The Cognitive Adolescent - Essay Example

Running header: THE COGNITIVE ADOLESCENT The Cognitive Adolescent Name Instructor The Cognitive Adolescent Cognitive development refers to the progressive development in ability to think and reason, in this case for adolescents. This deliberate progression begins from simple basic concepts of thinking and response at birth like copying what adults around do to complex concepts of analysis, reflective indulgence and deductive reasoning at maturity. Human development in age brings different levels of cognitive acumen especially with learning capabilities in and out of school. Understanding these developmental peculiarities is key to understanding behavioural responses of children at different stages of learning. Not only does it affect educational development but also to a greater extent determines adolescent behaviour in entirety. The stages in reference in this essay are early (year 7/8) and late (year 11/12) adolescence. The cognitive processes taken for study herein are formal operational thought, meta-cognition and creative thinking to be analyzed with respect o the aforementioned adolescent stages. Formal operational thought and meta-cognition are processes that are as hard delineating in black and white as it is exhaustively presenting their scope in adolescent educational behaviour with the brevity required for this essay. Nonetheless, formal operational thought postulated by Jean Piaget is the earlier of the two in precedence referring to the shift from concrete operational thought where mental processes are used by children to clarify alterations in concrete events and objects to use of operations to control and alter thoughts by adolescents. For creative thinking, the scope encompasses usurping novel approaches to usual problems for originality (Borkowski, Carr & Pressely, 1987). The change in late (year 11/12) adolescent stage in approach to thinking is the beginning of formal operational thought. Here, there is a transition from concrete thinking that draws most from objects and things being sought after to more complex analytical conceptualization of situations and occurs over time. The adolescent begins developing his/her own view of the world and begins forming an opinion and affiliation. In others, they form this opinion towards logical operations in class work before being able to apply it to their personal dilemmas. Emotional issues have big impact in the adolescent’s continuance in thinking in such complex way. Further more, ability to engage facts and possibilities usually have a bias in his/her decision making be it negatively or positively. In school, the adolescent begins to verbalize his/her own views on a variety of issues such as games to play, groups to belong to and begins to find fault in certain school rules . Authority he/she is bound to operate under becomes an issue of discussion to refute. This may be observed by the behaviour in class towards certain subjects and/or teachers forming a general dislike or liking in it either becoming stubborn, removed and disinterested or active, attentive and inquisitive. Formal operational thought also affects the relational behaviour of the adolescent that has a bearing on his/her learning experience. With the formation of personal opinion, the adolescent becomes choosy instituting affiliation groups. This maybe considered the riskiest of all developmental changes she/he undergoes in that, should they err in their choosing and join bad company, then in retrospect, their performance may be deterred. Observation by teachers at this stage is key in helping adolescents from sinking in self-destruction, what has been well described by Henry Raichena as ‘protecting adolescents against themselves’ (Laurence, 2005). Given the extent to which technological advancements now pervade human experience through media, print and electron, bearing a huge impact especially on adolescents, their behaviour is greatly shaped by these media ideas. As their experimental quest is fumed with curiosity, they become prone to peer pressure more than any other time. In so doing, just like for on-school groupings, they become hell-bent to find identity in such groupings that elate their ego and self worth. In the same way, when proper overt guidance is not instituted, they may end up ruining their learning with bad company. Further more, according to its postulator, Piaget; it is a period in which logical thought, deductive thinking and systematic planning emerge. Deductive logic is the ability to use a general principle to determine a specific outcome and involves hypothetical situations necessary for mathematics and science. Together with systematic thinking, adolescents’ presentation in class wok becomes deterministic and can be traced as being logical revealing idea after idea. A clear deliberate intent to understand concepts as opposed to mere cramming of concepts becomes observable. But of course this is in specific relation to individual academic capabilities. Summing it all up, formulated operational stage comes leads students to systematically approach a problem in a methodological way. At the late adolescent stage, this is clear in the approach the learners devise