories about
development - ones that focus more directly on the social and interpersonal issues of childhood and
adolescence.

The main points from this module are as follows:

One of the most widely known perspectives about cognitive development is the cognitive stage
theory of a Swiss psychologist named Jean Piaget. Piaget's stages of Cognitive Development:

In Piaget’s theory, the sensorimotor stage is birth to age two. It is defined as the period when
infants “think” by means of their senses and motor actions.
Stability object permanence is a belief that objects exist whether or not they are actually present
and it is a major achievement of sensorimotor development.
In the preoperational stage from age two to seven, children use their new ability to represent
objects in a wide variety of activities, but they do not yet do it in ways that are organized or fully
logical. One of the most obvious examples of this kind of cognition is dramatic play, the improvised
make-believe of preschool children.
This dual processing of experience makes dramatic play an early example of metacognition, or
reflecting on and monitoring of thinking itself.
Concrete operational thinking differs from preoperational thinking in two ways:
Reversibility is the ability to think about the steps of a process in any order.
Decentration is the ability to focus on more than one feature of a problem at a time.
In the formal operational stage, the child, aged 11 and beyond, becomes able to reason not only
about tangible objects and events, but also about hypothetical or abstract ones.

After completing this module you will be able to:

 Define social development
 List three main areas of classroom life that changes in social development affect
 List four theorists that researched the area of social development
 Discuss Erikson's eight stage model of social development
 Provide everyday examples of the different stages of Erikson's model of social development
 List three strategies that teachers can use to minimize role confusion in students
 Compare and contrast Maslow's theory with the theories of Erikson and Piaget
 Differentiate between deficit needs and being needs
 List characteristics of a self-actualizing individual
Introduction to Social Development
Social development refers to the long-term changes in relationships and interactions involving self,
peers, and family.
It includes positive changes, such as:
How friendships develop,
and negative changes, such as:
Aggression or bullying.
The social developments that are most obviously relevant to classroom life fall into three main
areas:
1. Changes in self-concept and in relationships among students and teachers
2. Changes in basic needs or personal motives
3. Changes in sense of rights and responsibilities
As with cognitive development, each of these areas has a broad, well-known theory (and theorist).
This theory provides a framework for thinking about how the area relates to teaching.
The table below outlines the theories and theorists referred to in this module.
Their theories are not the only ones related to the social development of students, and their ideas
are often debated by other researchers. But their accounts do explain much about social
development that is relevant to teaching and education.

Erik Erikson’s Theory

Like Piaget, Erik Erikson developed a theory of social development that relies on stages, except that
Erikson thought of stages as a series of psychological or social crises - turning points in a person’s
relationships and feelings about himself or herself (Erikson, 1963, 1980).
Each crisis consists of a dilemma or choice that carries both advantages and risks, but in which one
choice or alternative is normally considered more desirable or “healthy”.
How one crisis is resolved affects how later crises are resolved. The resolution also helps to create
an individual’s developing personality.
Erikson proposed eight crises that extend from birth through old age:

Crises of infants and preschoolers: trust, autonomy, and initiative

Almost from the day they are born, infants face a crisis (in Erikson’s sense) about trust and mistrust.
They are happiest if they can eat, sleep and excrete according to their own physiological schedules,
regardless of whether their schedules are convenient for the caregiver (often the mother).
Unfortunately, though, a young infant is in no position to control or influence a mother’s care giving
or scheduling needs; so the baby faces a dilemma about how much to trust or mistrust the
mother’s helpfulness.
It is as if the baby asks, “If I demand food (or sleep or a clean diaper) now, will my mother actually
be able to help me meet this need?”
Hopefully, between the two of them, mother and child resolve this choice in favour of the baby's
trust: the mother proves herself at least “good enough” in her attentiveness, and the baby risks
trusting mother's motivation and skill at care giving.
Almost as soon as this crisis is resolved, however, a new one develops over the issue of autonomy
and shame. The child may now trust his or her caregiver, but the very trust contributes to a desire
to assert autonomy by taking care of basic personal needs, such as feeding, toileting, or dressing.
Given the child’s lack of experience in these activities, however, self-care is risky at first - the
toddler may feed (or toilet or dress) clumsily and ineffectively. The child’s caregiver risks
overprotecting the child and criticizing his early efforts unnecessarily and therefore causing the
child to feel shame for even trying.
Hopefully, as with the earlier crisis of trust, the new crisis gets resolved in favour of autonomy
through the combined efforts of the child to exercise autonomy and of the care giver to support the
child’s efforts. Eventually, about the time a child is of preschool age, the autonomy exercised during
the previous period becomes more elaborate, extended, and focused on objects and people other
than the child and basic physical needs.
Example:
The child at a day care centre may now undertake to build the “biggest city in the world” out of all
available unit blocks-even if other children want some of the blocks for themselves.
The child’s projects and desires create a new crisis of initiative and guilt, because the child soon
realises that acting on impulses or desires can sometimes have negative effects on others - more
blocks for the child may mean fewer for someone else.
As with the crisis over autonomy, caregivers have to support the child’s initiatives where possible,
but also not make the child feel guilty just for desiring to have or to do something that affects
others' welfare. By limiting behaviour where necessary but not limiting internal feelings, the child
can develop a lasting ability to take initiative. Expressed in Erikson’s terms, the crisis is then
resolved in favour of initiative.
Even though only the last of these three crises overlaps with the school years, all three relate to
issues faced by students of any age, and even by their teachers, e.g. a child or youth who is
fundamentally mistrustful has a serious problem in coping with school life.
As a student, it is essential for your long-term survival to believe that teachers and school officials
have your best interests at heart, and that they are not imposing assignments or making rules, “just
for the heck of it.” Even though students are not infants anymore, teachers function like Erikson’s
caregiving parents in that they need to prove worthy of students’ trust through their initial
flexibility and attentiveness.
Parallels from the classroom also exist for the crises of autonomy and of initiative. To learn
effectively, students need to make choices and undertake academic initiatives at least some of the
time, even though not every choice or initiative may be practical or desirable.
Teachers need to make true choices and initiatives possible, and refrain from criticizing, even
accidentally, a choice or intention behind an initiative even if the teacher privately believes that it is
“bound to fail”.
Support for choices and initiative should be focused on providing resources and on guiding the
student’s efforts toward more likely success. In these ways teachers function like parents oftoddlers
and preschoolers in Erikson’s theory of development, regardless of the age of their students.
The crisis of childhood: industry and inferiority
Once into formal schooling, the child is faced for the first time with becoming competent and
worthy in the eyes of the world at large, or more precisely in the eyes of classmates and teachers.
The child must develop skills that require effort that is sustained and somewhat focused. The
challenge creates the crisis of industry and inferiority.
Example:
To be respected by teachers, the child must learn to read and to behave like a “true student”. To be
respected by peers, he must learn to cooperate and to be friendly, among other things.
There are risks involved in working on these skills and qualities, because there can be no guarantee
of success with them in advance.
If the child does succeed, therefore, he experiences the satisfaction of a job well done and of skills
well learned - a feeling that Erikson called industry. If not, however, the child risks feeling lasting
inferiority compared to others.
Teachers therefore have a direct, explicit role in helping students to resolve this crisis in favour of
industry or success. They can set realistic academic goals for students and then provide materials
and assistance for students to reach their goals. Teachers can also express their confidence that
students can in fact meet their goals if and when the students get discouraged, and avoid hinting
(even accidentally) that a student is simply a “loser”.
Paradoxically, these strategies will work best if the teacher is also tolerant of less-than-perfect
performance by students. Too much emphasis on perfection can undermine some students’
confidence - foster Erikson’s inferiority - by making academic goals seem beyond reach.
The crisis of adolescence: identity and role confusion
As the child develops lasting talents and attitudes as a result of the crisis of industry, he begins to
face new questions:
- What do all the talents and attitudes add up to be?
- Who is the “me” embedded in this profile of qualities?
These questions are the crisis of identity and role confusion. Defining identity is riskier than it may
appear for a person simply because some talents and attitudes may be poorly developed, and some
even may be undesirable in the eyes of others. Still others may be valuable but fail to be noticed by
other people.
The result is that who a person wants to be may not be the same as who she is in actual fact, or the
same as who other people want her to be. In Erikson's terms, role confusion is the result.

Teachers can minimize role confusion in a number of ways.

