Child Development and Education - Softcover

McDevitt, Teresa M.; Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis

3.73

122 ratings by Goodreads

9780137619337: Child Development and Education

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0137619332 ISBN 13: 9780137619337

Publisher: Merrill Pub Co, 2001

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Child Development and Education is the only comprehensive child development book written specifically for educators. The authors focus on concepts and principles that are important to developmental theorists as well as to educational practitioners. The topics were carefully selected to reflect issues that affect school-age children (K-12) and their learning. The text frequently provides detailed chronological examples of children's abilities both in the narrative and in developmental trends tables. For K-12 educators.

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From the Back Cover:

Child Development and Education is a comprehensive child development text written specifically for educators. Focusing on concepts and principles that are important to developmental theorists and to educational practitioners, this text is uniquely useful to those interested in the educational implications of developmental scholarship.

Unique Features:

Applies Developmental Theory to Classroom Practice: Development and Practice features offer concrete educational strategies for facilitating student development. Observation Guidelines tables help the reader develop skills in observing developmental nuances in children and adolescents.

Showcases Real Students and Their Work: The text extensively illustrates concepts and research with cases about and artifacts from real children and adolescents. Authentic case studies begin and end each chapter. The text also makes frequent use of actual artifacts from children's journals, sketchbooks, and school assignments.

Explores the Core Themes in Development: Every chapter examines ways in which development is the complex product of interacting forces—nature, nurture, and children's own efforts. The authors also spotlight universal developmental trends and areas marked with substantial diversity. Finally, the text analyzes developmental changes for their underlying nature: do they take the form of dramatic qualitative changes, or are they the outcome of many small, trend-like quantitative changes?

As psychologists and teacher educators, we have been teaching child and adolescent development for many years. A primary goal in our classes has been to help students translate developmental theories into practical implications for teachers and other professionals who nurture the development of young people. The textbooks we've used in our courses have provided a solid foundation in theory and research but have offered few suggestions for working with children and adolescents in classrooms and other settings.

With this book, we bridge the gap between theory and practice. We draw from innumerable research studies conducted around the world, and from our own experiences as parents, teachers, psychologists, and researchers, to identify strategies for promoting the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional growth of children and adolescents.

Several features of this book make it different from other comprehensive textbooks about child and adolescent development. In particular, this book

Is written specifically for educators
Situates readers among real students and their work
Explores core developmental issues

THE ONLY COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT TEXT WRITTEN SPECIFICALLY FOR EDUCATORS

In selecting material for this book, we focused on concepts and principles that are important to developmental theorists and to educational practitioners. The result is a text that is uniquely useful to those who are interested in practical applications of developmental scholarship.

Educational Implications. Throughout every chapter, you will find extensive discussion of the relevance of this material to teachers and others who work with children. Most major topics contain sections that examine in depth the educational implications of the developmental research and theory being presented. Readers come away not only understanding current views of concepts such as children's theory construction or attachment but also seeing the relevance and application of these ideas to working with children.

Development and Practice. In addition to consistent discussion of application throughout the text itself, we provide "Development and Practice" features that offer concrete educational strategies for facilitating student development. To help our readers move from research to practice, we include actual examples of teachers using particular strategies in classrooms.

Observation Guidelines. To work productively with children and adolescents, one must first be able to interpret their behavior. Knowledge of development provides an essential lens through which teachers must look if they are to understand children. One of the foundational goals of this text is to help teachers observe developmental nuances in their students. To this end, throughout the book we give readers "Observation Guidelines." These features offer specific characteristics to look for in students, present illustrative examples, and provide specific recommendations for teachers.

SITUATES READERS AMONG REAL STUDENTS AND THEIR WORK

Another central focus of this text is to illustrate concepts and research with examples of real children and adolescents. Authentic case studies begin and end each chapter, and there are often separate, shorter vignettes within the bodies of chapters. In addition to these types of illustrations, the text, much more than any other similar text, also makes frequent use of real artifacts from children's journals, sketchbooks, and school assignments. It is among real children and adolescents and in the midst of the work that children and adolescents produce that developmental content becomes meaningful to teachers. More than any other text, Child Development and Education brings this educational context to life.

Case Studies. Each chapter begins with a case that, by being referenced throughout the chapter, is used to help illustrate and frame that chapter's content. A chapter ending case provides readers with an opportunity to apply chapter content to an instructional setting. A series of questions that accompany each of these end-of-chapter cases helps the reader in this application process.

Artifacts from Children and Adolescents. The frequent use of actual artifacts provides another forum for illustrating developmental abilities and issues. Throughout the text, actual examples of children's and adolescents' artwork, poetry, and school assignments are integrated into discussions of various concepts and applications. Not only do these artifacts offer readers authentic illustrations of chapter content, but they also help place developmental research and theory directly within an educational context.

EXPLORES CORE DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

The other major goal of Child Development and Education is to help readers come to a broad conceptual understanding of the field of child development, to make them aware of the foundational ideas and issues that frame the field, and to provide them with a broad sense of how and when children develop various abilities. Throughout all of its chapters, the book consistently examines three core developmental issues—the relationship between biological and environmental influences on development, universality and diversity of developmental changes, and the qualitative and quantitative nature of developmental changes. Though organized topically, the book also provides an overview of developmental changes from a chronological perspective.

Basic Developmental Issues. In every chapter we examine ways in which development is the complex product of interacting forces—nature, nurture, and the children's own efforts. We also spotlight circumstances that reveal fairly universal developmental trends and areas marked with substantial diversity. Finally, we analyze developmental changes for their underlying nature: do they take the form of dramatic qualitative changes, or are they the outcome of many small, trend-like quantitative changes?

