Cluster 1 – Principle referring to Cognitive and Metacognitive Facts to Intermediate schoolers

Nature of the learning process

Since children in this stage are already in their childhood, rapid development of mental
skills is evident. The learning of complex subject matter of intermediate schoolers is most
effective when it is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information and
experience.

Goals of the learning process

Intermediate school children greatly enjoy the abilities that they can now utilize. Their
thinking skills have become more effective as compared during their primary years.The
successful learner, over time and with support and instructional guidance, can create
meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge.

Context of learning

Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology, and

instructional practices. The school and the home provide children with unlimited access to
media, not only television and computers, but also videos, movies, comic books and music
lyrics. The responsibility now lies with the parents, teachers and the whole community. It
should be a collective effort among the factors working together to support children in every
aspect of development.

Application of the Principle in the Teaching – Learning Process of Intermediate

Group discussion on Howard Gardner’s quotation on intelligence; Lecture; Research

Cluster 2 – Principle referring to Motivational and Affective Factors to Intermediate Schoolers

Motivational and emotional influences on learning

Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual’s emotional states, beliefs,

interests and goals, and habits of thinking. Encourage different responses from each child;
Celebrate uniqueness; Break stereotypes; Value process over product; Reduce stress and anxiety
of children; Support to share ideas, not only with the teacher / parent but also with other
children; Minimize competition and external rewards.

Intrinsic motivation to learn

The learner’s creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to
motivation to learn. Intermediate students are intrinsically motivated if they love or enjoy what
they are doing if there is a reward or incentive for it.
 Effects of motivation on effort

Motivation uplifts intermediate student’s enthusiasm about the activities presented to

them. Once they get motivated to achieve something by doing the tasks, they will eventually
exert their full effort, time, and energy. In this way, they become determined or persistent in
accomplishing things even if these are not of their interest. This will also determine if they are
pursuing such tasks on a voluntary or on a compulsory basis. You will recognize it from an
intermediate schooler in their actions. Intermediate schoolers are still exploring the world, they
still not know how things should be approached. While their peers and families are cheering for
the kid, the kid thinks that what he is doing is right, regardless if it's right or wrong. And
because of it, while the kid thinks he is bringing joy to his surroundings, his actions are more
exaggerated to please them.

Application of the Principle in the Teaching – Learning Process of Intermediate

Group work showing different common dream jobs for kids like policeman; chef; doctor; teacher; etc.

Cluster 1 – Principle referring to Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors to High Schoolers

Nature of the learning process

Goals of the learning process
Construction of knowledge

The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful
ways.

Strategic Thinking

The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning
strategies to achieve complex learning goals.

Context of learning

Application of the Principle in the Teaching – Learning Process of High Schoolers

Have them to think of what they are doing or thinking, then ask them why, individually.

Cluster 2 – Principle referring to Motivational and Affective Factors to High Schoolers

Motivational and emotional influences on learning

High school learners who are afraid to try out new things or tasks happen to get
pressured because of their weaknesses. Sometimes, they just don’t want to commit mistakes. In
order to motivate them, it would really be best to know what their strengths are and focus on
 those things first before trying to deal with their weaknesses. When they are confident enough
that they can do things they are good at, it would be easier to target their weaknesses and flaws
and work on them little by little.

Intrinsic motivation to learn

Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty relevant to

personal interests, and providing for personal choice of control. Intermediate students are
intrinsically motivated if they love or enjoy what they are doing even if there is no reward or
incentive for it. In a book titled Motivation and Cognitive Control by Todd Braver, he implies
that individuals are not extending their full capabilities when it comes to cognitive engagement
or development. Motivation affects how an individual pays attention to specific information and
attempts to understand the learning materials through experiences, thoughts, ideas and senses
rather than just going through the process of rote learning.

Effects of motivation on effort

According to some researches, high school learners motivation to study or acquire a new
set of skills can change within a short span of time or with some barriers along the way. Since
that they are so focused on studying on high school, some tends to don't do any things that are
irrelevant to their studies. Because of these, they are more active on their studies, while
forgetting what they really want in life. Those students who are unmotivated need
assistance from other people, particularly by offering them some advantages and rewards
for achieving the goal that they should really be focusing on.

All teachers need to know what the cognitive capabilities of their students are. Teachers of
young students need to know the capabilities of older children in order to understand the direction that
their students’ development should be taking. Teachers of older students need to understand the
capabilities that their students developed earlier. The development of new capabilities does not erase
earlier ones. Additionally, not all behaviors reflect a student’s highest level of functioning. Any
experienced teacher can tell you that just because a students is capable of complex reasoning, doesn’t
mean the student will always reason in that way.

Piaget’s account of the processes, experiences, and structures involved in cognition describes
how people come to know about their world. The experiences we have and the schemata we use to
construct knowledge from those experiences change as we grow. Not only does a sixth grader know
about more things than the second grader, the sixth grader knows in a different way. The sixth grader
has developed cognitive capabilities that are not yet in the repertoire of the second grader.
 Piaget formulated stages of cognitive development identifying the type of schemata people use
and the age at which they use them to organize and interact with their environment, in which we
discuss about intermediate and high schoolers.

Piaget’s cognitive development stage, the Concrete- Operational Stage. This is the first stage
of operational or logical thought, in which schemata allow students to realize that there is a stability in
the physical world and that reasoning about the physical world can proceed logically. Because the
logical schemata are still new at this stage, students can best use them when considering objects and
events that are concrete.

Between seven and eleven years of age on the average, as the child assimilates information from
his actions and accomodates mental structures to the new information, thinking processes change
(Lavatelli, et.al., 1972). The child abandons his perceptual judgments, and thought takes on certain
logical properties. Piaget calls this stage the stage of concrete operaitions, because, while the child uses
logical operations, the content of his thinking is concrete rather than abstract.

Piaget’s final stage of cognitive development, Formal Operations, begins roughly around
eleven or twelve years of age and continues into and throughout adulthood. Abstract reasoning is the
hallmark of the formal operations stage.

Abstract reasoning is the ability to think logically about intagibles. Students who reach the stage
of formal operations can begin to deal with possibilities. They can think in terms of a hypothesis: If
X.... then Y.... They can see beyond the here and now. They can verbalize the mental rules they use in
solving problems. The logical operations of the concrete operations stage can be performed outside the
presence of concrete objects themselves.

Thinking processes change again at around eleven or twelve years of age, with the biggest
change being the manner of attack on problems. Given a particular problem, a child at the level of
concrete operations is likely to test out a possible solution, reject it if it does not fit, try another and so
forth. A student at the level of formal operations, however, “begins his considerations of the problem at
hand by trying to emvisage all the possible relations which could hold true in the data and then
attempts, through a combination of experimentation and logical analysis, to find out which of these
possible relations in fact do hold true. Reality is thus conceived of as a special subset within the totality
of things which the data would admit as hypotheses” (Flavel, 1963).

Stages Approximate Age Nature of Schemata

Concrete Operations 7–11 Logical, reversible operations, decentered; object bound
Formal Operations 11—adult Abstract – not bound to create objects