Chapter 1

Chapter 12

Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood

Page

Learning Objectives

195

Key Terms and Concepts

195

Chapter Outline

196

Lecture Suggestions

202

Intelligence: What is it?

202

Do Rewards Affect Motivation and Learning?

Class Activities

203

Supplemental Reading List

204

Prentice Hall PowerPoints available online

205

Multimedia Ideas

205

Handouts

207

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 12, students will learn:

Discuss the Piagetian perspective of cognitive development during the school years.

Explain the Vygotskian perspective of cognitive development during the school years.

Evaluate the information-processing perspective of cognitive development during the school years.

Describe the linguistic capabilities and limitations of school-age children.

Discuss the personal, social, and educational benefits and challenges of bilingualism in America.

Identify the major trends affecting schooling in North America and worldwide.

Explain the development of reading skills during the school-age years.

Describe some of the criticisms of home schooling.

Discuss how teachers transmit their expectations to students and how these expectations affect student performance and teacher behavior.

Define intelligence, discuss historical milestones in the area of intelligence testing, and identify the major tests used to measure intelligence.

Discuss the controversies associated with the measurement and interpretation of intelligence test scores and review the research on the effect of IQ.

Define mental retardation, identify the four major categories, and discuss the capabilities and limitations associated with each level.

Define gifted and talented and discuss the primary approaches to educating children who fall outside the normal range of intelligence.

Key Terms and Concepts

concrete operational stage

decentering

memory

metamemory

metalinguistic awareness

bilingualism

multicultural education

chronological age

cultural assimilation model

pluralistic society model

bicultural identity

emotional intelligence

teacher expectancy effect

intelligence

mental age

intelligence quotient (IQ)

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

Fourth Edition (WISCIV)

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children,

Second Edition (KABCII)

fluid intelligence

crystallized intelligence

triarchic theory of intelligence

mental retardation

mild retardation

moderate retardation

severe retardation

profound retardation

gifted & talented acceleration

enrichment

Chapter Outline

Intellectual and Language Development

A. According to Piaget, school-age children enter the concrete operational period and for the first time become capable of applying logical thought processes to concrete problems.

1.The school-age child enters the Concrete Operational Stage, the period of cognitive development between 7 and 12 years of age, which is characterized by the active, and appropriate use of logic.

a.Children at this stage can solve conservation problems.

b.Because they are less egocentric, they can take multiple aspects of a situation into account, a process known as Decentering.

c.They attain the concept of reversibility, realizing that a stimulus can be reversed, returning to its original form.

d.The ability to use concrete operations permits children to understand the concepts such as the relationship between time and speed.

e.However they are tied to concrete, physical reality and cannot understand abstract or hypothetical reasoning.

2.Piaget is criticized for underestimating childrens abilities and for exaggerating the universality of the progression through the stages.

3.Research suggest that in some ways Piaget was more right than wrong, especially in his argument that concrete operations were universally achieved during middle childhood.

4.When children are interviewed by researchers in their own culture, the children are more likely to display concrete operational thinking.

B. According to information-processing approaches, childrens intellectual development in the school years can be attributed to substantial increases in memory capacity and the sophistication of the programs children can handle.

1.Children become increasingly able to handle information because their memories improve.

2.Memory is the process by which information is initially encoded, stored, and retrieved.

a.Encoding is the process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory.

b.The information must be stored, or placed and maintained in the memory system.

c.Information must be retrieved, located and brought into awareness.

d.Some developmental psychologists suggest that the difficulty children experience in solving conservation problems during the preschool period may stem from memory limitations.

3.During middle childhood, short-term memory capacity improves significantly.

4.Meta-memory, an understanding about the processes that underlie memory, emerge and improve during middle childhood.

a.Children use control strategies, conscious, intentionally used tactics to improve cognitive functioning.

b.Children can be trained to use control strategies.

c.Control strategies for memory include the keyword strategy, rehearsal, organization, and cognitive elaboration.

C. Vygotsky recommends that students focus on active learning through childadult and childchild interactions that fall within each childs zone of proximal development.

1.His approach has been influential in the development of several classroom practices based on the concept that children should actively participate in their own education and that activities should involve interactions with others.

a.Cooperative learning, in which children work together in groups.

b.Reciprocal teaching, in which students work with teachers as well as other students to develop reading skills.

2.Argues that significant cognitive advances can be achieved through active learning.

