UE 101 – The Child & Adolescent Learner & Learning

Principles
PRE-FINAL TASKS NO 1: REFLECTIONS
Reflect on the practices of your past teachers. Which ones encouraged your
cognitive development? As a future teacher, what lessons have you learned
from your past teachers regarding ways of enhancing cognitive development?
ANSWER:
At my age right now, I cannot specifically determine how my teachers
processed the development of my cognitive or intellectual skills during my primary and
secondary years.
As far as I could remember, one of my general observations was that majority
of my teachers were more on lecture-discussions, giving assignments, administering
quizzes, and summative tests. It seems that they were more on conventional strategies
and for them these were enough to develop the cognitive domain of the students.
Learning from the conventional type of teaching methodologies used during
my time, I believed that the teachers violate to one principle that states “the
opportunity a child gets to learn the cognitive development. The more opportunity
they get the better is the cognition, because they will be able to add to
their mental capacities by learning through these opportunities.”
Though cognitive is simply defined as “a form of development which refers
to once’s abilities to gain meaning and knowledge from experience
and information.” But what makes it significant?
Cognition is more than just learning information.
Instead, it's the ability to think about new
information, process it and speak about it.
In addition, cognition involves the
 application of this new information to other,
previously acquired information.
As children mature, for example, they develop the ability
to think on higher levels. They can process information more skillfully and make
connections to other information more easily. In other words, their thinking
skills get progressively better.

Children should be able to improve their ability to focus, to remember information and think
more critically as they age. Cognitive skills allow children to understand the
relationships between ideas, to grasp the process of cause and effect and to
improve their analytical skills. All in all, cognitive skill development not
only can benefit your child in the classroom but outside of class as well.
Hence, exposing the children and adolescents to more opportunities through utilizing
varied teaching strategies provide holistic cognitive development of the students.
Another observation was less emphasis for the students to use books and play learning toys or
educational games like scrabble, puzzles, etc., because these are considered as external stimuli which
also provides greater contribution in developing the cognitive skills of the students. External stimuli
such as books and learning toys and games are important in developing cognitive abilities, experts
recommend that children be exposed to books at an early age and little amount of television as this
tends to reduce cognitive development.
There are studies show that prolonged screen time like using TV and
computer games are associated with lower cognitive development, thus, it is
imperative to encourage students to rather read books and play educational games
because a child's cognitive development involves thinking skills - the ability to process
information to understand how the world works. Toys and play naturally provide
opportunities for practicing different thinking skills, such as
imitation, cause and effect, problem solving, and
symbolic thinking. While reading and sharing stories
can: help your child get to know sounds, words
and language, and develop early literacy skills.
learn to value books and stories. spark your child's
imagination and stimulate curiosity.
References:
Canadian Paediatric Society, Digital Health Task Force, Ottawa, Ontario. Screen
time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital
world. Paediatr Child Health. 2017 Nov;22(8):461-477. doi:
10.1093/pch/pxx123. Epub 2017 Oct 9. Erratum in: Paediatr Child Health.
2018 Feb;23 (1):83. PMID: 29601064; PMCID: PMC5823000.

Morin, A. (2020). Why Cognitive Skill Milestone Are Important. VeryWell Family,
retrieved from https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-are-cognitive-
skills-620847

Guyton, G. (n.d.). Using Toys to Support Infant – Toddler Learning and

Dvelopment, retrieved from https://educate.bankstreet.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=faculty-staff

The Australian Parenting Website (2022). Reading and Story Telling with
Babies and Children, retrieved from https://raisingchildren.net.au/
babies/play-learning/literacy-reading-stories/reading-storytelling