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Educational Psychology
Case Study: Development
Your Name
Overall Description
Jeff is an adult male whose age is somewhere in the forties and identifies as himself as Caucasian. He
is a Leeward Community College instructor and considers himself to be middle class. He comes from a
family of educators, and education was always highly valued and encouraged in the house.
Jeff has two older brothers and are relatively close despite everyone living so far away from each
other. Currently, Jeff lives in town, but is considering a move more central because his wife is an
instructor at Windward CC.
His schooling was in a California public school, and Jeff completed his higher education at UH Manoa. Jeff started teaching in
1989 as a physical education instructor at a private K-8 grade school, but most of his background is as a secondary science
teacher. He moved to the islands in 1994.
If Jeff could be any animal, he would most likely be a “golden lab” because they love the water and probably get the most belly
rubs of any of the dog species (although many might argue that fact!).
Jeff’s latest hobby is sailing, and he bought a 22 foot sailboat a few years ago, and has been trying to learn ever since. He says that
he has hit the dock a few times already, so he says that he probably needs some lessons. Watch Jeff’s “Day of the Dolphin Video”
for his encounter with some dolphins while sailing off Diamond Head.
Chose Case Study (Can be anyone, including yourself). Remember that you are required to obtain permission from your Case Study (see instructions)
Provide an overall description of Case Study’s background and interests. Can cover any information that you think will help us get to know your Case Study.
Pictures and videos are great!
This is just a friendly reminder to just use these models as guides of what is expected. Please remember that rearranging the words or substituting a few words here or there still counts as plagiarism!
PLEASE USE THIS EXAMPLE ONLY AS A GUIDE AND DO NOT COPY ANSWERS DIRECTLY INTO YOUR OWN WORK!
BRAIN Development
Section 1: “Expected” Section 2: “Case Study” Section 3: “Teaching Strategy”
According to the Woolfolk text (12th^ ed), the expectation of an adult brain (over 21) is that it is completely developed. This means that his brain has undergone two pruning stages, first as an older child (around age 10 or 11), which removed any unused or weak brain neurons and synapse connections, and then as a young adult (around ages 15-21), which removed any unused or weak brain cells and connections in the pre-frontal cortex (thinking part of the brain).
This also means by removing those unused or overproduced brain cells or connections, the remaining connections, especially in the limbic system (emotions) and cerebral cortex are what determine how an adult thinks and feels.
Despite that fact, an article in Live Science has determined that not only does the adult brain still grows brain cells, those cells may be linked to life- long learning. So, an old dog (or adult) can still learn new tricks!
Jeff is definitely into life-long learning, but stated that he sometimes has trouble recalling information or remembering names of folks and experiences a “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon.
He thinks that this may be due to concussions he experienced playing football for six years as a teenager, or it may be due to just getting older and that brain processes slow down (fluid intelligence) as one gets older.
However, Jeff thinks his crystallized intelligence (long-term memory) remains intact. Besides that memory issue, Jeff’s brain development appears to fall within the expected development in terms of regulating emotion and behavior, planning, and motor skills.
He doesn’t get angry easily, he plans out everything and makes reasonable decisions. (his wife may disagree with that last statement, however! : )
A teaching strategy that will help support Jeff’s difficulty with memory is associating information he wants to remember with a song or music. Video: Say it with a Song: Music to Help Memory This video of a grade teacher who uses simple tunes like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “Jack and Jill” and then associates it with concepts taught in class like what is a noun , pronoun, or adjective.
Sing below to the tune of Fara Shaka “What is a pronoun?” “What is a pronoun?” (point to He) “Now you know!” “Now you know!”
Accurate information is definitely supported when you use the concepts/vocabulary listed in the instructions. (Underlining the terms helps!)
Don’t forget to support information with viable citations and resources (links must work!)
Expected Development is for anyone around your Case Study’s age. What is “expected?” This is where I find out what about all the great things you know about development!
This is where you get to “test” your Case Study to see if s/he is at “expected development”
What might your teaching strategy actually look like when supporting your Case Study’s development?
COGNITIVE (VYGOTSKY) Development
Section 1: “Expected” Section 2: “Case Study” Section 3: “Teaching Strategy”
While Piaget believed that thinking developed without the help of an expert, Vygotsky believed the opposite and that a more knowleadgeable person was essential in cognitive development, which he termed as sociocultural theory.