One is to offer students lots of diverse role models
By identifying models in students’ reading materials or by inviting diverse guests to school.
The point of these strategies would be to express a key idea: that there are many ways to be
respected, successful, and satisfied with life.
Identity development
Another way to support students’ identity development is to be alert to students’ confusions about
their futures and refer them to counsellors or other services outside school that can help sort these
out.
Changes in students’ goals and priorities
A third strategy is to tolerate changes in students’ goals and priorities - sudden changes in extra-
curricular activities or in personal plans after graduation. Since students are still trying roles out,
discouraging experimentation may not be in students’ best interests.
The crises of adulthood: intimacy, generativity, and integrity
Beyond the school years, according to Erikson, individuals continue social development by facing
additional crises.
Example:
Young adults face a crisis of intimacy and isolation. This crisis is about the risk of establishing close
relationships with a select number of others.
Whether the relationships are heterosexual, homosexual, or not sexual at all, their defining
qualities are depth and sustainability. Without them, an individual risks feeling isolated.
Assuming that a person resolves this crisis in favour of intimacy, however, he then faces a crisis
about generativity and stagnation.
This crisis is characteristic of most of adulthood, and not surprisingly therefore is about caring for or
making a contribution to society, and especially to its younger generation.
Generativity
Generativity is about making life productive and creative so that it matters to others. One obvious
way for some to achieve this feeling is by raising children, but there are also many other ways to
contribute to the welfare of others.
Stagnation
The alternative to generativity is stagnation, which is self-absorption, and ceasing to be a
productive member of society.

The final crisis is about integrity and despair and is characteristically felt during the final years of
life. At the end of life, a person is likely to review the past and to ask whether it has been lived as
well as possible, even if it was clearly not lived perfectly.
Since personal history can no longer be altered at the end of life, it is important to make peace with
what actually happened and to forgive oneself and others for mistakes that may have been made.
The alternative to integrity is despair, or depression from believing not only that one’s life was lived
badly, but also that there is no longer any hope of correcting past mistakes. Even though Erikson
conceives of these crises as primarily concerns of adulthood, there are precursors of them during
the school years:
Intimacy
Intimacy is a concern of many children and youth in that they often desire, but do not always find,
lasting relationships with others (Beidel, 2005; Zimbardo & Radl, 1999).
Personal Isolation
Personal isolation is a particular risk for students with disabilities, as well as for students whose
cultural or racial backgrounds differ from classmates’ or the teacher’s.
Generativity
Generativity - feeling helpful to others and to the young. This is needed not only by many adults,
but also by many children and youth; when given the opportunity as part of their school program,
they frequently welcome a chance to be of authentic service to others as part of their school
programs (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Kay, 2003).
Integrity
Integrity - taking responsibility for your personal past, “warts and all”, is often a felt need for
anyone, young or old, who has lived long enough to have a past on which to look. Even children and
youth have a past in this sense, though their pasts are of course shorter than persons who are
older.
Abraham Maslow’s Theory
Abraham Maslow's theory frames personal needs or motives as a hierarchy, meaning that basic or
“lower-level” needs have to be satisfied before higher-level needs become important or motivating.
Compared to the stage models of Piaget and Erikson, Maslow’s hierarchy is only loosely
“developmental”, in that Maslow was not concerned with tracking universal, irreversible changes
across the life span.
Maslow's stages are universal, but they are not irreversible; earlier stages sometimes reappear later
in life, in which case they must be satisfied again before later stages can redevelop.
Like the theories of Piaget and Erikson, Maslow’s is a rather broad “story”, one that has less to say
about the effects of a person’s culture, language, or economic level, than about what we all have in
common.

In its original version, Maslow’s theory distinguishes two types of needs:

• Deficit needs
• Being needs
The table below summarizes the two levels and their sublevels.
Deficit needs: getting the basic necessities of life
Deficit needs are the basic requirements of physical and emotional well-being.
Initially they are physiological needs, e.g. food, sleep, clothing, and the like. Without these, nothing
else matters, and especially nothing very “elevated” or self-fulfilling. A student who is not getting
enough to eat is not going to feel much interest in learning.
Deficit needs are prior to being needs, not in the sense of happening earlier in life, but in that
deficit, needs must be satisfied before being needs can be addressed.
As pointed out, deficit needs can reappear at any age, depending on circumstances. If that happens,
they must be satisfied again before a person’s attention can shift back to “higher” needs.
Among students, in fact, deficit needs are likely to return chronically to those whose families lack
economic or social resources or who live with the stresses associated with poverty (Payne, 2005)
Once physiological needs are met, however, safety and security needs become important. The
person looks for stability and protection and welcomes a bit of structure and limits if they provide
these conditions.
Example:
A child from an abusive family may be getting enough to eat but may worry chronically about
personal safety. In school, the student may appreciate a well-organized classroom with rules that
insures personal safety and predictability, whether or not the classroom provides much in the way
of real learning.
After physiological and safety needs are met, love and belonging needs emerge. The person turns
attention to:
- being a friend
- making friends
- cultivating positive personal relationships in general
In the classroom, a student motivated at this level may make approval from peers or teachers into a
top priority. He may be provided for materially and find the classroom and family life safe enough,
but still miss a key ingredient in life – love.
If such a student (or anyone else) eventually does find love and belonging, however, then his or her
motivation shifts again, this time to esteem needs.
Now the concern is with gaining recognition and respect - and even more importantly, gaining self-
respect.
A student at this level may be unusually concerned with achievement, for example, though only if
the achievement is visible or public enough to earn public recognition.
Being needs: becoming the best that you can be
Being needs are desires to become fulfilled as a person, or to be the best person that you can
possibly be.
They include:
- Cognitive needs: a desire for knowledge and understanding.
- Aesthetic needs: an appreciation of beauty and order.
- Self-actualization needs: a desire for fulfilment of one’s potential.
Being needs emerge only after all of a person’s deficit needs have been largely met. Unlike deficit
needs, being needs cause more being needs; they do not disappear once they are met, but create a
desire for even more satisfaction of the same type, e.g., a thirst for knowledge leads to further
thirst for knowledge.
Partly because being needs are lasting and permanent once they appear, Maslow sometimes
treated them as less hierarchical than deficit needs, and instead grouped cognitive, aesthetic, and
self-actualization needs into the single category self-actualization needs.
People who are motivated by self-actualization have a variety of positive qualities, which Maslow
went to some lengths to identify and describe (Maslow, 1976).
He argues that self-actualizing individuals:
- Are ethical
- Are humble
- Are creative
- Are spontaneous
- Accept themselves as well as others
- Have a sense of humor, but do not use it against others
- Value deep personal relationships with others, but also value solitude
Maslow felt that true self-actualization is rare. It is especially unusual among young people, who
have not yet lived long enough to satisfy earlier, deficit-based needs.
In a way this last point is discouraging news for teachers, who apparently must spend their lives
providing as best they can for students still immersed in deficit needs. Teachers, it seems, have little
hope of ever meeting a student with fully fledged being needs.
Taken less literally, though, Maslow’s hierarchy is still useful for thinking about students’ motives.
Most teachers would argue that students, young though they are, can display positive qualities
similar to the ones described in Maslow’s self-actualizing person.
As annoying students may sometimes be, there are also moments when they show care and
respect for others and moments when they show spontaneity, humility, or a sound ethical sense.
Self-actualization is an appropriate way to think about these moments - the times when students
are at their best.
At the same time, of course, students sometimes also have deficit needs. Keeping in mind the entire
hierarchy outlined by Maslow can therefore deepen teachers' understanding of the full humanity of
students.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Social development refers to the long-term changes in relationships and interactions involving self,
peers, and family.
The social developments that are most obviously relevant to classroom life fall into three main
areas:
1. Changes in self-concept and in relationships among students and teachers
2. Changes in basic needs or personal motives
3. Changes in sense of rights and responsibilities
Erik Erikson developed a theory of social development that relies on stages; a series of
psychological or social crises - turning points in a person’s relationships and feelings about himself
or herself (Erikson, 1963, 1980).
The main points from this module are as follows:
Social development refers to the long-term changes in relationships and interactions involving self,
peers, and family.
The social developments that are most obviously relevant to classroom life fall into three main
areas:
1. Changes in self-concept and in relationships among students and teachers
2. Changes in basic needs or personal motives
3. Changes in sense of rights and responsibilities
Erik Erikson developed a theory of social development that relies on stages; a series of
psychological or social crises - turning points in a person’s relationships and feelings about himself
or herself (Erikson, 1963, 1980).

