The Constraints on Adolescent Learning

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Personalities, social skills and intellectual development are only some of the key factors that effect how pupils learn and achieve differently to one another. Every child responds individually to their specific needs and environment, and the extent of that achievement can be often be linked with external factors as pupils are naturally influenced by a variety of different constraints. These factors that are not concrete and will change and alter throughout an adolescent’s development, as Piaget (Piaget 1970) believed the mind changes and works in different ways at different stages so do the conditions that enhance and limit progress. Furthermore these constraints can have both a beneficial and a detrimental effect on the learning abilities of pupils, often with the most extreme examples of these constraints being the most influential. Physical, intellectual, emotional and social development; gender and ethnicity, play the most significant roles in determining the achievements and success of the individual pupils we teach and it is vital that as teachers we are aware of and can accommodate these factors to enable them to succeed to the best of their ability.

Vygotsky believed that social and cultural interaction and involvement effects the development of our thought processes (Vygotsky 1929 cited in Mooney 2000) indicating that the environment and adults that we interact with as children directly influence our ability to learn, therefore suggesting that ethnicity and social class can not only enhance adolescent learning but perhaps also hinder its progress. Social deprivation and financial instability can hamper a pupil’s development as there might be less emphasis on education as an important necessity in working class families...

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...0et%20al.pdf [Accessed on 10th Dec 2010]

 Kearsley, G.[n.d.] Conditions of Learning (R. Gagne) [online]. 1ST ed. United States: Theory Into Practice. Available from: http://tip.psychology.org/gagne.html [Accessed on 20th Nov 2010]

 Kearsley, G.[n.d.] Social Development Theory (L. Vygotsky) [online]. 1ST ed. United States: Theory Into Practice. Available from:http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html [Accessed on 20th Nov 2010]

 Kirkby, E. (2003) How can we address the issue of Boys’ Underachievement? [online] 1st ed. United Kingdom: Teacher Research. Available from: http://www.teacherresearch.net/tr_ekundachboys.htm. [Accessed on 31st Dec 2010]

 McLeod, S. (2007) Vygotsky's Theory of Social Development [online]. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Simply Psychology. Available from: http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/vygotsky.html. [Accessed on 20th Nov 2010]

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