When is the correct time?
Many people say that certain materials/concepts cannot be taught to certain age group/grade. What do you think about that? Do you think if there's enough, well executed, and well planned scaffolding and instructions the students can have a deep understanding of the concept?
posted by ANA STEFANY at 8:26 PM
16 Comments:
Most of the time, there are certain concepts and topics that can not be taught to certain age group/grade even with well planned scaffolding and instructions. Students usually acquire knowledge by activating their prior knowledge and relate the lessons to their life. When the concepts are too complex, students might not be able to see the usefulness in relation to their life. There are other topics and concepts that require years of life experience and interactions with people for anyone to understand and make sense of the meaning. In addition, certain concepts need to be developed sequentially through years of experience and practice to get to the next concept. However, there are always exceptions. Some children might have a lot of life experience and knowledge than others due to personal reasons. Since these children are more mature than children their own age, they might be able to learn more complex concepts and sophisticated ideas with clear and well executed lessons.
I would agree with Joanne. I think that if there's enough, well executed, and well planned scaffolding, you can teach most students a deep understanding of any topic. The thing is, that enough, well excecuted, and well planned scaffolding may take years and is largely dependent on the life experiences the student has. Now, I believe theoretically you can dictate those experiences to teach a certain concept, but the time and effort required to do so may go beyond the span of a year of classtime and therefore not be practical. Basically, as much as we want to teach our students everything, we are not a part of their lives every second of every day. So it comes down to chosing what is plausible and what is most important to you to teach students, given your time frame.
I agree that certain materials/ concepts can be incomprehensible, at least very difficult to a certain group of people, such as a age group. However, the “group” should be defined not only by people’s age but also by other backgrounds such as culture and prior knowledge. A group of people may find certain materials or concepts difficult or uncomfortable to be understood. That is the reason why we as teachers should build on students’ prior knowledge in order to teach effectively. For example, it may be not realistic to teach a two-year old American boy who do not have pror knowledge in Chinese language and culture to read a Chinese adult fiction. Therefore, we should be careful in choosing teaching materials.
After choosing the appropriate materials to teach, there should be “enough, well executed, and well planned scaffolding and instructions” in order to make student have a deep understanding of the concept.
I think that when it comes to teaching concepts in general, regardless of age there is always the possibility that a students may not understand because it may be too abstract or even too basic. But there is an equal opportunity, I think that a student can and will understand that concept without much effort. This is when we need to consider, the famous ZPD, where scaffolding and building on what the student knows and what they are capable of acquiring. It's difficult for me to say that a student or a person will not grasp a concept because of their age, I consider it more of a "prior knowledge" factor, then a current age or grade factor when a student is having difficulty understanding a concept. With that said, we should not confuse a students difficulty learning something new with incompetence.
Alot of concepts build on knowledge learned from prior experiences, so it would be really hard to try and just teach any old thing to a group of students who haven't been prepared or exposed to the appropriate background knowledge. I think there's definitely a right and wrong time to introduce concepts to age groups, but that time might depend more on their upbringing and experience instead of a simple matter of age.
I think effective teaching (well planned scaffolding and instruction) can be pivotal in teaching concepts and ideas to a group of students that might be challenging to them, or above their age-level/grade-level. However, I think there are limitations that arise at some point, simply due to how knowledge and learning experiences are processed and acquired through years of learning and exposure. I also agree with other bloggers that life experiences and prior knowledge play a huge role, and therefore it does not solely depend on age-level. Inevitably, there are a great deal of factors involved. I also think that regardless of age, learning needs to be as tangible and as personal as possible. What I mean by this is that learning needs to be taught in a way in which students can grasp material and relate to material. Thus, the more tangible, meaningful, and relatable the concept or material is, the more likely it is that even a very challenging concept can be learned, regardless of age. It’s about preparing students, exposing students, and providing students with an opportunity to “experience” the learning. The more we find ways to make the learning personal, the more we’ll succeed in teaching both simple and highly complex concepts. Nonetheless, with all this said, I do think there is some degree of limitation involved.
I think some concepts definatelycannot be taught to certain age groups because these knowledge is related with previous one or the students' cognitive development levels. If the concepts are beyond their cognitive development level, they are highly unlikely to make sense to students even if they are well prepared or scaffolded. Counterproductively, teach such concepts will complex the students and hinder their future acceptance of similar knowledge due to the misunderstandings accountable to early exposure to these concepts.
I agree with that there is are certain subjects that are appropriate to teach to any certain age group. Like art, drawing, dancing, singing, etc. However, there are other subjects that require prior experiences to build on that knowledge. So even though scaffolding would determine their understanding of a particular subject, it would be quite difficult to try to teach build on something that needs much more background knowledge. As an educator, you are only able to contribute so much in an academic school year, so pacing is also a factor to consider. It also depends on how well you know your students because if it is a tangible subject, perhaps you can touch upon it with your group of students. This also depends on where you want to take your students; you want to spend enough time on things their knowledge can build on. A subject as dense as human anatomy being taught to a group of students who have not been prepared or exposed to the appropriate background knowledge (as Kris mentioned) would be quite difficult. I also believe that there is a right and wrong time to introduce concepts to age groups, but that time might depend on where they are in terms of their level of understanding and maturity.