After completing this module, you will be able to:

 Distinguish between morality and moral development
 Distinguish between morality of justice and morality of care
 Name the three levels of Kolberg's theory of moral development
 Provide everyday examples of each level withing Kolberg's theory of moral development
 List the three moral positions associated with Gilligan's theory of moral development
Introduction to Moral Development
Moral development: forming a sense of rights and responsibilities
Morality is a system of beliefs about what is right and good compared to what is wrong or bad.
Moral development refers to changes in moral beliefs as a person grows older and gains maturity.
Moral beliefs are related to, but not identical with, moral behaviour: it is possible to know the right
thing to do, but not actually do it.
It is also not the same as knowledge of social conventions, which are arbitrary customs needed for
the smooth operation of society. Social conventions may have a moral element, but they have a
primarily practical purpose
Example:
Conventionally, in a particular country, motor vehicles all keep to the same side of the street. The
convention allows for smooth, accident-free flow of traffic. But following the convention also has a
moral element, because an individual who chooses to drive on the wrong side of the street can
cause injuries or even death.
In this sense, choosing the wrong side of the street is wrong morally, though the choice is also
unconventional.
When it comes to school, moral choices are not restricted to occasional dramatic incidents, but are
woven into most aspects of classroom life.
Example:
Imagine a teacher teaching reading to a group, where the students are taking turns to read aloud.
Should the teacher give everyone the same amount of time to read, even though some might
benefit from additional time?
Should the teacher give more time to the students who need extra help, even if doing so bores
classmates and deprives others of equal shares of “floor time”?
Which option is fairer, and which is more considerate?
Simple dilemmas like this happen every day at all school levels simply because students are diverse,
and because class time and a teacher’s energy are finite.
Embedded in this rather ordinary example are moral themes about fairness or justice, on the one
hand, and about consideration or care on the other. It is important to keep both themes in mind
when thinking about how students develop beliefs about right or wrong.
Students and teachers need both forms of morality. In the rest of this module, a major example of
each type of moral developmental theory is explained.
Morality of Justice
A morality of justice is about human rights or more specifically, about respect for fairness,
impartiality, equality, and individuals’ independence.
Morality of care
A morality of care, on the other hand, is about human responsibilities or more specifically, about
caring for others, showing consideration for individuals’ needs, and interdependence among
individuals.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory
One of the best-known explanations of how morality of justice develops was developed by
Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates (Kohlberg, Levine, & Hewer, 1983; Power, Higgins, &
Kohlberg, 1991).
Using a stage model similar to Piaget’s, Kohlberg proposed six stages of moral development,
grouped into three levels.
Individuals experience the stages universally and in sequence as they form beliefs about justice.
He named the levels:
1. Preconventional
2. Conventional
3. Postconventional
Kohlberg's moral development - The levels and stages are summarized in the table below.

Preconventional justice: obedience and mutual advantage

The preconventional level of moral development basically coincides with the preschool period and
with Piaget’s preoperational period of thinking.
At this age the child is still relatively self-centered and insensitive to the moral effects of actions on
others. The result is a somewhat short-sighted orientation to morality.
Initially (Kohlberg’s Stage 1), the child adopts an ethics of obedience and punishment - a sort of
“morality of keeping out of trouble”.
The rightness and wrongness of actions is determined by whether actions are rewarded or
punished by authorities such as parents or teachers.
Example:
If helping yourself to a cookie brings affectionate smiles from adults, then taking the cookie is
considered morally “good”. If it brings scolding instead, then it is morally “bad”.
The child does not think about why an action might be praised or scolded; in fact, says Kohlberg, he
would be incapable at Stage 1 of considering the reasons even if adults offered them. Eventually
the child learns not only to respond to positive consequences, but also learns how to produce them
by exchanging favours with others.
This new ability creates Stage 2, an ethics of market exchange. At this stage the morally “good”
action is one that favours not only the child, but another person directly involved.
A “bad” action is one that lacks this reciprocity. If trading the sandwich from your lunch for the
cookies in your friend’s lunch is mutually agreeable, then the trade is morally good; otherwise, it is
not. This perspective introduces a type of fairness into the child’s thinking for the first time.
However, introducing a type of fairness into the child’s thinking for the first time still ignores the
larger context of actions - the effects on people not present or directly involved.
In Stage 2, for example, it would also be considered morally “good” to pay a classmate to do
another student's homework - or even to avoid bullying or to provide sexual favours - provided that
both parties regard the arrangement as being fair.
But it still ignores the larger context of actions - the effects on people not present or directly
involved.
In Stage 2, for example, it would also be considered morally “good” to pay a classmate to do
another student's homework - or even to avoid bullying or to provide sexual favours - provided that
both parties regard the arrangement as being fair.

Conventional justice: conformity to peers and society

As children move into the school years, their lives expand to include a larger number and range of
peers and (eventually) of the community as a whole.
The change leads to conventional morality, which are beliefs based on what this larger array of
people agree on - hence Kohlberg’s use of the term “conventional”.
At first, in Stage 3, the child’s reference group are immediate peers, so Stage 3 is sometimes called
the ethics of peer opinion. If peers believe, for example, that it is morally good to behave politely
with as many people as possible, then the child is likely to agree with the group and to regard
politeness as not merely an arbitrary social convention, but a moral “good”.
This approach to moral belief is a bit more stable than the approach in Stage 2, because the child is
taking into account the reactions not just of one other person, but of many.
But it can still lead astray if the group settles on beliefs that adults consider morally wrong, like
“Shop lifting for candy bars is fun and desirable.”
Eventually, as the child becomes a youth and the social world expands even more, he acquires even
larger numbers of peers and friends.
He is therefore more likely to encounter disagreements about ethical issues and beliefs. Resolving
the complexities leads to Stage 4, the ethics of law and order, in which the young person
increasingly frames moral beliefs in terms of what the majority of society believes.
Now, an action is morally good if it is legal or at least customarily approved by most people,
including people whom the youth does not know personally. This attitude leads to an even more
stable set of principles than in the previous stage, though it is still not immune from ethical
mistakes.
Example:
A community or society may agree that people of a certain race should be treated with deliberate
disrespect or that a factory owner is entitled to dump wastewater into a commonly shared lake or
river.
To develop ethical principles that reliably avoid mistakes like these require further stages of moral
development.
Postconventional justice: social contract and universal principles
As a person becomes able to think abstractly (or “formally”, in Piaget’s sense), ethical beliefs shift
from acceptance of what the community does believe to the process by which community beliefs
are formed.
The new focus constitutes Stage 5, the ethics of social contract. Now an action, belief, or practice is
morally good if it has been created through fair, democratic processes that respect the rights of the
people affected.

Example:
Consider the laws in some countries that require motorcyclists to wear helmets.
In what sense are the laws about this behaviour ethical?
Was it created by consulting with and gaining the consent of the relevant people?
Were cyclists consulted and did they give consent?
How about doctors or the cyclists' families?
Reasonable, thoughtful individuals disagree about how thoroughly and fairly these consultation
processes should be. In focusing on the processes by which the law was created, however,
individuals are thinking according to Stage 5, the ethics of social contract, regardless of the position
they take about wearing helmets. In this sense, beliefs on both sides of a debate about an issue can
sometimes be morally sound even if they contradict each other.
Paying attention to due process certainly seems like it should help to avoid mindless conformity to
conventional moral beliefs. As an ethical strategy, though, it too can sometimes fail.
The problem is that an ethics of social contract places more faith in democratic process than the
process sometimes deserves and does not pay enough attention to the content of what gets
decided.
Example:
In principle (and occasionally in practice), a society could decide democratically to kill off every
member of a racial minority but would deciding this by due process make it ethical?
The realization that ethical means can sometimes serve unethical ends leads some individuals
toward Stage 6, the ethics of self-chosen, universal principles.
At this final stage, the morally good action is based on personally held principles that apply both to
the person’s immediate life as well as to the larger community and society. The universal principles
may include a belief in democratic due process (Stage 5 ethics), but also other principles, such as a
belief in the dignity of all human life or the sacredness of the natural environment.
At Stage 6, the universal principles will guide a person’s beliefs even if the principles mean
disagreeing occasionally with what is customary (Stage 4) or even with what is legal (Stage 5).
As logical as they sound, Kohlberg’s stages of moral justice are not sufficient for understanding the
development of moral beliefs. To see why, suppose that a teacher has a student who asks for an
extension of the deadline for an assignment.
The justice orientation of Kohlberg’s theory would prompt the teacher to consider issues of
whether granting the request is fair:
Would the late student be able to put more effort into the assignment than other students?
Would the extension place a difficult demand on the teacher, since she would have less time to
mark the assignments?
These are important considerations related to the rights of students and the teacher
In addition to these, however, are considerations to do with the responsibilities that the teacher
and the requesting student have for each other and for others:
Does the student have a valid personal reason for the assignment being late?
Will the assignment lose its educational value if the student has to turn it in prematurely?
These latter questions have less to do with fairness and rights, and more to do with taking care of
and responsibility for students.
They require a framework different from Kohlberg’s to be understood fully. The next unit deals with
a different type of framework from Carol Gilligan.
Carol Gilligan’s Theory
Carol Gilligan developed a framework where the ideas in it Centre on a morality of care, or system
of beliefs about human responsibilities, care, and consideration for others. Gilligan proposed three
moral positions that represent different extents of ethical care.
Unlike Kohlberg, Piaget, or Erikson, she does not claim that the positions form a strictly
developmental sequence, but only that they can be ranked hierarchically according to their depth
or subtlety.
In this respect her theory is “semi-developmental” in a way similar to Maslow’s theory of
motivation (Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Taylor, Gilligan, & Sullivan, 1995).
The table below summarizes the three moral positions from Gilligan’s theory.

