Slide 1
A Topical Approach to
LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT
16
Schools, Achievement,
and Work
John W. Santrock
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 2
Schools
Contemporary Approaches to
Student Learning and Assessment
• Direct Instruction Approach
– Teacher-centered approach characterized by
• Teacher direction and control
• Mastery of academic material
• High expectations for students’ progress
• Maximum time spent on learning tasks
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 3
Schools
Accountability in Schools
• State-mandated tests have taken on a more
powerful role — No Child Left Behind
• Critics argue that they lead to
– Single score being used as sole predictor
– Teaching to test; use of memorization
– Tests don’t measure important skills like creativity
and social skills
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 4
Schools
Schools and Developmental Status
• Early childhood education
– Many ways young children are educated
• The child-centered kindergarten
– Emphasizes the whole child
• Physical, cognitive, socioemotional development
• Needs, interests, and learning style
• Emphasizes learning process
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 5
Schools
Schools and Developmental Status
• Montessori approach
– Teacher is facilitator
– Children encouraged to be early decision makers
– Fosters independence and cognitive
development skills
– De-emphasizes verbal interactions
– Criticisms vary
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 6
Schools
Developmentally Appropriate and
Inappropriate Education
• Developmentally appropriate practice —
focuses on typical development of children
within age span (age appropriateness) and
uniqueness of each child (individual
appropriateness)
• Developmentally inappropriate practice —
relies on abstract paper-and-pencil activities
given to large groups
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 7
Schools
Elementary School
• Change from “home-child’’ to “school-child”
• New roles and obligations
• Too often, early schooling has more negative
feedback; lowers child’s self-esteem
• Teachers often pressured to cover curriculum;
– Tight scheduling; may harm children
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 8
Schools
High School
• Concerns about education and students
– Graduate with inadequate skills
– Enter college needing remediation classes
– Student drop out rates
• Ethnic and racial differences
• Gender differences
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 9
Schools
Effective Schools for Young
Adolescents
• Effective programs
that discourage high
school dropping out
include
–
–
–
–
Reading programs
Tutoring
Counseling
Mentoring
• ‘I Have A Dream’
program
– Projects adopt entire
public grade level or
cohorts in housing
projects
– Gives college tuition
to high school grads
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 10
Schools
Educating Children with Disabilities
• Approximately 10 percent of children
in the U.S. receive special education
or related services
• More than 40% have a learning
disability
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 11
Diversity of Children Who Have A Disability
Fig. 16.4
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 12
Schools
Learning Disabilities
• Learning disability characteristics:
– A minimum IQ level
– A significant difficulty in a school-related area
– No other conditions, such as
• severe emotional disorders
• second-language background
• sensory disabilities
• specific neurological deficits
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 13
Schools
Learning Disabilities
• Dyslexia — severe impairment in ability to
read and spell
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
– Inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity
– Definitive causes unknown
– Higher risk if a sibling already diagnosed
– Medications are most common treatment
– Other treatment recommendations vary
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 14
Schools
SES and Ethnicity in Schools
• Low-income, ethnic minority children face
more difficulties in school
• School inequalities
– Schools in poor areas
• underfunded
• young inexperienced teachers
• largely segregated
– Inadequate opportunities for effective learning
– ‘The Shame of a Nation’
– Ethnic school experiences vary across groups
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 15
Schools
Improving relationships among ethnically
diverse students
• Turn class into jigsaw
classroom
• Use technology to
foster cooperation
• Positive personal
contact with diverse
other students
• Engage in perspective
taking
• Help students think
critically and be
emotionally intelligent
• Reduce bias
• View school and
community as team
• Be competent cultural
mediator
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 16
Achievement
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic
Intrinsic
•
Incentives such as
rewards and
punishments
• Factors such as selfdetermination, curiosity,
challenge, and effort
•
Rewards can
undermine motivation
• Increased by
opportunity for choices
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 17
Achievement
Self-Determination and Choice
•
Student internal motivation and intrinsic
interest in school tasks increase when
more opportunities for choice available
•
Some rewards can undermine learning;
rewards most effective with high interest
•
Rewards convey mastery information
•
Developmental shifts
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 18
Achievement
Mastery Motivation
• Mastery orientation — task-oriented;
concerned with learning strategies
• Helpless orientation — one seems trapped
by difficulty and attributes one’s difficulty to
a lack of ability
• Performance orientation — achievement
outcomes; winning matters
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 19
Achievement
Self-Efficacy
• Mindset; cognitive view of oneself
– Fixed mindset: ‘carved in stone’
– Growth mindset: belief in change
– promotes optimistic or pessimistic outlook
• Self-Efficacy
– Belief that one can master a situation and
produce favorable outcomes
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 20
Achievement
Goal-Setting, Planning, and
Self-Monitoring
• Self-efficacy and achievement improve
when individuals set goals that are
– Specific
– Proximal (short-term)
– Challenging
• Can set both long and short-term goals
• Expectations linked to outcomes/efforts
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 21
Achievement
Ethnicity and Culture
• Ethnicity and Achievement
– Often tangled with Socioeconomic Status
• SES better predictor of achievements
• Many minorities challenged by
– Negative stereotypes and discrimination
– Poverty
– Culture and conflicting neighborhood values
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 22
Careers, Work, and Retirement
Retirement
• Option to retire late twentieth-century
phenomenon in U.S.
• Today’s workers will spend 10 to 15
percent of their lives in retirement
• Flexibility is key factor in adjustment
• Retirement planning includes more than
successful financial planning
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 23
16
The End
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.