Developmental Trends. The book is organized around substantive topics of development to allow for an in-depth examination of each area of development. In the context of this topical approach, however, we also identify the unique characteristics of students during particular periods of growth. In the narrative, we frequently provide detailed chronological examples of children's abilities to give teachers a flavor of what children can do at specific ages. In almost every chapter, one or more "Developmental Trends" tables summarize typical features of four developmental periods: early childhood, middle childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence. These tables also explain common types of individual and group differences and provide instructional implications.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

Accompanying the book are numerous supplementary materials to assist both instructors and students.

INSTRUCTOR AIDS

VIDEOTAPE PACKAGE
Accompanying the textbook are seven videotapes:

Observing Children and Adolescents in School Settings. This videotape depicts a variety of teachers and students in action throughout the elementary and secondary school grades. By observing student-student and teacher-student interactions, viewers refine their abilities to interpret children's and adolescents' behaviors from a developmental perspective and can assess the value of various teaching practices.

ABC News/Prentice Hall Video Library: Issues in Child and Adolescent Development. This videotape includes numerous segments from ABC News programs, Good Morning America, and World News Tonight on a variety of topics, such as advances in brain research, trends in language development, peer and parental influences on children, and an examination of how and why teenagers often think and act differently than children and adults.

Insights into Learning. Three one-hour videotapes provide an in-depth examination of specific aspects of cognitive development:

Using Balance Beams in Fourth Grade. Fourth graders work in small groups to solve problems involving weights on a balance scale. Whole-class discussions show students offering and defending solutions. A college professor presents additional problems to probe the students' reasoning.
Finding Area in Elementary Math. Fifth graders engage in an authentic problem-solving activity in which they must calculate the area of an irregular shape using a prescribed problem-solving sequence. Small-group work and whole-class discussions are included. A college professor presents several transfer tasks to probe the students' reasoning.
Designing Experiments in Seventh Grade. Four seventh graders conduct experiments with a pendulum and discuss how various factors affect the pendulum's oscillation rate. Their teacher then conducts a lesson on separating and controlling variables. A college professor gives the students a transfer task involving separation and control of variables and reflects on the activity.

Double-Column Addition: A Teacher Uses Piaget's Theory. Second graders construct creative strategies for adding and subtracting two-digit numbers and reveal a true understanding of place value. Rather than teaching specific strategies, the teacher helps the students develop their own strategies by presenting problems, asking for possible solutions, and encouraging discussion of various approaches.

A Private Universe. This video illustrates the pervasiveness of misconceptions about two scientific phenomena—the seasons of the year and the phases of the moon-not only in high school students but also in graduates and faculty members of Harvard University. One high-achieving ninth grader's conceptions are portrayed in depth both before and after instruction. Questions that probe her reasoning following instruction reveal that she still holds onto some of her prior misconceptions.

MULTIMEDIA GUIDE
The Multimedia Guide helps instructors direct and enrich students' interpretation and understanding of what they learn from the videos, the compact disk, and the Companion Website. Observation Record tables, similar to the Observation Guidelines tables in the text, help students record their observations and apply their knowledge of child and adolescent development.

TRANSPARENCIES
The instructional transparencies include diagrams, artifacts, and other graphic aids similar to those found in the textbook. These transparencies are designed to help students understand, organize, and remember developmental concepts and theories presented in the text. The transparencies are also available on the Instructor's CD-ROM.

TEST BANK
The test bank that accompanies the textbook contains approximately 50 test items for each chapter. Items include both knowledge-level questions (which ask students to identify or explain basic concepts and principles) and higher-level application questions (which ask students to apply what they have learned to specific situations). The test bank is available in both paper, and electronic formats (Windows and Macintosh platforms).

INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL
This manual offers numerous suggestions and resources for classroom instruction, including learning activities, supplemental lectures, case study analyses, group discussion topics, and additional media resources. Each element has been carefully crafted to provide opportunities to support, enrich, and expand upon what students read in the textbook.

INSTRUCTOR'S CD-ROM
This user-friendly CD-ROM provides lecture-enhancing color PowerPoint transparencies, black and white transparency masters (which can also be used as handouts), answers to end-of-chapter case study questions, in-class and out-of-class activities, and more.

STUDENT SUPPLEMENTS

INTERACTIVE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT
This problem-solving simulation CD-ROM allows students to participate in two "virtual" activities—manipulating variables in a pendulum experiment and assessing moral reasoning—to learn more about Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Kohlberg's theory of moral development. At the end of each simulation, students apply what they have learned to classroom situations.

COMPANION WEBSITE
A Companion Website (CW) provides additional support for studying and learning from the book. For each chapter, the CW includes outlines and summaries, sample multiple-choice and essay questions, links to other Websites relevant to the subject matter, and a glossary of key terms. It also includes a link to Pearson Education's Learning Network and a message board and chat room for out-of-class communication among students and the instructor. You can find this Website at www.prenhall.com/mcdevitt .

STUDENT STUDY GUIDE
The Study Guide has several features to help readers focus their learning and studying in every chapter: (1) a brief chapter overview; (2) a description of common student beliefs and misconceptions that may interfere with effective learning; (3) focus questions that can guide an initial reading of the chapter and, during later review sessions, can provide a means of self-assessing overall comprehension of chapter content; (4) glossary of key terms introduced in the chapter; (5) application exercises that provide practice in recognizing developmental concepts and principles in children's and teachers' behaviors; and (6) sample test questions.

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