towards studies in the thought of group discussions and competitive clubs as the case may be (Sternberg, 1984). Close to formulated operational thought in cognitive development is meta-cognition. It involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning enabling learners to be successful and is associated with intelligence (Borkowski, Carr, & Pressley, 1987; Stenberg, 1984, 1986 1986b). Activities to the effect of planning how to approach a learning task and evaluating progress towards completing a task are meta-cognitive. By it learners are able to analyze comprehensions and form basic academic understanding. Level of particular interest in this analysis is the early adolescent stage, the initial developmental stage critical to learning. Flavell (1979- 1987), the father of meta-cognition, defined it to be made up of meta-cognitive knowledge and meta-cognitive experiences both of which are key in human processes of learning. Meta-cognitive knowledge among other things encompasses how human beings learn and process knowledge as well as individual knowledge about ones own learning process. Here the young ones begin to understand approaches that work for them in class. During learning, it is observable that he/she becomes inquisitive in trying to get a balance of the best study process that suits for him/her. One starts to realize for instance that he understands better and completes his/her assignments when he works from a quiet room rather than a noisy class. Specific interest in the young minds begins to build in relation to others’ way of study and approaches to learning. The adolescent engages in a wide variety of attempts towards better self-understanding as relates to study skills. Meta-cognitive experience involves the use of meta-cognitive strategies (Brown, 1987) which are processes one uses to ensure that a cognitive goal has been met. The process regulates learning by its planning and monitoring of cognitive activities and considering their outcomes. In a class setting, the adolescent becomes more objective in handling learning tasks such as reading comprehension where the earlier simple purpose of finishing the task matures into a more complex objective of understanding the comprehension. He/she eventually has the ability to gauge whether the goal (of understanding the text) has been met to which if not, he/she voluntarily finds it necessary to re-read the comprehension. This meta-cognitive process of self-questioning to gauge whether the goal of performing a task has bee met leads to bolder persuasions that reinforce the learners’ capabilities. Since the learner realizes that there is a goal for doing any single thing and if it is not met then it is as good as if not done at all, his consultative ties begin to broaden. The first primary response in pursuit of attaining the goal (say understanding a text) is re-reading it but in the event that he/she fails to understand after repeated reading, he/she finds it appropriate to consult a friend or teacher. During class sessions, the learners have their objective skewed towards understanding and therefore are inquisitive. The teacher should be careful to realize this stage so as not to dismiss these genuine attempts to grasp concepts by learners interrupting the flow of the lesson with questions since shutting them up may have deleterious effects on their learning process. After establishing their study strengths, this stage sees the learners develop the ability to choose problems that are easily understandable by them over harder ones. For instance, when one works with ease through arithmetic problems involving plain figures as opposed to words and logic, he/she becomes categorical in preferring to tackle the easier problems first (those involving figures) before handling the harder ones (word and logic problems) in the case of an exam (Scheid, 1993). Petty things become a subject of discussion for these young minds as establishing reasons behind some natural or even man-made phenomena become points of fantasy. At home, the adolescent no longer accepts rules with the surface value and would rather want to either experience why there are regulations against some things or would want to be explained to. More often than not, parents and/or guardians run in conflicts with these young adolescents with their increased curiosity and yearn for explanations. Outside class, the learners become greatly engrossed in activities that gnaw on their curiosity. This finds proof in the kinds of games they end up preferring to others or the kinds of foods they choose for no particular reason other than curiosity. The learner is more interested in engaging in activities that appeal to his curiosity with the intention of elucidating any mysteries he/she finds in whatever curiosity they have. This explains why other learners choose to engage in quiet, non-physical co-curricula activities such as board games, indoor games and mind games (puzzles) while others prefer rough, physical and tedious games such as rugby, soccer and weight lifting (James, 1890). The last of the three case studies in cognitive processes under discussion is creative thinking. The cliché, thinking out of the box, gives this process an overall