Position 1: Caring as survival

The most basic kind of caring is a survival orientation, in which a person is concerned primarily with
his or her own welfare.
Example:
If a teenage girl with this ethical position is wondering whether to get an abortion, she will be
concerned entirely with the effects of the abortion on herself.
The morally good choice will be whatever creates the least stress for herself and that disrupts her
own life the least. Responsibilities to others (the baby, the father, or her family) play little or no part
in her thinking.
As a moral position, a survival orientation is obviously not satisfactory for classrooms on a
widespread scale. If every student only looked out for himself, classroom life might become rather
unpleasant for everyone.
Nonetheless, there are situations in which focusing primarily on yourself is both a sign of good
mental health and relevant to teachers.
Example:
For a child who has been bullied at school or sexually abused at home, it is both healthy and
morally desirable to speak out about how bullying or abuse has affected the victim.
Doing so means essentially looking out for the victim’s own needs at the expense of others’ needs,
including the bully’s or abusers.
Speaking out, in this case, requires a survival orientation and is healthy because the child is taking
caring of herself.
Position 2: Conventional caring
A more subtle moral position is caring for others, in which a person is concerned about others’
happiness and welfare, and about reconciling or integrating others’ needs where they conflict with
each other.
Example:
In considering an abortion the teenager at this position would think primarily about what other
people prefer. Do the father, her parents, and/or her doctor want her to keep the child?
The morally good choice becomes whatever will please others the best. This position is more
demanding than Position 1, ethically and intellectually, because it requires coordinating several
persons’ needs and values. But it is often morally insufficient because it ignores one crucial person:
the self.
In classrooms, students who operate from Position 2 can be very desirable in ways. They can be:
- Eager to please
- Considerate
- Good at fitting in
- Good at working cooperatively with others
As these qualities are usually welcome in a busy classroom, teachers can be tempted to reward
students for developing and using them.
The problem with rewarding Position 2 ethics, however, is that doing so neglects the student’s
development - his or her own academic and personal goals or values.
Sooner or later, personal goals, values, and identity need attention and care, and educators have a
responsibility for assisting students to discover and clarify them.
In classrooms, integrated caring is most likely to surface whenever teachers give students wide,
sustained freedom to make choices. If students have little flexibility about their actions, there is
little room for considering anyone’s needs or values, whether their own or others’.
Example:
If the teacher says simply:
“Do the homework on page 50 and turn it in tomorrow morning”,
then the main issue becomes compliance, not moral choice. But suppose instead that she says
something like this:
“Over the next two months, figure out an inquiry project about the use of water resources in our
town. Organise it any way you want-talk to people, read widely about it, and share it with the class
in a way that all of us, including yourself, will find meaningful.”
An assignment like the previous example poses moral challenges that are not only educational, but
also moral, since it requires students to make value judgments. Why?
1. Students must decide what aspect of the topic really matters to them. Such a decision is partly a
matter of personal values.
2. Students have to consider how to make the topic meaningful or important to others in the class.
3. As the timeline for completion is relatively far in the future, students may have to weigh
personal priorities (like spending time with friends or family) against educational priorities
(working on the assignment a bit more on the weekend).
As one might suspect, some students might have trouble making good choices when given this sort
of freedom - and their teachers might therefore be cautious about giving such an assignment.
But the difficulties in making choices are part of Gilligan’s point: integrated caring is indeed more
demanding than the caring based only on survival or on consideration of others. Not all students
may be ready for it.
Character Education
Character development: Integrating ethical understanding, care, and action
The theories described so far, all offer frameworks for understanding how children grow into youth
and adults.
Those by Maslow, Kohlberg, and Gilligan are more specific than the one by Erikson in that they
focus on the development of understanding about ethics.
From a teacher's point of view, though, the theories are all limited in two ways.
One problem is that they focus primarily on cognition - on what children think about ethical issues -
more than on emotions and actions.
The other is that they say little about how to encourage ethical development. Encouragement is
part of teachers' jobs, and doing it well requires understanding not only what students know about
ethics, but also how they feel about it and what ethical actions they are actually prepared to take.
Many educators have recognized these educational needs, and a number of them have therefore
developed practical programs that integrate ethical understanding, care and action. As a group the
programs are often called character education, though individual programs have a variety of
specific names: moral dilemma education, integrative ethical education, social competence
education, and many more.
Details of the programs vary, but they all combine a focus on ethical knowledge with attention to
ethical feelings and actions (Elkind & Sweet, 2004; Berkowitz & Bier, 2006; Narvaez, 2010).
Character education programs go well beyond just teaching students to obey ethical rules, such as
“Always tell the whole truth Or “Always do what the teacher tells you to do.” Such rules require
very little thinking on the part of the student, and there are usually occasions in which a rule that is
supposedly universal needs to be modified or disobeyed.
Example:
If telling the whole truth might hurt someone's feelings, it might sometimes be more considerate,
and therefore more ethical, to soften the truth a bit, or even to say nothing at all.
instead, character education is about inviting students to think about the broad questions of his
or her life, such as:
What kind of person should I be?
How should I live my life?
Thoughtful answers to such broad questions help to answer a host of more specific questions that
have ethical implications, such as:
Should I listen to the teacher right now, even if she is a bit boring, or just tune out?
Should I offer to help my friend with the homework she is struggling with, or hold back so that
learns to do it herself?
Most of the time, there is not enough time to reason about questions like these deliberately or
consciously. Responses have to become intuitive, automatic, and embodied - meaning that they
have to be based in fairly immediate emotional responses (Narvaez, 2009).
The goal of character education is to develop students' capacities to respond to daily ethical choices
not only consciously and cognitively, but also intuitively and emotionally. To the extent that this
goal is met, students can indeed live a good, ethically responsible life.
School wide programs of character education
In the most comprehensive approaches to character education, an entire school commits itself to
developing students' ethical character, despite the immense diversity among students (Minow,
Schweder, & Markus, 2008).
All members of the staff - not just teachers and administrators, but also custodians, and educational
assistants - focus on developing positive relationships with students.

The underlying theme that develops is one of cooperation and mutual care, not competition.
Fairness, respect and honesty pervade class and school activities; discipline, for example, focuses on
solving conflicts between students and between students and teachers, rather than on rewarding
obedience or punishing wrong doers.
This approach requires significant reliance on democratic meetings and discussions, both in
classrooms and wherever else groups work together in school.
Classroom programs of character education
Even if a teacher is teaching character education simply within her own classroom, there are many
strategies available. The goal in this case is to establish the classroom as a place where everyone
feels included, and where everyone treats everyone else with civility and respect.
Conflicts and disagreements may still occur, but in a caring community they can be resolved
without undue anger or hostility. Here are a few strategies towards developing this type of
classroom:
Class meetings
Use class meetings to decide on as many important matters as possible - such as the expected rules
of behaviour, important classroom activities, or ongoing disagreements.
Collaboration
Try arranging for students to collaborate on significant projects and tasks.
Buddies program
Arrange a “Buddies” program in which students of different class levels work together on a
significant task. Older students can sometimes assist younger students by reading to them, by
listening to them read, or both. A reading buddies’ program can also be helpful to an older student
who may be having trouble with reading.
Conflict resolution
Familiarize students with conflict resolution strategies, and practice using them when needed.
Curriculum
Many areas of curriculum lend themselves to discussions about ethical issues. Obvious examples
are certain novels, short stories, and historical events. But ethical issues lurk elsewhere as well.
Teaching nutrition, for example, can raise issues about the humane treatment of animals that will
be slaughtered for food, and about the ethical acceptability of using large amount of grains to feed
animals even though many people in the world do not have enough to eat.
Service-learning projects
Service-learning projects can be very helpful in highlighting issues of social justice. Planning,
working at and reflecting about a local soup kitchen, tutoring students from low-income families,
performing simple repairs on homes in need: projects like these broaden knowledge of society and
of the needs of its citizens.

The main points from this module are as follows:

Morality is a system of beliefs about what is right and good compared to what is wrong or bad.
Moral development refers to changes in moral beliefs as a person grows older and gains maturity.
A morality of justice is about human rights or more specifically, about respect for fairness,
impartiality, equality, and individuals’ independence.
A morality of care is about human responsibilities or more specifically, about caring for others,
showing consideration for individuals’ needs, and interdependence among individuals.
One of the best-known explanations of how morality of justice develops was developed by
Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates. Using a stage model similar to Piaget’s, Kohlberg proposed
six stages of moral development, grouped into three levels:
1. Preconventional
2. Conventional
3. Postconventional
Carol Gilligan developed a framework where the ideas in it Centre on a morality of care, or system
of beliefs about human responsibilities, care, and consideration for others.
The three moral positions from Gilligan’s theory are:
1. Survival orientation
2. Conventional care
3. Integrated care
The goal of character education is to develop students' capacities to respond to daily ethical choices
not only consciously and cognitively, but also intuitively and emotionally. To the extent that this
goal is met, students can indeed live a good, ethically responsible life.