D. The language development of children in the school years is substantial, with improvements in vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics. Children learn to control their behavior through linguistic strategies, and they learn more effectively by seeking clarification when they need it.

1.Vocabulary continues to increase during the school years.

2.School-age childrens mastery of grammar improves.

3.Childrens understanding of syntax, the rules that indicate how words and phrases can be combined to form sentences, grows during childhood.

4.Certain phonemes, units of sound, remain troublesome (j, v, h, z).

5.School-age children may have difficulty decoding sentences when the meaning depends on intonation, or tone of voice.

6.Children become more competent in their use of pragmatics, the rules governing the use of language to communicate in a social context.

7.Language helps children control their behavior.

8.One of the most significant developments in middle childhood is the increase in Metalinguistic Awareness, an understanding of ones own use of language.

a.Metalinguistic awareness helps children achieve comprehension when information is incomplete or ambiguous.

b.They learn that the miscommunication may not be attributable to themselves only, but to the people communicating.

c.They then become more likely to ask for clarification or further information.

9.The growing sophistication of language helps school-age children control their behavior.

E. Bilingualism can be beneficial in the school years. Children who are taught all subjects in their first language with simultaneous instruction in English appear to experience few deficits and several linguistic and cognitive advantages.

1.English is a second language for more than 32 million Americans and this number is increasing annually.

2.Being bilingual may have cognitive advantages.

a.Greater cognitive flexibility

b.Greater metalinguistic awareness

c.May improve scores on IQ tests

3.One approach to educating non-English speakers is bilingual education, in which children are taught in their native language, while at the same time learning English.

4.The effectiveness of language immersion programs where subjects are taught in a foreign language show mixed results.

5.Bilingual students often understand the rules of language more explicitly and may even score higher on intelligence tests.

6.Because of the benefits of learning language, many educations believe that second-language learning should be a regular part of elementary schooling for all children.

I. Schooling: The Three Rs (and more) of Middle Childhood

F. School marks the time when society formally attempts to transfer its body of knowledge, beliefs, values, and accumulated wisdom to new generations.

1.In the U. S., a primary school education is both a universal right and a legal requirement.

2.More than 160 million of the worlds children will not have access to education.

3.Schooling, which is available to nearly all children in most developed countries, is not as accessible to children, especially girls, in many less developed countries.

4.Recent research suggests that delaying school entry by a year for younger children is not advantageous, and in some cases may be harmful.

5.School readiness is more tied to overall developmental readiness, not age.

G. Reading: Learning to Decode the Meaning Behind Words

1. Reading develops in several broad, frequently overlapping stages.

a.Stage O, from birth to first grade, involves identifying the alphabet, writing name, reading a few familiar words.

b.Stage 1 is largely phonological recoding skills, sounding out words by blending the letters together and learning the names of letters and sounds that go with them.

c.Stage 2 is when children learn to read aloud with fluency.

d.Stage 3, extends from fourth to eighth grade, and reading becomes a way to learn.

e.In Stage 4, children are able to read and process information that reflects multiple points of view.

H. Educators debate the most effective means of teaching reading.

1.Proponents of code-based approaches to reading believe that reading emphasizes the components of reading, such as the sounds of letters and the combinationsphonicsand how sounds are combined to make words.

2.Educators who promote whole-language approaches to reading view reading as a natural process, similar to the acquisition of oral language, that uses trial-and-error strategies to decipher meaning of swords from context.

3.A growing body of data suggests that code-based approach to reading instruction is superior to the whole-language approaches.

4.It is imperative for educators, parents and siblings to understand that most children suffering from dyslexia cannot use phonics as way to learn to read. Their brains do not allow them to separate word sounds the way other child can.

I. Educational Trends: Beyond the Three Rs

1.U.S. schools are experiencing a definite return to the educational fundamentals embodied in the traditional three Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic).

2.Elementary school classrooms today stress individual accountability for teachers and students.

3.Alternatives to traditional schools have begun to spring up, including home schooling.

J. Multiculturalism and diversity are significant issues in U.S. schools where the melting pot society, in which minority cultures were assimilated to the majority culture, is being replaced by the pluralistic society, in which individual cultures maintain their own identities while participating in the definition of a larger culture.

1.Culture is a set of behaviors, beliefs, values, and expectations shared by members of a particular society.