generalized outlook. It is a higher developmental stage that is overt in late adolescent stage where the learner becomes interested with exploiting other possible ways of approach in solving problems both academic and in relation to personal dilemmas and challenges. This stage kind of overlaps the two previously discussed processes in expanse as it incorporates all the skills involved in the other processes albeit at a higher order of understanding and application (what may be called maturity or mastery). Logical thinking precedes all other cognitive processes at this stage. The learners have a level of command on logical and systematic thinking and can engage issues objectively and holistically. Previous experiences form a rich arsenal from which wisdom is selected in decision making and coming up of new ideas of approach. For the relentless, intimidation by failure or discouragement does not waiver their pursuit for novelty and in the same measure, for the impatient, delving into the arduous quest of new ideas and pride in originality quickly weighs them down and usually resign themselves to workaday concepts and approaches. This therefore creates a clear distinct difference in performance and personal presentation (etc) of the adolescents in school and at home (Pashler, 1998). At this stage, adolescents are equally prone to being misunderstood as they are at formal operational thought level only that here their obsession with new ways of approach becomes the bone of contention. It is so in that some may completely derail towards non-profitable endeavours such as belief in extant foreign concepts that appear exhilarating most of which many times appeal to intuition hence cults. Guidance is therefore very important at this level and a closer observation of what these adolescents engage in with their creativity is to be considered. Be that as it may, chances of creative thinking being derailed into self-destruction are minimal. This cognitive process on the contrary manifests most in such school activities as symposiums and Science Congresses. Here the creativity of learners is encouraged by giving them an opportunity to present existing (or otherwise) concepts with a touch of originality. Students therefore find it easier to engage their metaphoric minds and creativity in explaining these concepts with a whole new approach (Halpern, 1996). As indicated above, this stage is the apex of comprehension, analysis and application of issues experienced or learned. Learners therefore find it not enough to entirely accept a single approach taught in class and will choose to delve deeper into presenting the same idea using a different approach. It is thus easier to find this cognitive process in full application in science and humanity related subjects as opposed to mathematics and physics for the basic reason that physical laws are governed by a code of authenticity unrivaled whereas the relativism that is core to human conditions depicted in human-relate subjects makes invention of different theories explaining the same concepts easily tenable (Garner, 1990). It is however imperative to reiterate that of the three cognitive processes, creative thinking in addition to being the most complex and highly developed, is highly affected by other individualistic factors as temperament, character and individual resilience. This therefore makes analysis of this cognitive process hard since what may be so overt in an adolescent to almost be thought as a definite result of critical thinking may be so silent in another to almost be thought absent hence discrediting it as a component of creative thinking. Fascinating, is the kind of effect these other factors such as temperament and perseverance have on creativity. This is not say that creativity lacks in others, far from that! In fact, in Brian Clarks’ article Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?; he asserts that denying one’s creativity is like denying one is a human being (Flavell, 1979). In conclusion therefore, as analyzed by foregoing postulates, cognitive adolescents undergo different cognitive developmental stages that affect their behaviour and learning processes either positively or negatively almost in the same measure. It is therefore so imperative for teachers/parents/guardians to keep a keen eye on these young minds in guidance since there is no good or bad stage; it all depends on the measures taken to reap the most from these stages. For the purposes of school learning that is core to this essay, it is the duty of teachers to understand these distinct stages and their characteristics to be able to help adolescents in both early (year 7/8) and late (year 11/12) stages gain most in their learning process. Reference Borkowski, J., Carr, M., & Pressely, M. (1987). "Spontaneous" strategy use: Perspectives from met cognitive theory. Intelligence, 11, 61-75. Brown, A. L. (1987). Met cognition, executive control, self-regulation, and other more Mysterious mechanisms. In F. E. Weinert & R. H. Kluwe (Eds.), Met cognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 65-116). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Flavell, J. H. (1979). 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