Cognitive Development

Today was the first day I got to spend with MayZin while she was in class. She didn’t talk about anything other than the work at hand. She is mostly working on basic algebra rules right now. The teacher took a few minutes today to explain order of operations. After the lecture MayZin opened up her Google drive and showed me her which activity she is working on this week. The main objective of the activity is students should be able to write functions in terms of variables they are given. MayZin struggled with this assignment, and there are two reasons I believe that was the case. The first reason is maybe her math classes in the past have been inconsistent over the past few years. The second reason I thought she might be struggling is the vocabulary and terms that are used. A lot of algebra is the ability to interpret and understand the different units of measurement, and language barriers can make that complicated. I believe the language barrier is the likelier of the two reasons for her misunderstanding, because when I rephrased the question and asked her guiding questions she was able to figure out the answer.

I already talked about my assumptions that I had about MayZin this week. When she started struggling with her math activity I automatically thought that she didn’t understand the material, but as I kept asking her guiding questions I realized that she understands the material very well, she just doesn’t understand the language used. The issue was not an inability to understand the content, but a language barrier. When I was able to work past that I was able to see that she understands the content very well.

The example above is a great example of my partner’s cognitive development. According to Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development MayZin is supposed to be able to think logically and abstractly (pg. 63 Arnett, J. J., 2013). Piaget’s stages of development put MayZin in the age range where formal operations are developed. Algebra requires students to be able to think abstractly. Math is no longer concrete and specific numbers. It becomes variables that represent all possible numbers for the rule. Forming algebraic equations and expressions requires the ability to understand abstract ideas. Formal development is the stage where abstract thinking develops. MayZin shows that she can think abstractly because she understands the content, in this case forming algebraic expressions, she just struggles with the language. She shows that she cognitively is ready to do complex work. She knew how to answer the questions when I asked her guiding questions; this shows me that she has reached formal operations. **** Add MayZin's ability to take notes in Reading class using symbols and letters****

Biography:

Arnett, J. J. (2013). Adolescence and emerging adulthood: A cultural approach (Fifth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.