Chapter 17: Students Diversity

After completing this module, you will be able to:
 Provide an everyday example of individual learning styles in students
 Distinguish between field dependence and field independence
 Distinguish between the two cognitive styles of impulsivity and reflectivity
 List two ways that teachers can use knowledge of students' cognitive styles
 List the eight types of intelligence as outlined by Howard Gardner
 Give an example of an activity using each type of intelligence
 List common characteristics of gifted and talented students
 Discuss some of the issues concerning the education of gifted and talented students
 Define acceleration and enrichment in relation to the teaching of gifted and talented students
Introduction to Student Diversity
In keeping with the general nature of developmental theory, students have been generalized in a
way, referring to “the” child, student, or youngster; as if a single typical or average individual exists
and develops through single, predictable pathways.
As every teacher knows, however, development is not that simple. A class of 25 or 30 students will
contain 25 or 30 individuals each learning and developing along distinct pathways.
Why then study developmental patterns at all?
Underlying their obvious diversity, students indeed show important similarities. This course so far
has indicated some of the similarities and how they relate to the job of teaching.
References to “the” student should not be understood, therefore, as supporting simple-minded
stereotypes; they refer instead to common tendencies of real, live children and youth.
Pointing to developmental changes is like pointing to a flock of birds in flight: the flock has a general
location, but individual birds also have their own locations and take individual flight paths.
Development and diversity therefore have to be understood jointly, not separately. There are
indeed similarities woven among the differences in students, but also differences woven among
students’ commonalities.
Pointing to developmental changes is like pointing to a flock of birds in flight: the flock has a general
location, but individual birds also have their own locations and take individual flight paths.
Development and diversity therefore have to be understood jointly, not separately. There are
indeed similarities woven among the differences in students, but also differences woven among
students’ commonalities.
Individual Learning Styles
All of us have preferred ways of learning. Teachers often refer to these differences as learning
styles, though this term may imply that students are more consistent across situations than is really
the case.

Example:
One student may like to make diagrams to help remember a reading assignment, whereas another
student may prefer to write a sketchy outline instead.
Yet in many cases, the students could in principle reverse the strategies and still learn the material:
if required, the diagram-maker could take notes for a change and the note-taker could draw
diagrams.
Both would still learn, though neither might feel as comfortable as when using the strategies that
they prefer.
This reality suggests that a balanced, middle-of-the-road approach may be a teacher’s best
response to students’ learning styles.
Or put another way, it is good to support students’ preferred learning strategies where possible and
appropriate, but neither necessary nor desirable to do so all of the time (Loo, 2004; Stahl, 2002).
Most of all, it is neither necessary nor possible to classify or label students according to seemingly
fixed learning styles and then allow them to learn only according to those styles.
A student may prefer to hear new material rather than see it; he may prefer for the teacher to
explain something orally, for example, rather than to see it demonstrated in a video. But he may
nonetheless tolerate or sometimes even prefer to see it demonstrated.
In the long run, in fact, a student may learn it best by encountering the material in both ways,
regardless of his habitual preferences. That said, there is evidence that individuals, including
students, do differ in how they habitually think.
These differences are more specific than learning styles or preferences, and psychologists
sometimes call them cognitive styles, meaning typical ways of perceiving and remembering
information, and typical ways of solving problems and making decisions.
Example:
In a style of thinking called field dependence individuals perceive patterns as a whole rather than
focus on the parts of the pattern separately. In a complementary tendency, called field
independence, individuals are more inclined to analyze overall patterns into their parts.

Individual Learning Styles

All of us have preferred ways of learning. Teachers often refer to these differences as learning
styles, though this term may imply that students are more consistent across situations than is really
the case.
Example:
One student may like to make diagrams to help remember a reading assignment, whereas another
student may prefer to write a sketchy outline instead.
Yet in many cases, the students could in principle reverse the strategies and still learn the material:
if required, the diagram-maker could take notes for a change and the note-taker could draw
diagrams.
Both would still learn, though neither might feel as comfortable as when using the strategies that
they prefer.
This reality suggests that a balanced, middle-of-the-road approach may be a teacher’s best
response to students’ learning styles.
Or put another way, it is good to support students’ preferred learning strategies where possible and
appropriate, but neither necessary nor desirable to do so all of the time (Loo, 2004; Stahl, 2002).
Most of all, it is neither necessary nor possible to classify or label students according to seemingly
fixed learning styles and then allow them to learn only according to those styles.
A student may prefer to hear new material rather than see it; he may prefer for the teacher to
explain something orally, for example, rather than to see it demonstrated in a video. But he may
nonetheless tolerate or sometimes even prefer to see it demonstrated.
In the long run, in fact, a student may learn it best by encountering the material in both ways,
regardless of his habitual preferences. That said, there is evidence that individuals, including
students, do differ in how they habitually think.
These differences are more specific than learning styles or preferences, and psychologists
sometimes call them cognitive styles, meaning typical ways of perceiving and remembering
information, and typical ways of solving problems and making decisions.
Example:
In a style of thinking called field dependence individuals perceive patterns as a whole rather than
focus on the parts of the pattern separately. In a complementary tendency, called field
independence, individuals are more inclined to analyze overall patterns into their parts.
Cognitive research from the 1940s to the present has found field dependence/independence
differences to be somewhat stable for any given person across situations, though not completely so
(Witkin, Moore, Goodenough, & Cox, 1977; Zhang & Sternberg, 2005).
Someone who is field dependent (perceives globally or “holistically”) in one situation, tends to a
modest extent to perceive things globally or holistically in other situations.

Field dependence and independence can be important in understanding students because the
styles affect students’ behaviours and preferences in school and classrooms.
Field dependence
Field dependent persons tend to work better in groups, it seems, and to prefer “open-ended” fields
of study like literature and history.
Field independence
Field independent persons, on the other hand, tend to work better alone and to prefer highly
analytic studies like math and science. The differences are only a tendency, however, and there are
a lot of students who contradict the trends.
As with the broader notion of learning styles, the cognitive styles of field dependence and
independence are useful for tailoring instruction to particular students, but their guidance is only
approximate.
They neither can or should be used to “lock” students to particular modes of learning or to replace
students’ own expressed preferences and choices about curriculum.
Another cognitive style is impulsivity as compared to reflectivity. As the names imply, an impulsive
cognitive style is one in which a person reacts quickly, but as a result makes comparatively more
errors.
A reflective style is the opposite: the person reacts more slowly and therefore makes fewer errors.
As one might expect, the reflective style would seem better suited to many academic demands of
school.
Research has found that this is indeed the case for academic skills that clearly benefit from
reflection, such as mathematical problem solving or certain reading tasks (Evans, 2004).
Some classrooms or school-related skills, however, may actually develop better if a student is
relatively impulsive.
Examples:
Being a good partner in a cooperative learning group may depend partly on responding
spontaneously (i.e. just a bit “impulsively”) to others’ suggestions.
Being an effective member of an athletic team may depend on not taking time to reflect carefully
on every move that you or your team mates make.
There are two major ways to use knowledge of students’ cognitive styles (Pritchard, 2005):
Build on existing cognitive style
The first and the more obvious is to build on students’ existing style, strengths and preferences.
Example: A student who is field independent and reflective can be encouraged to explore tasks and
activities that are relatively analytic and that require relatively little independent work.
One who is field dependent and impulsive, on the other hand, can be encouraged and supported to
try tasks and activities that are more social or spontaneous.
Balance between cognitive styles
But a second, less obvious way to use knowledge of cognitive styles is to encourage more balance in
cognitive styles for students who need it.
Example:
A student who lacks field independence may need explicit help in organizing and analyzing key
academic tasks (like organizing a lab report in a science class). One who is already highly reflective
may need encouragement to try ideas spontaneously, as in a creative writing lesson.
Multiple Intelligences
For nearly a century, educators and psychologists have debated the nature of intelligence, and
more specifically whether intelligence is just one broad ability or can take more than one form.
Many classical definitions of the concept have tended to define intelligence as a single broad ability
that allows a person to solve or complete many sorts of tasks, or at least many academic tasks like
reading, knowledge of vocabulary, and the solving of logical problems (Garlick, 2002).
There is research evidence of such a global ability, and the idea of general intelligence often fits
with society’s everyday beliefs about intelligence. Partly for these reasons, an entire mini-industry
has grown up around publishing tests of intelligence, academic ability, and academic achievement.
But there are also problems with defining intelligence as one general ability. One way of summing
up the problems is to say that conceiving of intelligence as something general tends to put it
beyond teachers’ influence.
When viewed as a single, all-purpose ability, students either have a lot of intelligence or they do
not, and strengthening their intelligence becomes a major challenge, or perhaps even an impossible
one (Gottfredson, 2004; Lubinski, 2004).
This conclusion is troubling to some educators, especially in recent years as testing school
achievements have become more common and as students have become more diverse.
But alternate views of intelligence also exist that portray intelligence as having multiple forms,
whether the forms are subparts of a single broader ability or are multiple “intelligences” in their
own right.
For various reasons, this perspective has gained in popularity among teachers in recent years,
probably because it reflects many teachers’ beliefs that students cannot simply be rated along a
single scale of ability, but are fundamentally diverse (Kohn, 2004).
One of the most prominent of these models is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
(Gardner, 1983, 2003). Gardner proposes that there are eight different forms of intelligence, each
of which functions independently of the others.

Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences:

Each person has a mix of all eight abilities, more of one and less of another, that helps to constitute
that person’s individual cognitive profile.
Since most tasks, including most tasks in classrooms, require several forms of intelligence and can
be completed in more than one way, it is possible for people with various profiles of talents to
succeed on a task equally well.
Example:
In writing an essay a student with high interpersonal intelligence but rather average verbal
intelligence might use his or her interpersonal strength to get a lot of help and advice from
classmates and the teacher.
A student with the opposite profile might work well alone, but without the benefit of help from
others. Both students might end up with essays that are good, but good for different reasons.
As evidence for the possibility of multiple intelligences, Gardner cites descriptions of individuals
with exceptional talent in one form of intelligence (for example, in playing the piano) but who are
neither above nor below average in other areas.
He also cites descriptions of individuals with brain damage, some of whom lose one particular form
of intelligence (like the ability to talk) but retain other forms.
In the opinion of many psychologists, however, the evidence for multiple intelligences is not strong
enough to give up the “classical” view of general intelligence.
Part of the problem is that the evidence for multiple intelligences relies primarily on anecdotes,
examples or descriptions of particular individuals who illustrate the model, rather than on more
widespread information or data (Eisner, 2004).
Nonetheless, whatever the status of the research evidence, the model itself can be useful as a way
for teachers to think about their work. Multiple intelligences suggest the importance of diversifying
instruction in order to honour and to respond to diversity in students’ talents and abilities.
Viewed like this, whether Gardner’s classification scheme is actually accurate is probably less
important than the fact there is (or may be) more than one way to be “smart”.
In the end, as with cognitive and learning styles, it may not be important to label students’ talents
or intellectual strengths. It may be more important simply to provide important learning and
knowledge in several modes or styles, ways that draw on more than one possible form of
intelligence or skill.
Example:
A good example of this principle is a teacher’s development in learning to teach. It is well and good
to read books about teaching, but it is even better to read books and talk with classmates and
educators about teaching and getting actual experience in classrooms.
The combination both invites and requires a wide range of talents and usually proves more
effective than any single type of activity, whatever the profile of cognitive styles or intellectual
abilities happens to be.
Gifted and Talented Students
The idea of multiple intelligences leads to new ways of thinking about students who have special
gifts and talents.
Traditionally, the term gifted referred only to students with unusually high verbal skills. Their skills
were demonstrated especially well on standardized tests of general ability or of school
achievement.
More recently, however, the meaning of gifted has broadened to include unusual talents in a range
of activities, such as music, creative writing, or the arts (G. Davis & Rimm, 2004).
To indicate the change, educators often use the dual term gifted and talented.
What are students who are gifted and talented like? Generally they show some combination of the
following qualities:
 They learn more quickly and independently than most students their own age.
 They often have well-developed vocabulary, and advanced reading and writing skills.
 They are very motivated, especially on tasks that are challenging or difficult.
 They hold themselves to higher than usual standards of achievement.
Contrary to a common impression, students who are gifted or talented are not necessarily awkward
socially, less healthy, or narrow in their interests-in fact, quite the contrary (Steiner & Carr, 2003).
They also come from all economic and cultural groups.
Ironically, in spite of their obvious strengths as learners, such students often do not flourish in
school unless teachers can provide them with more than the challenges of the usual curriculum.
Example:
A pre-school child who is precociously advanced in reading may make little further progress at
reading if her teachers do not recognize and develop her skill; her talent may effectively disappear
from view as her peers gradually catch up to her initial level. .
Without accommodation to their unusual level of skill or knowledge, students who are gifted or
talented can become bored by school, and eventually the boredom can even turn into behaviour
problems.
Partly for these reasons, students who are gifted or talented have sometimes been regarded as the
responsibility of special education, along with students with other sorts of disabilities.
Often their needs are discussed alongside discussions about students with intellectual disabilities,
physical impairments, or major behaviour disorders (Friend, 2008).
There is some logic to this way of thinking about their needs; after all, they are quite exceptional,
and they do require modifications of the usual school programs to reach their full potential.
But it is also misleading to ignore obvious differences between exceptional giftedness and
exceptional disabilities of other kinds.
The key difference is in students' potential. Students with gifts or talents are often capable of
creative, committed work at levels that often approach talented adults. Other students, including
students with disabilities, may reach these levels, but not as soon and not as frequently.
Many educators think of the gifted and talented not as examples of students with disabilities, but as
examples of diversity. As such they are not so much the responsibility of special education
specialists, as the responsibility of all teachers to differentiate their instruction.
Supporting students who are gifted and talented
Supporting the gifted and talented usually involves a mixture of acceleration and enrichment of the
usual curriculum (Schiever & Maker, 2003). Acceleration involves either a child skipping a class
level, or else the teacher redesigning the curriculum within a particular class level so that more
material is covered faster.
Either strategy works, but only up to a point: children who have skipped a class usually function
well in the higher classes, both academically and socially. Unfortunately skipping classes cannot
happen repeatedly unless the teacher, parents, and the student themselves are prepared to live
with large age and maturity differences within single classrooms.
There is no guarantee that instruction in the new, higher-level classroom will be any more
stimulating than it was in the former, lower-level classroom.
Redesigning the curriculum is also beneficial to the student, but impractical to do on a widespread
basis; even if teachers had the time to redesign their programs, many non-gifted students would be
left behind as a result.
Enrichment involves providing additional or different instruction added on to the usual curriculum
goals and activities.
Examples:
Instead of reading books at a more advanced reading level, a student might read a wider variety of
types of literature at the student's current reading level or try writing additional types of literature
himself.
Instead of moving ahead to more difficult kinds of math programs, the student might work on
unusual logic problems not assigned to the rest of the class.
Like acceleration, enrichment works well up to a point. Enrichment curricula exist to help classroom
teachers working with gifted students (and also save teachers the time and work of creating
enrichment materials themselves).
Since enrichment is not part of the normal, officially sanctioned curriculum, however, there is a risk
that it will be perceived as busywork rather than as intellectual stimulation, particularly if the
teacher herself is not familiar with the enrichment material or is otherwise unable to involve herself
in the material fully.
Obviously, acceleration and enrichment can sometimes be combined. A student can skip a class and
also be introduced to interesting “extra” material at the new class level.
A teacher can move a student to the next unit of study faster than she moves the rest of the class,
while at the same time offering additional activities not related to the unit of study directly.
For a teacher with a student who is gifted or talented, however, the real challenge is not simply to
choose between acceleration and enrichment, but to observe the student, get to know him or her
as a unique individual, and offer activities and supports based on that knowledge.
This is essentially the challenge of differentiating instruction, something needed not just by the
gifted and talented, but by students of all sorts.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Development and diversity have to be understood jointly, not separately. There are indeed
similarities woven among the differences in students, but also differences woven among students’
commonalities.
Field dependence and independence can be important in understanding students because the
styles affect students’ behaviours and preferences in school and classrooms.
Field dependent persons tend to work better in groups, it seems, and to prefer “open-ended” fields
of study like literature and history.
Field independent persons tend to work better alone and to prefer highly analytic studies like math
and science.
Other cognitive styles are impulsivity and reflectivity. As the names imply, an impulsive cognitive
style is one in which a person reacts quickly, but as a result makes comparatively more errors. A
reflective style is the opposite: the person reacts more slowly and therefore makes fewer errors.
Other cognitive styles are impulsivity and reflectivity. As the names imply, an impulsive cognitive
style is one in which a person reacts quickly, but as a result makes comparatively more errors. A
reflective style is the opposite: the person reacts more slowly and therefore makes fewer errors.
For nearly a century, educators and psychologists have debated the nature of intelligence, and
more specifically whether intelligence is just one broad ability or can take more than one form.
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences proposes that there are eight different forms of
intelligence, each of which functions independently of the others.
Linguistic
Musical
Logical
Spatial
Bodily
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist
Each person has a mix of all eight abilities, more of one and less of another, that helps to constitute
that person’s individual cognitive profile.
The idea of multiple intelligences leads to new ways of thinking about students who have special
gifts and talents.
Supporting gifted and talented students usually involves a mixture of acceleration and enrichment
of the usual curriculum.
Acceleration involves either a child skipping a class level, or else the teacher redesigning the
curriculum within a particular class level so that more material is covered faster.
Enrichment involves providing additional or different instruction added on to the usual curriculum
goals and activities.