According to the Woolfolk text (12th^ ed), Vygotsky states that a person’s thinking develops when s/he has the opportunity to talk to an expert or use cultural tools (e.g., books, internet, social media) and both have the opportunity to co-construct new ideas together.
He believed that it is through this language interaction that generates a person’s thought, and he believed that children start out by talking outloud or collective monologue (see video) as a way to regulate their understanding of the world (private speech). Vygotsky believed that as children encounter experts in the society, these teachers would take them from their current thinking (zone of proximal development) and scaffold them to higher thinking with guidance and support. Eventually, this private speech moves inward and becomes our inner dialogue (voice inside our head) (Woolfolk text, 12th^ ed).
In Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development, there are no fixed stages like in Piaget’s theory. However, Vygotsky states that whenever a task is difficult, a person should begin talking outloud as a way to regulate his/her thinking. Thus, I gave Jeff an “intelligence test” to see how he might respond under timed conditions, and I actually observed him start to mutter to himself on a few problems. This tells me that Jeff’s zone of proximal development is being reached and that he would need help if the problem gets any harder.
I did ask Jeff whether he prefers to work alone on a problem or have a teacher help him. He said that he likes to try a problem first, and then get help if he can’t figure it out. However, he said that he uses the internet quite a bit to find help, and so Jeff relies a lot on cultural tools to learn. I would definitely state that since Jeff has developed inner speech and has lots of experience interacting with cultural tools and experts in society. So, I believe that Jeff is within the “expected” level of cognitive development according to Vygotsky for an adult.
A teaching strategy that will help Jeff strengthen his cognitive development according to Vygotsky is to pair him up with a more knowleadgeable peer to solve a problem.
Video: Math Homework Review: Peer Teaching
This video of a 3rd^ grade math teacher who pairs students that don’t understand a particular math problem with those who do understand the math problem.
She has the student pairs work together until the struggling student feels confident to share his/her answer with the whole class. If the student still doesn’t get the solution, then he or she goes back to their “expert” partner and seeks more assistance until the student can solve it on his/her own.
SELF & SOCIAL Development
Section 1: “Expected” Section 2: “Case Study” Section 3: “Teaching Strategy”
According to the Woolfolk text, Bronfenbrenner would expect that an adult’s social development will be influenced by relationships (microsystems) with parenting styles and family structures. If social development is “normal”, then the adult would hopefully have authoritative parents and have developed secure attachments with others.
The adult’s social development would also be influenced by how well s/he resolved Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development. Adults in their 40s should be at the “Generativity vs. Stagnation” stage where a person is trying to feel like s/he is contributing to society. If a person is feeling stagnate, then s/he starts to become more self-absorbed and begins looking for meaning somewhere else.
Much of an adult’s sense of self was developed in the adolescent years where the ultimate goal is identity achievement (pursuing own life path). It is expected that this life path cultivates a strong self- concept where the adult feels good about the life path (self-esteem), and believes that s/he can handle any challenges that might arise (self- efficacy).
Jeff says that he has a good relationship with his family, and his parents were mostly authoritative parents growing up. However, his parents fought often, and as a result Jeff became more withdrawn socially and found solace in being on his own. He describes himself as a nice person and easy to get along with. Growing up, he identified with anyone that was self-reliant, and this eventually resulted in Jeff travelling the world for a few years.
Jeff is currently in Erickson’s “Generativity vs. Stagnation” stage and feels that he has passed successfully through the stage because he loves his work and makes a contribution to society.
Jeff states that he has a strong self-concept academically, he likes being a good student (self-esteem), has a lot of self-confidence in completing academic work, and specifically feels he has high self-efficacy for his work. I would state that while Jeff’s social development bordered on dysfunctional, he falls within the expected range. In addition, Jeff’s strong sense of self and identity is probably a bit more developed than expected because of his current beliefs in himself academically and in his current job.
A teaching strategy that will help Jeff develop social skills is to participate in a peer conference for feedback on work
Video: Peer Conferencing This video of a 7th grade teacher who shows his students how to do a peer conference and how that can help their writing. He has the students get together and after one of the students read the paper, the other student has to write something nice about the paper, suggest an elaboration of a sentence or paragraph, and then ask questions. He provides a clear model of how to do this. Although the teacher thinks of the strategy as a way to get students to think critically about writing, I believe that the steps he teaches his students in the process of doing that are really invaluable social skills. In the video, the students use those skills to communicate ideas in a way that doesn’t hurt the other students’ feelings and to get them to improve their work. Definitely a life skill for developing socially!