2.Subcultural groups are particular racial, ethnic, religious, socio-economic or gender groups within a given culture.

3.In recent years the goal has been to establish Multicultural Education to help minority students develop competence in the culture of the majority group while maintaining positive group identifies that build on their original culture.

4.Multicultural education is based on several models.

a.The Cultural Assimilation Model fosters the view of the American society as the proverbial melting pot.

b.More recent trends are based on the Pluralistic Society Model, which is the concept that American society is made up of diverse, coequal cultural groups that should preserve their individual cultural features.

c.Today, most educators recommend that children develop a Bicultural Identity by maintaining their original cultural identity while integrating into the dominant culture.

(1)The traditional melting-pot technique involves immersing children in classes taught in English and providing English instruction.

(2)Most contemporary approaches emphasize a bicultural strategy, in which children are encouraged to maintain simultaneous membership in more than one culture.

(3)Successful bicultural programs attempt to bring aspects of multiple cultures into the context of everyday social interactions.

5.Expectation Effects: How teachers expectancies influence students.

a.Evidence makes it clear that the expectations of teachers are communicated to their students and can bring about the expected performance.

b.The phenomenon is known as the Teacher Expectancy Effect, the cycle of behavior in which a teacher transmits an expectation about a child and brings about the expected behavior.

c.The teacher expectancy effect is a special case of a broader concept known as the self-fulfilling prophecy, in which a persons expectation is capable of bringing about an outcome.

d.Children also develop their own expectations about their teachers competence and convey their expectations to the teacher.

K. Teaching Emotional Intelligence

1.Emotional Intelligence is the set of skills that underlie the accurate assessment, evaluation, expression, and regulation of emotions.

2.Psychologist Daniel Goleman argues that emotional literacy should be a standard part of the school curriculum.

3.Programs meant to increase emotional intelligence have not been met with universal acceptance, but most people consider emotional intelligence to be something that is worthy of nurturance.

II. Intelligence testing has traditionally focused on factors that differentiate successful academic performers from unsuccessful ones. The intelligence quotient (IQ) reflects the ratio of a persons mental age to his or her chronological age. Other conceptualizations of intelligence focus on different types of intelligence or on different aspects of information processing.

L. Alfred Binets pioneering efforts in intelligence testing left three important legacies.

1.He defined intelligence pragmatically as that which his test measured

2.Intelligence tests should be reasonable indicators of school success.

3.The intelligence quotient (IQ) reflects the ratio of a persons mental age to his or her chronological age: (MA CA X 100 = IQ).

a.Mental Age is the typical intelligence level found for people at a given chronological age.

b.Chronological (Or Physical) Age is the actual age of the child taking the intelligence test.

c.Scores today are deviation IQ scores, so that the degree of deviation from the average (100) permits a calculation of the proportion of people who have similar scores.

(1)Two-thirds of all people fall within 15 points of the average.

(2)As scores rise and fall beyond this range, the percentage of people falls significantly.

d.The question of whether there are cultural and/or ethnic differences in IQ is highly controversial. Recent research offers that if there are any differences, they may be associated with socioeconomic, environmental and nutritional factors and not ability.

M. Intelligence tests today share an underlying premise that intelligence is composed of a single, unitary mental ability factor, commonly called g.

1.The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale is a test that consists of a series of items that vary according to the age of the person being tested.

2.The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-III) is a test for children that provides separate measures of verbal and performance (or nonverbal) skills as well as a total score.

3.The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-III) is a test for adults that provides separate measures of verbal and performance (or nonverbal) skills as well as a total score.

4.The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), an intelligence test for children that measures the ability to integrate different kinds of stimuli simultaneously and to use step-by-step thinking permits unusual flexibility in its administration.

5.IQ scores are reasonably good predictors of school performance, but not very well correlated with income and later success in life.

N. Many theorists dispute the notion that intelligence is unidimensional.

1.Some psychologists suggest there are two kinds of intelligence.

a.Fluid Intelligence is the ability to deal with new problems and situations.

b.Crystallized Intelligence is the store of information, skills, and strategies that people have acquired through education and prior experiences, and through their previous use of fluid intelligence.

2.Howard Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that we have distinct intelligences, each relatively independent.

a.linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.

b.Gardners important work is certainly more universal than previous theorists Western-dominated views of intelligence.