Module 18: Gender Differences

After completing this module, you will be able to:
 List ways that gender differences affect students in day-to-day classroom life
  Discuss the implications of gender differences in the classroom
 Identify differences in the way that boys and girls usually socially interact
 Identify three ways that teachers can influence gender roles
Introduction to Gender Differences
Gender roles are the patterns of behaviours, attitudes and expectations associated with a particular
sex - with being either male or female.
For clarity, psychologists sometimes distinguish gender differences, which are related to social
roles, from sex differences, which are related only to physiology and anatomy.
Using this terminology, gender matters in teaching more than sex.
Although there are many exceptions, boys and girls do differ on average in ways that parallel
conventional gender stereotypes and that affect how the sexes behave at school and in class
The differences have to do with:
 Physical behaviours
 Styles of social interaction
 Academic motivations, behaviours, and choices
They have a variety of sources - primarily parents, peers, and the media.
Teachers are certainly not the primary cause of gender role differences, but sometimes teachers
influence them by their responses to and choices made on behalf of students.
Physical Differences in Gender Roles
Physically, boys tend to be more active than girls, and by the same token more restless if they have
to sit for long periods. They are also more prone than girls to rely on physical aggression if they are
frustrated (Espelage & Swearer, 2004).
Both tendencies are inconsistent with the usual demands of classroom life, of course, and make it a
little more likely that school will be a difficult experience for boys, even for boys who never actually
get in trouble for being restless or aggressive.
During the first two or three years of formal school, gross motor skills develop at almost the same
average rate for boys and girls.
As a group, both sexes can run, jump, throw a ball, and the like with about equal ease, though there
are of course wide significant differences among individuals of both sexes.
Toward the end of first level schooling (aged 9-11 approximately), boys pull ahead of girls at these
skills even though neither sex has begun yet to experience puberty.
The most likely reason is that boys participate more actively in formal and informal sports because
of expectations and support from parents, peers and society (Braddock, Sokol-Katz, Greene, &
Basinger- Fleischman, 2005; Messner, Duncan, & Cooky, 2003).
Puberty eventually adds to this advantage by making boys taller and stronger than girls, on average,
and therefore more suited at least for sports that rely on height and strength.
In thinking about these differences, it should be kept in mind that they refer to average trends
and that there are numerous individual exceptions.
Every teacher knows of individual boys who are not athletic, for example, or of particular girls who
are especially restless in class.
The individual differences mean, among other things, that it is hard to justify providing different
levels of support or resources to boys than to girls for sports, athletics, or physical education.
The differences also suggest, though, that individual students who contradict gender stereotypes
about physical abilities may benefit from emotional support or affirmation from teachers, simply
because they may be less likely than usual to get such affirmation from elsewhere.
Social, Academic and Cognitive Difference in Gender Roles
Social differences in gender roles
Boys, when relaxing socially, more often gravitate to large groups. Whether on the playground, in a
school hallway, or on the street, boys’ social groups tend literally to fill up a lot of space, and often
include significant amounts of roughhousing as well as organised and “semi-organised” competitive
games or sports.
Girls, for their part, are more likely to seek and maintain one or two close friends and to share more
intimate information and feelings with these individuals.
To the extent that these gender differences occur, they can make girls less visible or noticeable than
boys, at least in leisure play situations where children or youth choose their companions freely.
As with physical differences, however, keep in mind that differences in social interactions do not
occur uniformly for all boys and girls. There are boys with close friends, contradicting the general
trend, and girls who play primarily in large groups.
Differences in social interaction styles happen in the classroom as well. Boys, on average, are more
likely to speak up during a class discussion, sometimes even if not called on, or even if they do not
know as much about the topic as others in the class (Sadker, 2002).
When working on a project in a small co-educational group, furthermore they have a tendency to
ignore girls’ comments and contributions to the group.
In this respect co-educational student groups parallel interaction patterns in many parts of society,
where men also have a tendency to ignore women’s comments and contributions (Tannen, 2001).

Academic and cognitive differences in gender

On average, girls are more motivated than boys to perform well in school, at least during the early
years of school. By the time girls reach second level, however, some may try to down play their own
academic ability in order make themselves more likeable by both sexes (Davies, 2005).
Even if this occurs, though, it does not affect their grades: throughout the early school years, girls
earn slightly higher average grades than boys (Freeman, 2004).
This fact does not lead to similar achievement, however, because as youngsters move into second
level, they tend to choose courses or subjects conventionally associated with their gender - math
and science for boys, in particular, and literature and the arts for girls.
By the end of high school, this difference in course selection makes a measurable difference in boys’
and girls’ academic performance in these subjects
Stereotyping
Stereotyping needs to considered here also: there are individuals of both sexes whose behaviours
and choices run counter to the group trends.
Differences within each gender group generally are far larger than any differences between the
groups.
Example:
A good example is the “difference” in cognitive ability of boys and girls. Many studies have found
none at all. A few others have found small differences, with boys slightly better at math and girls
slightly better at reading and literature.
How teachers influence gender roles?
Teachers often intend to interact with both sexes equally, and frequently succeed at doing so.
Research has found, though, that they do sometimes respond to boys and girls differently, perhaps
without realising it. Three kinds of differences have been noticed.
These differences are related to:
 The visibility or “publicity” of conversations.
 The overall amount of attention paid to each sex.
 The type of behaviour that prompts teachers to support or criticise students.

Attention paid to each sex

In general, teachers interact with boys more often than with girls by a margin of 10% to 30%,
depending on the class level of the students and the personality of the teacher (Measor & Sykes,
1992).
One possible reason for the difference is related to the greater assertiveness of boys that was
mentioned earlier. If boys are speaking up more frequently in discussions or at other times, then a
teacher may be “forced” to pay more attention to them.
Another possibility is that some teachers may feel that boys are especially prone to getting into
mischief, so they may interact with them more frequently to keep them focused on the task at hand
(Erden & Wolfgang, 2004).
Still another possibility is that boys, compared to girls, may interact in a wider variety of styles and
situations, so there may simply be richer opportunities to interact with them. This last possibility is
partially supported by another gender difference in classroom interaction, the amount of public
versus private talk.
Public talk versus private talk
Teachers have a tendency to talk to boys from a greater physical distance than when they talk to
girls (Wilkinson & Marrett, 1985).
The difference may be both a cause and an effect of general gender expectations, expressive
nurturing is expected more often of girls and women, and a business-like task orientation is
expected more often of boys and men, particularly in mixed-sex groups (Basow & Rubenfeld, 2003;
Myaskovsky, Unikel, & Dew, 2005).
Whatever the reason, the effect is to give interactions with boys more “publicity”. When two
people converse with each other from across the classroom, many others can overhear them; when
they are at each other’s elbows, though, few others can overhear.
Distributing praise and criticism
In spite of most teachers’ desire to be fair to all students, it turns out that they sometimes
distribute praise and criticism differently to boys and girls. The differences are summarised in the
table below:

The tendency is to praise boys more than girls for displaying knowledge correctly, but to criticise
girls more than boys for displaying knowledge incorrectly (Golombok & Fivush, 1994; Delamont,
1996).
Another way of stating this difference is by what teachers tend to overlook: with boys, they tend to
overlook wrong answers, but with girls, they tend to overlook right answers.
The result (which is probably unintended) is a tendency to make boys’ knowledge seem more
important and boys themselves more competent. A second result is the other side of this coin: a
tendency to make girls’ knowledge less visible and girls themselves less competent
Gender differences also occur in the realm of classroom behaviour. Teachers tend to praise girls for
“good” behaviour, regardless of its relevance to content or to the lesson at hand, and tend to
criticise boys for “bad” or inappropriate behaviour (Golombok & Fivush, 1994).
This difference can also be stated in terms of what teachers overlook: with girls, they tend to
overlook behaviour that is not appropriate, but with boys they tend to overlook behaviour that is
appropriate.
The net result in this case is to make girls’ seem more good than they may really be, and also to
make their “goodness” seem more important than their academic competence.
By the same token, the teacher’s patterns of response imply that boys are more “bad” than they
may really be.
At first glance, the gender differences in interaction can seem discouraging and critical of teachers
because they imply that teachers as a group are biased about gender.
But this conclusion is too simplistic for a couple of reasons:
1. Similar to all differences between groups, interaction patterns are trends, and as such they hide a
lot of variation within them.
2. The trends suggest what often tends in fact to happen, not what can in fact happen if a teacher
consciously sets about to avoid interaction patterns like the ones described here.
Fortunately for us all, teaching does not need to be unthinking; teachers have choices that they can
make, even during a busy class.

