 Development dependent on a child’s interactions with their environment  children pass through 4 distinct stages of development  the stages progress in a logical order, building upon each other and children cannot skip a stage  children in an earlier stage cannot think the same way as children in a later stage.

 Another key cognitive development theorist is Vygotsky  Development is dependent upon a child’s social interactions  For cognitive development to take place, their must be a More Knowledgeable Other guiding the learning  Language is seen as an essential part of development as cognitive development is dependent upon social interactions  An important feature of Vygotsky’s theory, is something he called the “Zone of Proximal Development”

 In addition to his theory of cognitive development, Piaget also formulated a theory of moral development.  Moral development is in two stages: HeteronomousPremoralAges 0-5 Moral RealismAges 5-10 AutonomousMoral RelativismAges 10 onwards

PreconventionalObedience and Punishment Orientation Decisions are dependent on the consequences of actions. Individualism and ExchangeThe concept of ‘fairness’ starts to play a role. ConventionalGood Interpersonal RelationsChildren start to consider the intent behind actions. Maintaining Social OrderChildren begin to think more about the impact their actions have on society as a whole. Post ConventionalSocial Contract and Individual rights Value given to people’s basic rights. Social Contract between an individual and society that is able to be changed. Universal PrinciplesAdults are proactive in protecting individual rights “Moral development…represents the transformations that occur in a persons form or structure of thought”

Understanding children’s cognitive and moral development assists teachers with  Developing effective lesson plans that are targeted to the appropriate level  Having appropriate expectations of his/her students in terms of both behaviour and academic achievement  Having an understanding of how your students think is essential if you want to make your lesson meaningful to them.  Enables teachers to take a ‘child centred’ approach rather than using teaching methods that are more appropriate for adults.

Knowing about the theories of cognitive and moral development will help me in my teaching by  Finding strategies that speak directly to my students on their own level of understanding.  Modifying the lesson if it’s not working.  Creating an environment where all of the students feel safe, respected and encouraged will enable them to learn more effectively than if they are in a classroom or playground where other students are hurting them physically or emotionally.  Making sure lessons contain information that is not beyond the Zone of Proximal Development of the students, but at the same time, providing enough additional information to stretch those students who need it.

Working on a grade 5 maths class looking at place value including tenths and hundredths and thousandths.  Write the Learning Intention on the board ‘To learn about place value to the right of the decimal place, looking at tenths, hundredths and thousandths and knowing what those numbers mean’  Review previous work on decimals  Get the students to randomly generate a series of numbers using a dice (eg roll the dice 3 times and write down the number that comes up each time.

 Use small connecting blocks to physically explain the relative size of tenths, hundredths and thousandths  Get the students to ‘make’ the numbers that the first wrote using the blocks.  In pairs, get the students then order the numbers into size order.  At the end of the lesson, go back to the learning intention and review with the class to assess whether they now have an understanding of these numbers. Children of this age a moving from Concrete operational to formal operational. Many will still need concrete examples such as working with the blocks, while a few may be able to understand the concept earlier without this.

 Present a story to the class for discussion. Two students are sitting next to each other working. Student no 1 gets up from their desk to get something and student no 2 writes on Student no 1’s workbook.  Ask the children if they think that student no 2 did the wrong thing  Then tell them that student no 2 was correcting the date at the top of the page. The teacher has told the class that they should always write the day and date at the top of the page.  Ask again if the children think that student no 2 did the wrong thing  Discuss with the students whether it makes a difference if student no 2 was ‘ruining’ the work of her classmate or trying to help her classmate out, ie get them to think about the intention behind the act.