3.The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed in a process called dynamic assessment, which would assess cooperation between the individual being assessed and the individual doing the assessment, believing that intelligence is reflected not only in how children can perform on their own, but in terms of how well they can perform when helped by adults.

4.Robert Sternberg developed the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, which states that intelligence consists of three aspects of information processing: componential, experiential, and contextual.

a.The componential element reflects how people process and analyze information.

(1)Infer relationships between parts

(2)Solve problems

(3)Evaluate solutions

(4)Score highest on traditional IQ tests

b.The experiential element is the insightful component.

(1)Compare new information to what is already known

(2)Can combine and relate facts in novel and creative ways

c.The contextual deals with practical intelligencethe demands of everyday environment.

O. Falling Below and Above the Intelligence Norms

1.Mental Retardation, falling below the intelligence norms, refers to a significantly subaverage level of intellectual functioning that occurs with related limitations in two or more skill areas and is found in approximately 1 to 3 percent of the school-age population.

a.Mentally retardation is typically measured by IQ tests.

(1)90 percent are classified as Mild Retardation, where IQ is in the range of 50 or 55 to 70.

(a)Can reach 3rd to 6th grade level in school

(b)Can hold jobs and function independently

(2)5 to 10 percent are classified as Moderate Retardation, where IQ is from 35 or 40 to 50 or 55

(a)Slow to develop language and motor skills

(b)Generally cannot progress beyond 2nd grade

(c)Capable of training and social skills but typically need supervision

(3)Those with Severe Retardation, IQs ranging from 20 or 25 to 35 or 40, and Profound Retardation, where IQ is below 20 or 25 are the most limited.

(a)No speech

(b)Poor motor control

(c)Need 24-hour care

2.Three to 5 percent of school-age children are Gifted and Talented; they show evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership capacity, or specific academic fields.

a.Intellectual capabilities represent only one type of exceptionality.

b.Unusual potential in areas outside the academic realm are also included in the concept.

c.Most research suggests that highly intelligent people also tend to be outgoing, well adjusted, and popular.

d. Two approaches to educating the gifted and talented exist.

(1)Acceleration, where special programs allow gifted students to move ahead at their own pace, even if this means skipping to higher grade levels.

(2)Enrichment is an approach through which students are kept at grade level but are enrolled in special programs and given individual activities to allow greater depth of study in a given topic.

III. Childrens views of themselves

P. According to Erikson, children in the middle childhood years are in the industry versus inferiority stage, focusing on achieving competence and responding to a wide range of personal challenges.

Q. Children in the middle childhood years begin to view themselves in terms of psychological characteristics and to differentiate their self-concepts into separate areas. They use social comparison to evaluate their behavior, abilities, expertise, and opinions.

Lecture Suggestions

Use Developmental Psychology: Prentice Hall Lecture Launcher, DVD and textbook CD

Intelligence: What Is It?

You might begin this lecture with a brief history of intelligence testing beginning with the work of Binet in France. Binet was hired by the French government to develop a method of detecting children who, because of low intelligence, could be better educated in special schools. He coined the term IQ and based it on mental age and chronological age. Terman, from Stanford, was intrigued by Binets test because he was collecting data on gifted children and needed a way to assess them. (You may want to use Handout 124, the characteristics of gifted children, with this lecture.) He adapted Binets test for children in the U. S. and it became known as the Stanford-Binet, a test still used today. Wechsler thought that the Stanford-Binet had too much emphasis on verbal skills and devised his to measure verbal and performance skills. Eventually such theorists as Spearman, Thurstone, and Guilford became interested in defining intelligence. Most of them used factor analysis to determine if intelligence was one or many abilities. Most agree now that intelligence is hierarchical with a general, overall intelligenceg, which consists of a number of special abilities that influence overall intelligence. Cattell and Horn thought intelligence could be divided into two major dimensions: fluid and crystallized. This theory was truly developmental because Cattell and Horn found that crystallized intelligence increases throughout the lifespan while fluid intelligence levels off during adulthood and decreases with age. Gardner and Steinberg thought that intelligence was multiple, not unidimensional, and should include items besides mathematical, verbal, or visual-spatial skills. Gardner believes there are at least seven intelligences and that all of us have each of them in some degree. Sternbergs triarchic theory of intelligence takes into account those intelligent behaviors typically measured on IQ tests (analytical) in addition to street smarts, the ability to successfully adapt to the environment (practical) and the ability to generate novel responses and fresh insights (creative). Both Steinberg and Gardner have written extensively on the educational implications of intelligence.