The main points from this module are as follows:

Gender differences that affect students are related to:
 Physical behaviours
 Styles of social interaction
 Academic motivations, behaviours, and choices
Physically, boys tend to be more active than girls, and by the same token more restless if they have
to sit for long periods. They are also more prone than girls to rely on physical aggression if they are
frustrated.
During the first two or three years of formal school, gross motor skills develop at almost the same
average rate for boys and girls.
In thinking about these gender differences, it should be kept in mind that they refer to average
trends and that there are numerous individual exceptions.
There are social, academic and cognitive differences in gender roles that affect classroom life on a
day-to-day basis
Stereotyping needs to considered in relation to social, academic and cognitive differences: there are
individuals of both sexes whose behaviours and choices run counter to the group trends.
Teachers often intend to interact with both sexes equally, and frequently succeed at doing so.
Research has found, though, that they do sometimes respond to boys and girls differently, perhaps
without realising it.
These differences are related to:
 The overall amount of attention paid to each sex
 The visibility or “publicity” of conversations
 The type of behaviour that prompts teachers to support or criticise students

Module 19: Cultural Differences

After completing this module you will be able to:
 Identify what a culture is
 List four types of ways that bilingualism exists around the world
 Compare and contrast the two second language teaching techniques: total immersion and
additive approach
  Identify an advantage of learning a second language
 Provide an example of how language is used differently across various cultures
 Define what 'wait time' is in relation to language use
 Distinguish between the independent self and the interdependent self
 List three possible consequences of how students respond differently to school based on
their culture
 Define oppositional cultural identity
 List ways to accommodate cultural diversity in the class
Introduction to Cultural Differences
What is culture?
A culture is the system of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours that constitute the distinctive way of
life of a people
Teachers need to understand diversity and how students’ habitual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours
differ from each other, and especially how they differ from the teacher’s. But this kind of
understanding can get complicated.
To organise the topic, therefore, aspects of cultural diversity will be outlined according to how
directly they relate to language differences compared to differences in other social and
psychological features of culture.
The distinction is convenient, but it is also a bit arbitrary because the features of a culture overlap
and influence each other.
Bilingualism: language differences in the classroom
Although monolingual speakers often do not realise it, the majority of children around the world
are bilingual, meaning that they understand and use two languages (Meyers-Scotton, 2005).
It is therefore common for a single classroom to contain students from several language
backgrounds at once.
Example:
In the United States, a relatively monolingual society, more than 47 million speak a language other
than English at home, and about 10 million of these people were children or youths in public
schools (United States Department of Commerce, 2003).
The large majority of bilingual students (75%) are Hispanic, but the rest represent more than a
hundred different language groups from around the world.
In classrooms as in other social settings, bilingualism exists in different forms and degrees.
There are students who:
 Speak two languages fluently
 Speak only limited versions of two languages
 Speak their home (or heritage) language much better than the instructional language at
their school, e.g. English
  Have partially lost their heritage language in the process of learning a second language (Tse,
2001)
It is also common for a student to speak a language satisfactorily, but be challenged by reading or
writing it-though even this pattern has individual exceptions. Whatever the case, each bilingual
student poses unique challenges to teachers.
Balanced or fluent bilingualism
The student who speaks both languages fluently has a definite cognitive advantage. As a teacher
might suspect and as research has confirmed, a fully fluent bilingual student is in a better position
than usual to express concepts or ideas in more than one way, and to be aware of doing so
(Jimenez, et al. 1995; Francis, 2006).
Such skill of reflecting on language is a form of metacognition. Metacognition can be helpful for a
variety of academic purposes, such as writing stories and essays, or interpreting complex text
materials.
Example:
The question: “What if a dog were called a cat?” is less likely to confuse even a very young bilingual
child.
Unbalanced bilingualism
Unfortunately, the bilingualism of many students is “unbalanced” in the sense that they are either
still learning the second language, or else they have lost some earlier ability to use their original,
heritage language - or occasionally a bit of both.
Teachers are presented with a dilemma: how to respect the original language and culture of the
student while also helping the student to join more fully in the mainstream language culture?
Programs to address this question have ranged from total immersion in the second language from a
young age (the “sink or swim” approach) to phasing in the second language over a period of several
years (additive approach).
In general, evaluations of bilingual programs have favoured the more additive approaches. Both
languages are developed and supported, and students ideally become able to use either language
permanently, though for different situations or purposes.
Example:
A student may end up using English in the classroom or at work but continue using Spanish at home
or with friends, even though he or she is perfectly capable of speaking English with them.
Language loss
What about the other kind of imbalance, where a student is acquiring a second language but losing
ability with the student’s home or heritage language? This sort of bilingualism is quite common in
the United States and other nations with immigrant populations .
Example:
Imagine this situation: First-generation immigrants arrive, and they soon learn just enough English
to manage their work and daily needs, but continue using their original language at home with
family and friends from their former country.
Their children, however, experience strong expectations and pressure to learn and use English, and
this circumstance dilutes the children’s experience with the heritage language.
By the time the children become adults, they are likely to speak and write English better than their
heritage language, and may even be unable or unwilling to use the heritage language with their
own children (the grandchildren of the original immigrants).
This situation might not at first seem like a problem for which teachers need to take responsibility,
since the children immigrants, as students, are acquiring the dominant language of instruction.
However, things are not that simple. Research finds that language loss limits students’ ability to
learn the new language as well or as quickly as they otherwise can do.
Having a large vocabulary in a first language, for example, has been shown to save time in learning
vocabulary in a second language (Hansen, Umeda & McKinney, 2002).
But students can only realise the savings if their first language is preserved. Preserving the first
language is also important if a student has impaired skill in all languages and therefore needs
intervention or help from a speech-language specialist.
Research has found, in such cases, that the specialist can be more effective if the specialist speaks
and uses the first language as well as the second language (Kohnert, et al., 2005).
Cultures and ethnic groups differ not only in languages, but also in how languages are used. Since
some of the patterns differ from those typical of modern classrooms, they can create
misunderstandings between teachers and students.
Examples:
In some cultures, it is considered polite or even intelligent not to speak unless you have something
truly important to say. “Chitchat”, or talk that simply affirms a personal tie between people, is
considered immature or intrusive (Minami, 2002). In a classroom, this habit can make it easier for a
child to learn not to interrupt others, but it can also make the child seem unfriendly.
the aspects of language use that differ across cultures are:
 Eye Contact
 Social Distance
 Wait Time
 Asking Questions
Eye contact
Eye contact varies by culture. In many African American and Latin American communities, it is
considered appropriate and respectful for a child not to look directly at an adult who is speaking to
them (Torres-Guzman, 1998).
In classrooms, however, teachers often expect a lot of eye contact (as in “I want all eyes on me!”)
and may be tempted to construe lack of eye contact as a sign of indifference or disrespect.
Social distance
Social distance varies by culture. In some cultures, it is common to stand relatively close when
having a conversation; in others, it is more customary to stand relatively far apart (Beaulieu, 2004).
Problems may happen when a teacher and a student prefer different social distances.
A student who expects a closer distance than does the teacher may seem overly familiar or
intrusive, whereas one who expects a longer distance may seem overly formal or hesitant.
Wait time
Wait time varies by culture. Wait time is the gap between the end of one person’s comment or
question and the next person’s reply or answer.
In some cultures wait time is quite long - as long as 3 or 4 seconds (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). In
others it is a “negative” gap, meaning that it is acceptable for a person to interrupt before the end
of the previous comment. In classrooms the wait time is usually about 1 second; after that, the
teacher is likely to move on to another question or student.
A student who usually expects a wait time longer than 1 second may seem hesitant, and not be
given many chances to speak. A student who expects a “negative” wait time, on the other hand,
may seem overeager or even rude.
Asking questions
In most non-Anglo cultures, questions are intended to gain information, and it is assumed that a
person asking the question truly does not have the information requested (Rogoff, 2003). In most
classrooms, however, teachers regularly ask test questions, which are questions to which the
teacher already knows the answer and that simply assess whether a student knows the answer as
well (Macbeth, 2003).
The question: “How much is 2 + 2?” for example, is a test question. If the student is not aware of
this purpose, he or she may become confused, or think that the teacher is surprisingly ignorant.
Worse yet, the student may feel that the teacher is trying deliberately to shame the student by
revealing the student’s ignorance or incompetence to others.