As important as appropriate scaffolding is with any given instruction, we do have to be aware of developmentally appropriate stages of learning.
Especially in the time that we are living now, with everything being so fast-paced, immediate and advancing at incredible speed, our children are suffering from that too. For example, when we were young, children normally learned how to read and write in first grade. While some did learn how to read and write earlier, this was not considered the norm. However, these days, most children learn how to read in Kindergarten, if not before that. And the ones who still take a few more months, are often considered to have some disabilities, or fall at disadvantage of their peers. Who is to say that Kindergarten, or first grade is the “right” or “wrong” age to learn how to read and write. While it’s great that our children are developing at faster paces than they were before, we have to be very careful about the added pressure that comes with that, especially for those who need some extra time. Nowadays, we often tend to label or categorize children in certain ways according to how fast they acquire a specific skill (learning and reading, in this case), yet within older standards, these children would have fallen within the norm. So as educators, we have to be careful of what we expect from our children at a given age, and be aware of the consequences that our challenges might have on them.
The question seems to be quite broad. Concepts to any age group seems hard to make any one answer on. I suppose that there are certain concepts that our society chooses for children to understand at certain age levels. I believe that children learn concepts as they are presented to them through their life experiences. That is, through students' family and society, students learn physical and philosophical concepts at different rates.
For example, a child in Nicargua that has to milk cows from the age of four knows that mammals produce milk and also that their mother is a mammal since she produces milk for their siblings. A child in the United States that is raised on a bottle and does not have to milk any animal may not understand the concept of mammals being able to produce milk until they are older and learn it in school... Therefore, our understanding of concepts and topics are mostly understood as we are exposed to them.
It’s hard to give a definite answer for this question since how much a student understands a certain concept depends on not only how well the teacher plans, scaffolds, and executes the lesson but also a number of other things such as student's prior knowledge, experiences, level of intelligence, etc. However, it is also true that certain concepts are better understood when the students are at a certain developmental stage in general, making it more appropriate to be taught at that specific level/time. Thus, teachers should be well aware of the students’ developmental stages when planning the lessons but also be mindful of the individual differences among the students when executing those lessons so that different needs of the students can be accommodated and understanding in each student is maximized.
I think there are many factors that weigh into learning a concept. I think that there are developmental stages that all children go through, but these are not set in stone as to specific age or time when they progress to the next stage in development (as far as learning goes). It must also be realized that background knowledge plays a huge role in determining where to go next in the lessons, and a concept cannot just be jumped into for a deep understanding to occur. For example, patterns relate to alegebra, but I would not teach my five-year-old children algebra with numbers but with the use of patterns as they do not have the background in numbers that would allow them to go into alegebra. In considering the question as an early childhood teacher, I think that pretty much any topic can be discussed with young children as long as the language, pace, and expectations are appropriate for them, i.e. a kindergartener would not be expected to understand a concept as deeply as a 12th grader. It is true that they can have knowledge of a concept, but their age and skills must be taken into consideration before attempting to teach a complex concept, especially if the student does not have very many experiences with this concept. The teacher also needs to make sure that he/she is actually teaching for the students and not for the interests of the teacher. The teacher needs to adapt because the students cannot change their learning styles.
I believe that depending on the nature of the concept would be a major deciding factor in when is the correct time to teach or use something in the classroom. Also I one needs to look at scienctific factors which relate to issues of processing and stages of development. Despite a lot of scaffolding one has to consider if the student has the capacity to take in such information as well how would you "water it down" in a way that will be comprehensible without becoming burdensome or confusing to the student
I believe that there are certain concepts that cannot be taught to some age groups. For example, you are not going to walk into a kindergarten math classroom and start teaching them calculus. Obviously the students would not be able to grasp any of the concepts no matter how much scaffolding was provided by the teacher.
However, I do believe that it is possible to take a concept that is typically taught a couple grades ahead of the students and teach your students the basics. It is possible to build a foundation of a concept without exposing your students to concepts that will be complex for them to understand. To accomplish this, a teacher will need to provide students with a lot of scaffolding throughout the unit. Additionally, there may not be a multitude of recourses available for your students; therefore, the teacher may need to create her own resources. This was actually the case for my group in designing the science unit of our curriculum. We wanted to address mixtures and compounds, but were unable to find any resources that related to compounds for kindergarteners. For this reason, we decided to have our students explore the topic and make their own class book. Based on our experience, I feel that depending on the concept you want to teach your students, it is possible to implement in your classroom.
Learning should be step by step. When students are learning the new concepts, they need to relay on their prior knowledge. For example, the students have to know how to count in order to do addition. I think it is a good idea to teach the students according to their age. It is possible to adjust some advanced topic for younger children; however, what is the point for teaching them these hard topics in their young age? There are enough topics that we can teach the students according to their age. I think building up a good learning foundation is very important. Of course, if the students are very advanced, we should teach them according to their learning levels.
Learning should be step by step. When students are learning the new concepts, they need to relay on their prior knowledge. For example, the students have to know how to count in order to do addition. I think it is a good idea to teach the students according to their age. It is possible to adjust some advanced topic for younger children; however, what is the point for teaching them these hard topics in their young age? There are enough topics that we can teach the students according to their age. I think building up a good learning foundation is very important. Of course, if the students are very advanced, we should teach them according to their learning levels.
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