Sources:

Carrol, J. B. (1982). The measurement of intelligence. In R. J. Steinberg (Ed.), Handbook of Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gardner, H. & Hatch, T. (1989). Multiple intelligences go to school: Educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences. Educational Researches 18(8), 410.

Hunt, E. (1995). The role of intelligence in modern society. American Scientist, 83. 356368.

Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T. J., Boykin, A. W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., Halpern, D. F., Loehlin, J. C., Perloff, R., Steinberg, R. J., & Urbana, S. (1996). Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. American Psychologist, 51(2), 77101.

This article is the joint effort of a task force put together by the American Psychological Association to set out an authoritative report on what exactly is known about intelligence.

Steinberg, R. J. (1996). Myths, countermyths, and truths about intelligence. Educational Researcher, 25(2), 1116.

Multiple Intelligences

Based on Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences, have your students discuss the variety of multiple intelligences each of them possess: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal (e.g., insight, metacognition) and interpersonal (e.g., social skills). Handout 12.5

Childrens views of themselves

Children in the middle childhood years begin to view themselves in terms of psychological characteristics and to differentiate their self-concepts into separate areas. They use social comparison to evaluate their behavior, abilities, expertise, and opinions.

How does socioeconomic status affect childrens views of themselves?

In a country that unfortunately still exhibits racism, how would this affect childrens views of themselves?

Source:

Klamon-Miller, G. (2006). Unpublished article. Toward a More Fully Cultural Curriculum.

Class Activities

Measuring Intelligence

Have students form groups and come up with their own definition of intelligence. Then have them devise a method for assessing children according to their definition. You can show the video Intelligence: A Complex Concept either before or afterwards. You can also use Handout 122 as part of the exercise.

There are various intelligence tests available for students to take on the Internet (see www.brain.com, for example). Have students take a test and write up a critique of whether they believe the test is an accurate measure of their intelligence. What factors might influence their scores on the test?

If possible, bring in the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III). Show the class the various subtests included in the Verbal Scale and the Performance Scale. You might want to break your class into groups and let them try some of the items themselves. Ask your students to discuss whether these tests are valid measures of intelligence. (This is an especially useful exercise if you have had your students previously come up with their own definitions of intelligence.)

Thomas Armstrong has written a book based on Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences. On pages 18 to 23 he offers a checklist you might want to adapt for your students to identify their strengths. He also offers methods of developing our weak areas. Students have a lot of fun with this, and it always generates a good discussion about the differences between intelligence and abilities.

Source:

Armstrong, T. (1993). 7 Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Many Intelligences. New York: Plume.

Multiple Intelligences

Based on Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences, have your students discuss the variety of multiple intelligences each of them possess: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal (e.g., insight, metacognition) and interpersonal (e.g., social skills). Handout 12.5

Piagetian Tasks

If you can round up some children of various ages (from about 5 through 12 works well), demonstrate Piagets tasks for your class. Students gain a much better understanding of Piaget from actually seeing how children think through the various tasks and especially the errors they make. Remind your class that Piaget always asked his subjects to justify their answers. This always proves to be a very popular classroom demonstration, especially if some of the children are brought in by your students. You can pass out copies of Handout 123 to help students with their observations. Some additional tasks include

1.Ask the child if he or she has any sisters (or brothers). Then ask the child if his or her sister (or brother) has any sisters.

2.Have an uneven amount of poker chips (or beads) of two different colors (e.g., blue and white). Ask the child, Are there more blue chips or chips?

3.Ask for a volunteer from your class. Then ask the child to hide a candy bar somewhere in the room and make sure that the child knows that the student volunteer can see where he or she is hiding the candy. Then ask the student volunteer to leave the room. Conspiratorially, tell the child that you are going to move the candy bar and hide it somewhere else. The child hides the candy again. Now ask the child where the student will look for the candy bar when he or she returns to the room.

Debates

Your students might enjoy debating some issues pertaining to middle childhood. A good source to stimulate their thinking is DelCampo & DelCampos Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Childhood and Society (see Supplemental Reading List for a complete reference.) Some issues include: Are gender differences rooted in the brain? Is television viewing harmful for children? Are boys better in math than girls? Is home schooling an effective method of education? Should bilingual education programs be abandoned?

