Reflective Teaching

Introduction

Before I read on the selected articles on Child Development my understanding of the various stages of growth from infancy to adolescence was rather shallow. I knew each stage of a child development only superficially and cannot relate much to connect the physical, cognitive, social emotional, moral, and neuro-biological development to the theories postulated by Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Erik Erikson, Jerome, Brunner, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Abrahma Maslow, Howard Gardner, B. F. Skinner, John Watson, and numerous other psychologist (LifespanDevelopment, n.d.).

This summative reflection will narrate how I have acquired mastery of the various stages of a child’s development at different age levels. My evolution of professional practice in the application of specific differentiated needs in my milieu and limitations will be discussed. I will elaborate on the educational implications I have achieved through reading on child development with regards to concepts through observational learning, incrementally changing my quality response towards my student, and offering a child a verbal or non-verbal cue for appropriate behaviour ?(Zhou & Brown, 2017).

Professional Practice

My thoughts on infancy from birth to three years of a child age was dramatically changed as I saw how my readings informed me that the first 36 months of a child's life could be model, shaped, and cued by a caregiver who understands the sensory and motor-skills ability of an infant. I recently read on 28 Dec 2021 in The Straits Times, our daily newspaper, that a six-month old baby boy named Yong Jing Yu was found dead after the caregiver left him sleeping in the playpen. The baby had apparently?stopped breathing before he was admitted to Sengkang General Hospital on that day (Lim, 2021). This awoken me to what I have learned in relation to an infant’s sensitivity to their environment and objects around them, and how safety measures must always be observed during this stage of growth (Guy-Evans, 2020). In another incident on July 19, 2021, a 16-year male youth slashed and murdered a 13-year-old schoolmate at a toilet at River Valley High School in Singapore with an axe (Sun, 2021). This made headline news and the talk of the town. This tragic event revealed the sad development of the 16-year-old youth that has been diagnosed with a mental disorder much earlier. This episode has again reminded me of the need to contain objects of danger and to closely supervise youths at risk. In my reading on the adolescent brain and the theory of the mind, I understood that adolescent brain although fully developed can have internal defects and sudden outbreak and if left undetected by caregivers or medical specialist may lead to dire consequences? (Thompson, 2018).

Educational Implications

As I am currently teaching many adolescents between 16 to 19 years old from diverse backgrounds all over Asia, I had the privilege to get to know some of their personalities. This is the stage where most of my students are exploring their identities. I have spoken to some students who think that the people around them just do not understand what they are going through. There are some who believe that adults are rather stupid. They are some who strive to learn to become a more responsible and independent student. These variability in personalities informed me of how I can relate to my student’s hormonal changes, imbalances in rational-logical thinking, and their perspectives and equitable views of others (Siegler, 2013). My encounters with many teenagers reminded me of Erikson’s psychosocial development where their ego identity versus role diffusion is at work. Teenagers developed a sense of what they are as well as who they are. This is the stage where youths are constantly experiencing the low or high exploration versus low or high commitment. A youth can have a sense of self without commitment, or a youth can think they know who they are but have not explored their options, or a youth can decide to join a party without knowing much about what the party is all about, or a youth can make a commitment with a sense of self. In my interactions with youths of various ethnicities, and cultural values, other beliefs must also be considered as part of developing my curriculum and instructional design (Rathus, 2018).

Observational Learning and quality response

A powerful instructional method of engaging my students would be watching and listening to my students. This method has given me so many insights into the way my students speak, play, touch, smile, move, interact, connect, and move around. Sometimes these observations help me to relate better to my students (Mcleod, 2018). I have experienced just watching two of my students playing and discover so much about their behaviors that enable me design personalised instructional activities. I sometimes just draw objects and write instructions on the whiteboard and remain silent. This allows my student to response to objects I have drawn and written and create an icebreaker. Sometimes I wish every student could speak up in my class, however, to receive a quality response from a few students is better than having all students speaking freely. I believe we all learned from good narratives like a personal story. My personal story in my education journey is that I met with several adult students of education from different parts of the world, and I know how they feel, think, and work through observing our Pecha Kucha project developed over the past several weeks. I certainly had some very good quality responses from my encounters with my peers.

Appropriate behavior

The literature review on child development has given me the motivation to re-learn, re-think, and re-imagine my approaches to be a role model to my students to gain their respect and develop their self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-restraint, and confidence. I have developed a sense of moral commitment to serve those less privileged children in my community to nurture them into useful citizens for the world. I aspire and hope to be a caring, responsible, civic-minded teacher undergirded by social and emotional competence. I also realized that I have limitations to be fully honest and vulnerable in my holistic development and will continuously strive to be a better teacher to my learners (Zak, 2017).

Conclusion

The summative reflection has crystallized my thoughts through the words of Maria Montessori that teaching should first be to seek a child’s internal interest or the child’s soul to learn. Once this has been achieved the environment must be conducive to creating opportunities for the child to develop. The first object that the famous deaf and blind Helen Keller communicates at her childhood years was to say the word “water” and this object brought her revival through her most resilient teacher. This has inspired me to be that teacher. I hope to apply the many experiential learnings I have with students from various age levels I will be encountering and interacting with in the foreseeable future.

References

Guy-Evans, O. (9 November, 2020). Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory. Retrieved from SimplyPsychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html

LifespanDevelopment. (n.d.). Lifespan Development. Retrieved 2 January, 2021, from Lumen Learning: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/lifespandevelopment2/

Lim, J. (28 December, 2021). 6-month-old boy found motionless at nanny's home; police investigating. Retrieved from The Straits Times: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/community/6-month-old-baby-boy-found-motionless-at-nannys-home-died-of-cardiorespiratory-failure

Mcleod, S. A. (3 May , 2018). Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. Retrieved from SimplyPsychology: file:///F:/UoPeople%20-%20MED/EDUC%205410/EDUC%205410%20Unit%207/Reading%20Materials/simplypsychology.org-Erik-Erikson.pdf

Rathus, S. A. (2018). Child and Adolesecent Development. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Siegler, R. (2013). Cognitive development in childhood. Retrieved from NOBA: https://nobaproject.com/modules/cognitive-development-in-childhood#content

Sun, D. (9 September, 2021). River Valley High School student charged with murder has been meeting family. Retrieved from The Straits Times: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/river-valley-high-school-student-charged-with-murder-has-been-meeting-family

Thompson, R. (2018). Social and personality development in childhood. Retrieved from NOBA: https://nobaproject.com/modules/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood

Zak, P. (2017). Trust Factor - The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies. New York: AMACOM.

Zhou, M. Y., & Brown, D. (2017). Educational learning theories. In Educational Psychology Commons. Retrieved 20 November, 2021, from https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=education-textbooks

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