Chapter 5 Discussion Questions:
1. How does gender influence motor skill development?
2. How is physical development affected by nature and by nurture? Is one more influential than the other?
3. Adolescents become more adult-like in appearance. What implications can this have in the classroom regarding teacher expectations (or in society and the ways adolescents are treated in courts? In the home?)?
4. Adolescents acquire numerous misconceptions regarding human sexuality issues. How do you think these misconceptions develop and what does this mean regarding the challenges that teachers and other practitioners encounter?
5. Can professionals really make a difference in helping children and adolescents avoid engaging in unhealthy (and often illegal) behaviors (e.g., smoking)? What if the professional smokes?
6. Would you encourage adolescents to delay initiating sexual activity until they’re older (or married), and would you persuade sexually active adolescents to stop?
7. As an early childhood educator, are there things you can do to increase children’s physical capabilities?
8. What responsibility does the community (e.g., local government, support services) have to enhance children’s health and well-being? Should health insurance be required for everyone? Should rehab be free?
9. What would students with disabilities and their parents want their teachers or caregivers to know about the child’s physical needs? When children are not able to articulate their needs, where or who do you turn to for information?
10. Is there a sensitive period in the brain’s development in which children should learn to read, play music, and learn mathematics?
Chapter 6 Discussion Questions: Cognitive Development/Piaget and Vygotsky
1. What are the educational implications of Piaget’s idea that children are naturally curious about their world and actively seek out information?
2. In what ways do children organize what they learn from their experiences?
3. Describe an example of how a young child’s scheme about something might change over the course of childhood and adolescence.
4. In what way are assimilation and accommodation complementary processes?
5. A parent is irate that his or her infant daughter keeps dropping her spoon on the floor at a restaurant. How might Piaget have interpreted the infant’s behavior?
6. Do the neo-Piagetian approaches to cognitive development have more to offer the field of education than competing cognitive-developmental theories?
7. According to Vygotsky, what purpose does arguing serve for children?
8. As a prospective teacher, explain how you might scaffold your students’ efforts to master a particular skill? How would you modify the scaffolding process over time?
9. According to Vygotsky, when does self-talk emerge and what purpose does it serve?
10. In what ways is dynamic assessment based on developmental concepts?
11. In your college classes, what opportunities have you had to engage in authentic activities? What opportunities will you provide for your future students to engage in authentic activities?
12. Did Piaget and Vygotsky see eye-to-eye regarding the role that social interaction plays in cognitive development?
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