Supplemental Reading List

Banks, A. (2005). The developmental impact of trauma. In D. Comstock (Ed.) Diversity and Development: Critical Contexts That Shape Our Lives and Relationships. Belmont, CA: Thomson: Brooks/Cole.

Banks, A. (2003). Post-traumatic stress disorder. In Slater, Daniel, & Banks (Eds.) The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women. Boston: Beacon Press.

Banks, A. (2001). Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Relationships and Brain Chemistry. The Stone Center, Wellesley College, JBMTI, MA.

Brown, L. M., & Gilligan, C. (1992). Meeting at the Crossroads: Womens Psychology and Girls Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Capuzzi, D. & Gross, D. R. (1996). Youth at Risk: A Prevention Resource for Counselors, Teachers, and Parents, 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association.

Carlson, N. R. (1999). Physiology of Behavior (6th ed.). Needham, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Casey, B. J., Giedd, J. N. & Thomas, K. M. (2000). Structural and functional brain development and its relation to cognitive development. Biological Psychology, 54, pp. 241-257.

Coll, C. G., Surrey, J., & Weingarten, K. (Eds.). (1998). Mothering Against the Odds: Diverse Voices of Comtemporary Mothers. New York: The Guilford Press.

Comer, R. (2001). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, 3rd edition. New York: Worth Publishers.

Comstock, D. (2005). Diversity and Development: Critical Contexts That Shape Our Lives and Relationships. Belmont, CA: Thomson: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

De Bellis, M. D., Baum, A., Birmaher, B., Keshavan, M., Eccard, C., Boring, A. Jenkins, F., Ryan, N. (1999a). Developmental Traumatology part I: Biological stress systems. Biological Psychiatry, 45, pp. 1259-1270.

PowerPoints available for download from the Web site for this textbook

Multimedia Ideas

Use Developmental Psychology: Prentice Hall Lecture Launcher, DVD and textbook CD

Aspects of Intelligence (Insight Media, 1983, 30 minutes)

Discusses aspects of defining and measuring intelligence.

Cognitive Development (Insight Media, 1990, 30 minutes)

This video illustrates Piagets stages of cognitive development.

Concrete Operations (Davidson Films, 1994, 30 minutes)

David Elkind uses Piagets clinical interview with children 4 to 9 years old, illustrating centering and reversibility.

Conservation (Davidson Films, 29 minutes)

A video showing children of various ages performing conservation tasks.

The Elementary Mind (Insight Media, 30 minutes)

A video that explores Piagets concrete operational stage. Also discusses intelligence testing.

In a Class of His Own (Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 26 minutes)

This film captures how difficult it is to be an exceptionally bright child.

Intelligence (RMI Media, 1990, 30 minutes)

Discusses the problems in defining and measuring intelligence

Intelligence and Creativity (Insight Media, 2001, 30 min)

Investigates the effects of nature and nurture on intelligence and probes the history and criticisms of intelligence testing.

IQ Testing and the School (Insight Media, 1991, 60 minutes)

Discusses the issues of reliability and validity of such tests as the WISC-R. Also discusses the special needs of learning-disabled children and gifted children.

Handout 121

Use this handout to guide your students reflections on their intelligence and competence in grade school.

Handout 122

Use this handout to encourage your students to think critically about the role of IQ and success in life and in school.

Handout 123

This handout can be used as an out-of-class assignment or as a guide to conducting Piagetian tasks on middle school children as a classroom demonstration.

Handout 124

This handout lists the characteristics of gifted children.

Handout 121

Reflective Journal Exercise #12

Think back to your elementary school years. Reflect on your cognitive abilities during those years. What subjects were your favorites? What grades did you receive in those subjects? What subjects did you dislike most? What were your grades in those subjects? Do you think there is any connection between how well you liked a subject and your grade in that subject? Why? Can you think of any example where your teachers expectancies about your (or someone elses) ability affected his or her behavior toward you or that child?

Handout 122

Whats Your Opinion About IQ?

Mary Jo Bane and Christopher Jenks argue that if intelligence is inherited there is nothing the schools or anyone can do to improve a childs chances in life. Below are five myths Bane and Jencks say are commonly accepted as true. What do you think? Using your own experience, respond to each myth.

1.IQ tests are the best measure of human intelligence.

