I really enjoy the upper elementary grades and will be in 3rd grade next year for my internship. Students at this grade level are in the concrete operations stage which is roughly from ages 6 or 7 until ages 11 or 12. At this stage, students are able to take recognize their own thoughts and feelings and take the perspectives of others. They're able to classify objects into two or more categories , understand conservation, and reason about concrete, real-life situations. Especially in 3rd grade, it is likely that students have not fully reached this stage and may still be in the preoperational stage. At this stage, students may struggle to take the perspectives of others and with the idea of conservation. They often reason based on intuition and are unable to explain why or how they came up with their conclusion. Students that are still in this stage will need additional assistance within the classroom. Since I plan on incorporating a lot of group work in my classroom, it is going to be important that these students understand how to take the perspectives of their group members in order to work together productively. I think modeling how to work in groups and respect group members would be beneficial. I could have the students first observe a model group work together, and then they could get the opportunity to practice working in the group before they begin the activity. I think it will also be important to provide them with concrete representations and allow them opportunities to explore and manipulate them on their own. For example, in order to address their conservation issues they could play with pouring and measuring the same amount of liquids into different sized containers. Concrete materials and exploration time will help these students begin to make sense of abstract concepts.
Below is a diagram comparing the cognitive development theories of Piaget and Vygotsky.
Like I mentioned before, I plan on teaching upper elementary (grades 3-5). Ormrod suggests a view strategies for teaching students in these grades based on their level of development. She suggests using group discussion, having students create short stories, and encouraging telling jokes and rhymes that use homonyms. I plan on creating a community of learners within my classroom, so there will be numerous opportunities for students to share their ideas. Also, a great way to encourage students to write their own stories is to have reader's or writer's theater. Students could read their stories to the class or recruit their classmates to help them act out their stories. The same could be used to incorporate jokes and rhymes. Students could work in small groups to write their own jokes using homonyms and then present them to the class. This would make writing and ELA topics more enjoyable for students.
I really enjoyed reading your strategies for developing language in your future classroom! A reader's or writer's theater is a great idea that I have not thought of; students love acting out stories, plus they will probably be more willing to write a story if they know they can act it out! The more I learn about the benefits of group work, the more I want to use it in my classroom like you mentioned. Before this semester, I was opposed to group work because I have always hated working in groups. I think your group ideas will work wonderfully in your class!
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