Learning Styles and Learning Taxonomies

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Name
Professor
Course
Date
Child Development, Learning Styles and Learning Taxonomies
Task 1
Importance of studying child development for a teacher
Teachers study child development to understand the basic principles of development as at
different age levels children experience certain characteristics hence teachers will be able to
provide effective guidance for children to develop harmoniously.1 Teachers also need to know
children’s differences, capabilities, and potentialities so that they can exploit them. Teachers will
understand the basis of development to be able to understand abnormalities among their students.
Teachers will understand the normal characteristics of different ages to improve the quality of
1 Z. Baykan, and M. Naçar, Learning styles of first-year medical students attending Erciyes
University in Kayseri, Turkey. Advances in physiology education, (2017) 31/2, pp.158-
160.

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teaching and learning.2 Teachers will understand themselves better as well as their students as
they socialize to facilitate their development.
Difference between growth and development
Growth aids in the achievement of development and one can grow without development. For
example, a child may not be able to walk although they have increased in size. Development is
qualitative while growth is quantitative. Grow is limited while development is continuous
throughout one's life.3 Development entails non-organic functional changes but growth involves
organic changes.
Stages of child development
Physical and motor development
It occurs from infancy to adolescence. It involves changes in weight and height, nervous system,
brain, muscular and skeletal development and fine and gross motor skills development such as
prehension and locomotion.
Perceptual development
Perception is the interpretation of the sensory input by the brain. It involves the development of
object permanency, depth perception, picture perception and perceptual constancy such as
position, size and shape constancy.
2 T. Dennis, Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and
directions for child development research. Child development, (2014), 75(2), pp.317-333.
3 A. Kolb, and D. Kolb, Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential
learning in higher education. Academy of management learning & education, (2015),
4(2), pp.193-212.

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Cognitive development
Cognition refers to the mental activity whereby children acquire knowledge and information and
process it to understand the world. The stages include a sensory-motor stage where children
begin to coordinate their motor responses and sensory input and develop imitation and problem-
solving skills. The next stage is the preoperational stage where children become proficient in
using mental symbols. There is also the concrete operation stage whereby children apply the
operations to imaginable or real objects, events or situations. The other stage is the formal
operational stage whereby children reason logically.
Language development
It occurs throughout the life span and it helps in thinking, communicating, writing, creative
activities and problem-solving.
Social development
It is the process of acquiring behaviors that match social expectations and helps children develop
self-identity, social roles, and appropriate social attitudes.
Emotional development
It involves development, expression, interpretation, and recognition of emotions such as fear,
love, cry or laugh.
Moral development
It is the process where children can distinguish the wrong and right and acquire moral and social
values.
Comparison of theories of child development
Gesell’s theory assumes that individual unique genetic plan guides development and children
undergo their rates of maturation. Sigmund Fred’s theory of psychoanalytic assumes that

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unconscious feelings and thoughts motivate behavior, early experiences affect late mental health
and personality, and children follow a sequence of stages to develop. According to Piaget in his
cognitive development theory as children grow their thinking and ability to solve problems
develop. According to Skinner in his behavioral theory, children’s behavior is determined by
environment stimulation. Social learning theory assumes that imitation and observation help
children to develop.
The impact of children’s development on their learning
Perceptual development improves children’s learning as they become more efficient in getting
more critical information from stimuli and they can generalize perceived meanings. Cognitive
development helps children to process information used in learning and encourages children to
discover new things and peer interaction as well as reducing egocentrism. Language
development increases understanding and interaction. Social development helps children learn
together and assist each other.
Task 2
The concept of learning styles
Learning styles are the patterns that direct learning such as the factors, attitudes, and behaviors
that facilitate learning.
Different models of learning styles
The main models include Kolb, HBDI, VAK, Gregorc, 4MAT and Felder Silverman models.
VAK (Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic) model was developed by Fleming who believes learners
have three preferences. Visual learning styles prefer to learning by seeing, kinesthetic learning
through active experience by doing, touching and moving while the auditory ones learn by
listening. In Kolb learning style learners are viewed based on how they process information