This document discusses the cognitive and academic development of middle school children, focusing on their logical and metacognitive thinking abilities. It explores how teachers can encourage this development through activities and questioning techniques. The document also includes references to relevant research studies.
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Running head: MIDDLE SCHOOL COGNITIVE/ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL/COGNITIVE ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT Name of the Student: Name of the University: Author note:
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1MIDDLE SCHOOL COGNITIVE/ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT Cognitive Process: The stage of middle school, comprising of children within the age group of 7 to 11 years, is characterize by Jean Piaget as the ‘concrete operational stage’. Cognition in middle school children now becomes more logical and hence, allows them to view and understand other people’s perspectives in a situation logically, rather than viewing it egoistically. Hence, children understand logical concepts of power, influence and responsibilities of others (Lourenço, 2016). Children’s cognitive abilities also acquire logic at this stage – hence, resulting in development of metacognitive abilities like questioning, reasoning and ‘thinking of thinking’. Hence, for example, during reading a story, children will find it difficult to explain a character’s stance hypothetically but will still try to explain the same using reasoning and logic. Cognitive improvement in memory further allows middle school children can now focus on multiple questions asked by the teacher or conjure multiple answers to one question (Donelly et al., 2016). EncouragingthisProcess:Teachers,inordertoencouragelogical,metacognitiveand multidimensional thinking, can encourage students to read stories and contemplate on their opinions of why a character acted in a particularly way. The teacher can further incorporate more probing and thought provoking questions such as asking students to explain what they might have done in the situation (Wigfield, Gladstone & Turci, 2016). To further hone the child’s developing logical thinking the teacher can further incorporate problem solving arithmetic sums (Example: Who is the tallest if X is taller than Y and Z is half the height of Y?) and encourage them to answer the same by drawing and mathematic steps (Warshauer, 2015). To further developchildren’sabilitytograspabstractconceptsregardingtheirsurroundingsand hypothetical thinking, teachers can conduct nature based activities such as identification of flowers, gardening or the role of trees in nature (Dietrichson et al., 2017).
2MIDDLE SCHOOL COGNITIVE/ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT References Dietrichson, J., Bøg, M., Filges, T., & Klint Jørgensen, A. M. (2017). Academic interventions for elementary and middle school students with low socioeconomic status: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Review of Educational Research,87(2), 243-282. Donnelly, J. E., Hillman, C. H., Castelli, D., Etnier, J. L., Lee, S., Tomporowski, P., ... & Szabo- Reed,A.N.(2016).Physicalactivity,fitness,cognitivefunction,andacademic achievement in children: a systematic review.Medicine and science in sports and exercise,48(6), 1197. Lourenço, O. M. (2016). Developmentalstages, Piagetianstages in particular: A critical review.New Ideas in Psychology,40, 123-137. Warshauer, H. K. (2015). Productive struggle in middle school mathematics classrooms.Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education,18(4), 375-400. Wigfield, A., Gladstone, J. R., & Turci, L. (2016). Beyond cognition: Reading motivation and reading comprehension.Child development perspectives,10(3), 190-195.