Physical. Social, Moral and Psychological Development: 7-11 years old.
Elementary - 7 to 11 years old.
Physical
Pre-puberty stage: Different growth of body’s shape and size. Some might grow more advanced than others. Some are able to take care of themselves while others still need some assistance from parents, caregivers and other adults whom they interact with daily. Motor’s development during this stage is smoother, well coordinated. They are able to control their bodies within the environment they live in.
Cognitive Development
Concrete Operational Stage: as students begin their school years, their cognitive development also is developed over time through learning and interacting with others and their surrounding environment. Which results in problem solving skills and their thinking process. Often they are basic and systematic (Seifert & Sutton, 2009). But this rigorous building up, layer by layer, can create a foundational construct of facts and logic, that allows the imaginal world to be built atop the concrete world. A conjured abstracted mental world, that is no less rigorously bound to its internal constraints as is the physical world. Which sets up the mind for an infinite recursion of iterative reflection and revision of ideas. This leads to the invention of new ideas.
Social Development
Children begin to question their parental and teaching authorities and begin to look to peers as primary sources of social guidance. They are sensitive to other’s behaviors, “making connections between their emotional expressions, words, and behavior to derive simple inferences about mental states” (Thomson, 2013, para. 22). This emergence helps children develop temperament and later their conscience.
Moral Development
Both non-conformity in the name of individual expression and conformity for the sake of fitting in become paramount, dependending on psychological makeup and social milieu of the child. Peer’s approval matters greatly at this stage, and pressure can lead to rebelliousness. And interpersonal relationships gain new emphasis, particularly with regard to romantic interests. They begin to be aware of their and other’s actions and are able to identify wrongdoings (Thompson, 2013). Issues of bullying and relational consent become essential to the discussion in health class.
Implication To Teaching
Through social interaction, the child will assimilate and internalize this knowledge, adding to their personal values, and this transition between social and personal in Vygotsky’s own words “ isn’t a mere copy” (Turuk, 2008, p.246). Students learn through their interactions with their teachers and this transforms during their process of appropriation. Visualization and reflective practices are vital to the development of their higher order thinking. Scaffolding is a form of assistance that enables a novice learner to learn new tasks by using language and sharing experiences of others, as learning tools, critical in the development of a student's cognitive ability.
References
Seifert, K., & Sutton, R. (2009). Educational psychology. The Saylor Foundation. https%3A%2F%2Fwww.saylor.org%2Fsite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F06 %2FEducational-Psychology.pdf
Thompson, R. (2013). Social and personality development in childhood. NOBA. http://nobaproject.com/modules/social-and-personality-development-in-childhood licensed under CC -BY-NC- SA 4.0.
Turuk, M. (2008). The relevance and implication of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in the second language classroom.
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.454.8972&rep=rep1&type=p
df#page35