2.The poor are poor because they have low IQs. Those with high IQs end up in well-paid jobs.

3.Your IQ is overwhelmingly determined by your genetic endowment.

4.The main reason African American children and poor white children have low IQ scores is that they have bad genes.

5.Improving the quality of the schools will go a long way toward wiping out the differences in IQ and school achievement and, therefore, in childrens life chances.

Handout 123

Piagetian Tasks

Administer the following tasks to two or more children individually. (This is much more useful if you select children of different ages, such as one age 5 and another age 10.) Take notes about what you do. Pay special attention to the concepts of centering and reversibility. Reflect on what you discover and evaluate the usefulness of Piagets theory of cognitive development.

1. Perspective taking

Ask your subjects the following questions:

Pretend that your _____________ (friend, teacher, aunt, uncle) is going to have a birthday, and you want to surprise him/her with a gift he/she will really like. How would you decide what kind of gift _______ would really like?

Reflection: What cognitive strategies, insight, and social inference does each subject reveal in determining what gift would please a person? Does the subject consider age, gender, etc.?

2. Conservation of volume

Have two identical containers (e.g., glasses) and a third which is either taller and slimmer or shorter and fatter. Have a pitcher of water (you may want to color it for emphasis). Give the subject the similar containers. Say, Please pour water into both so that each has exactly the same amount of water. Do both have exactly the same amount of water? How do you know?

Give the subject the third, different container. Say, Now take one ____ (e.g., glass) and pour it into this new one. Now, do they both have the same amount of water? How do you know? Pour this new one back into the original one. Now is there the same amount of water?

Reflection: What similarities/differences did you notice about the explanations?

3. Conservation of number

Have 12 pennies or poker chips. With the child and you seated at a table, lay out the items in two identical and parallel rows, equally spaced and identical in length.

Say, Which row has more pennies, this one or this one, or are there the same number in each row?

Are you sure? How do you know? How many pennies are there in each row?

Spread out one of the rows to about twice its length. Repeat the above questions. Then say, But there must be more in this row because it looks longer.

Now lets put the pennies into two piles.

While doing so, secretly remove a penny from one pile.

Are there still the same number of pennies in each pile? How do you know? Why dont you count them to be sure? Why are they different now?

Reflection: What similarities/differences did you note about the explanations?

Handout 123-continued

4. Conservation of mass

Have two balls of play dough. Say, Do these two balls have the same amount of play dough? If subject says no, say, Why dont you make it so they both have the same amount of play dough. Are you sure they have the same amount? How do you know?

Then say, Okay, now roll out one of these balls into a snake. Ask, Now, do both have the same amount of play dough? How do you know?

Say, Now, make the snake back into a ball. Do both balls have the same amount of play dough? How do you know?

Reflection: What similarities/differences did you note about the explanations?

5. Prediction

Have some M&Ms and a brown paper lunch sack. With the subject, select 10 red M&Ms, 5 yellow M&Ms, and 2 blue M&Ms. Have the subject count them out with you. Put all 17 M&Ms into the sack. Say, Now, if I put my hand into the sack and take out only one M&M, what color do you think it will be? Why?

Reflection: What similarities/differences did you note about the explanations? Did some of the childrens responses surprise you? Why? What do their errors tell you about their thinking? Do you think Piaget was correct about his theory of cognitive development?

Handout 124

Whos Gifted?

Characteristics To Look For

an advanced vocabulary

outstanding memory

curious about many things; asks lots of questions

has many interests and hobbies

is intense; gets totally absorbed in activities and thoughts

operates on higher levels of thinking than age peers

perceives subtle cause-effect relationships

catches on quickly

is sensitive to beauty, others feelings and emotions

possesses an advanced sense of justice

sees connections between apparently unconnected ideas

may prefer to work alone; resists cooperative learning

street-smart; may not do well on school tasks

displays original ideas; fluent in idea generation

able to elaborate; values non-conformity

may procrastinate and be perfectionistic

Source: Winebrenner, S. (1992). Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom. Free Spirit.

Handout 125

Gardners Multiple Intelligences

See how intelligent you are without looking at academics in particular. Write examples you possess in each of Gardners seven types of intelligences. Chances are you are gifted in at least one of these.

Linguistic

Musical

Logical-mathematical

Spatial

Body-kinesthetic

Intrapersonal (e.g., insight, metacognition)

Interpersonal (e.g., social skills)

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