Re: [Phys-l] Pedagogy & development

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

While it is true that the brain changes after age 18, some of the biggest
change appears to happen at age 10+.  Essentially this is when the
prefrontal lobes develop dramatically and Lawson has shown that this
significantly dampens excessive impulsivity.  So this sets the stage for
achieving the "formal operational" level as tested by a Piagetian test.  The
prospects for this are actually poor for most students because only 20% are
at this level by the end of high school, and only 30% of adults achieve this
level of thinking.

Arons points out that up to 80% of elementary Ed majors have been able to
achieve this level when a research based intervention is used.  Elementary
ed majors tend to be concrete operational, so this is a huge jump.
According to Shayer & Adey ("Really Raising Standards", based on their JRST
papers), students can not understand a 3 variable equation if they are below
the formal operational level.

My contention was that the most important thing is to provide the necessary
experiences so that students can achieve the higher level of thinking, and
that this is necessary for understanding of physics.  The development after
age 18-26 seems to dampen destructive behavior, but the higher level of
thinking is achievable well before that age range as Shayer & Adey
demonstrated in middle school.

I would suggest reading the articles by Lawson, Renner, Karplus in JRST and
other journals about this research.  I would also highly recommend Lawson's
book "Science teaching and the development of reasoning".  It contains
references to a lot of the relevant research.

Notice that I did not say that brain development stopped at age 18, but
rather that the prior brain development at 10+ was the crucial factor in
building student understanding of physics.  But just physical growth is not
adequate, and there needs to be environmental stimulation to complete the
development.  The Dartmouth article mentions the environment as an important
factor.  However the usual methods of teaching are not optimal in producing
the needed brain development.  Here I would again refer to the research of
Lawson et al.  Indeed the learning cycle was originally developed to promote
cognitive enhancement, and not just curriculum enhancement.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> Hi all-
>  	In order to add context to some of Professor Clement's
> pronouncements on brain development in context, I entered
>  	"brain development after age 25" (without the quotes)
> into Google and got nearly 8,000,000 hits.  The first one, which seems to
> confirm my own understanding, might be helpful to other non-experts such
> as myself:
>  	www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2006/02/06.html
>  					Regards,
>  						Jack