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• Cognitive development


  The process whereby a child's understanding of the world changes as a function of age and experience
• Children are bundle of ideas and thoughts
• If you look at a child you will see thought patterns that are different from adult and can certainly be expressed in many different ways
• Sensorimotor Stage


  1. Birth to 2 years

  2. The child learns about the world primarily through sensory experiences and movement

  3. The child touches things, holds, listens, tastes, feels and shakes everything in sight

  4. The sense of time is now and the sense of space is here

  5. When the child learns motor skills, the child begins to explore one's environment with both senses and ability
• Preoperational Stage


  1. 2 to 5 or 6 years

  2. The child develops the important skill of using symbols but not yet capable of manipulating them in logical order

  3. The time when the child learns by asking questions
• Concrete Operational Stage


  1. 6 to 11 or 12 years

  2. Children become capable of mental operations and apply logical thought to concrete situations

  3. They think concretely
• Adolescent learning


  • Beginning at 11 or 12 years of age, the adolescent becomes capable of logical, and abstract thinking
  • They can imagine possibilities in any situation or problem and are capable of analyzing them
• Intellectual Characteristics of Adolescents (Lounsbury, 2000)

  • Enjoys both intellectual and manipulative activities
  • Prefers active involvement in learning
  • Motivated to learn when lessons are related to immediate goals and interests
  • Argues to clarify own thinking and to convince others
  • Possesses a vivid imagination
  • Exhibits independent, critical thinking
  • Seeks to find causal and comparative relationships
  • Begins to understand abstract ideas
  • Begins thinking about own thinking
• Characteristics of Adult Learners (Malcolm Knowles)

  • Autonomous and self-directed
  • Have accumulated foundation of life experience and knowledge that may include work related activities, family responsibilities and previous education
  • Goal oriented
  • Relevancy oriented
  • Practical
  • Need to be shown respect
• Motivations for Adult Learning

  • Social relationship
  • External expectations
  • Social welfare
  • Personal advancement
  • Escape/stimulation
  • Cognitive interest
• Understanding the Development Dimensions of Learning


  • Confidence and independence
  • Skills and strategies
  • Knowledge and understanding
  • Use of prior and emerging experience
  • Reflection
• Motivation


  A force that energizes and directs behavior toward a goal
• Motivation


  An internal state or condition (sometimes described as a need, desire or want) that serves to activate or energize behavior and give it direction
• Types of motivation


  • Intrinsic motivation
  • Extrinsic motivation
• Intrinsic motivation


  An internal stimulus that arouses one to action. The learner works not for awards but for personal satisfaction of accomplishing one's work and attaining one's goal.
• Extrinsic motivation


  Motivation that comes from the outside from the external environment. This type of motivation is based on incentive (medals, bonuses, praises, etc.)
• Theories of motivation


  • Maslow's hierarchy of needs
  • David McClelland need achievement theory
  • Attribution theory
  • Self-determination theory
• David McClelland need achievement theory

  An explanation of motivation that is related to competence, judging it and increasing it. Individuals seek out challenging, moderately difficult tasks. They want all possible feedback and become bored with steady success. Some individuals have higher need to achieve than others.
• Attribution theory


  Students attribute their success or failure to specific causes. When they get good grades, they think they are good in the subject but when they fail in the test, they attribute it to the difficulty of the test. Attribution occurs on 3 dimensions: Locus (the location of the cause), Stability (whether or not the cause can change), Control (extent to which students accept responsibility for their successes and failures or in control of the learning situations)
• Self-determination theory


  A process of deciding how to act on one's environment. It has 3 innate psychological needs: Need for competence (ability to function effectively in the environment), Need for control (autonomy) (ability to alter the environment when necessary), Need for relatedness (feeling of connectedness to others in one's social environment resulting in feelings of worthiness of love and respect)
• Self-concept


  The totality of a complex, organized and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence
• Self-efficacy


  One's beliefs about one's capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. People with high self-efficacy beliefs think they have the ability to succeed at a task, to overcome obstacles, and to reach their goals. People with low self-efficacy beliefs doubt their ability to succeed and do not believe they have what it takes to reach their goals.
• Self-regulation


  One's sense of control over one's behavior and lives. It is a key term in understanding successful learners. It refers to systematic efforts to direct thoughts, feelings and actions toward the attainment of one's goals.