Appendix A

Child Development

I. Piaget's Stages of Development

A. Sensori-motor Intelligence (0-2 years)

1. Motor behavior
2. Doesn't think conceptually
3. Signs of cognitive development seen

B. Pre-operational Thought (2-7 years)

1. Development of language
2. Rapid conceptual progress

C. Concrete Operations (7-11 years)

1. Reasoning process becomes logical

   a. can be applied to concrete problems
   b. begins to solve problems "in head"

2. Makes cognitive and logical decisions

   a. decanters perception
   b. attends successive steps or sequences

3. Classification and serration

   a. mentally classifies objects and events
   b. mentally relates them
   c. mentally arrange elements according to size
   d. mentally arrange events in series

   1)length (7 years)
   2)width (9 years)
   3)volume (12 years)

4. Understanding of space, time, and speed
5. Understanding of cause and effect relationships
6. Solve conservation problems

   a. number (6-7 years)
   b. area and mass (7-8 years)
   c. volume (11-12 years)

7. Reversibility of operations (A-B-C -> C-B-A)
8. Cooperative communication evolves
9. Limitations

   a. can not solve intangible problems

   1) hypothetical
   2) complex verbal
   3) involving future

   b. only problems using real objects
   c. isolate problems

D. Formal Operations (11-15 years)

1. Liberated from content of problems

   a. can deal with all classes of problems

   1) past, present, future
   2) hypothetical
   3) verbal

2. Explores all possible solutions
3. Several operation on a single problem
4. Larger range of applications of logical operations

   a. proportions
   b. conservation of momentum
   c. hypothesis building and testing
   d. scientific reasoning

5. Causation
6. Child is aware that logically derived conclusions have validity independent of factual truth
7. Reason about contrary-to-fact propositions

II. Delivery of Instruction

A. Types of Instruction

1. Direct

   a. large amounts of information
   b. doesn't change intuition
   c. fails to teach revision techniques
   d. fails to make students appreciate the analogy between their own acts of discovery and science.

2. Discovery

   a. figure out scientific principals of their own
   b. feel responsible for own learning
   c. motivate to form accurate conceptions
   d. understand what conceptions match experimental data
   e. time consuming
   f. information gathered may be reused

   1) may avoid discovery
   2) may enjoy environment
   3) may discover uninteresting things

B. Changing Deviated Intuitions

1. Prefer to change/explain new data to fit their own theories
2. Complex problems may lead to wrong intuitive conceptions
3. Take into consideration the learning limitations

   a. processing capacity
   b. problem solving strategies
   c. mathematical abilities

4. Guide through process
5. Can't fully contradict theories/intuition of child
6. Have different exhibits addressing same concept
7. Make them think about what they're doing
8. Organization of ideas
   

C. Analogies

1. Compare to obvious feature of object
2. Allows to understand complicated ideas
3. Build on child's own interest
4. Relate to real world problems to teach concepts
5. Make them simple

III. Motivation

A. Types of Motivation

1. Intrinsic

   a. Enjoyment of achievement-related activities
   b. Striving toward performance excellence

2. Extrinsic

   a. Desire for tangible rewards

B. Four primary Sources of Intrinsic Motivation

1. Challenge

   a. activity must present a clear and meaningful goal
   b. intermediate level of difficulty
   c. activity must vary its demand on learner as he advances on the task
   d. engage sense of self-esteem
   e. student must value acquired skill or knowledge

2. Curiosity

   a. suggest that student's ideas are incomplete or inconsistent

3. Control

   a. outcome should vary directly with his own responses

4. Fantasy

   a. should address a variety of motivational and emotional needs
   b. provide concrete and familiar settings

5. Cooperation