Presentation and introduction

This image means the developmental process
 of the children, needed to get the objectives.

This blog has been created to do a learning portfolio about some concepts of the Thematic blocks III and IV of the subject called Developmental Psychology, from the Double Degree of Nursery and Primary Education, of the University of Vic. 

It pretends to show some contents of this subject, demonstrating that they have been understood, including more information found by different resources (Internet, books...), and reflecting about the items that had been chosen to expose (the drawing importance and the memory). In addition it pretends to propose dynamics in order to learn in a different and useful way, as well as to develop important skills that are developed at childhood, which are the issues sopken in this blog.

It is divided in these two blocks mentioned before:

• Thematic block III: Psychomotor development

        (It is focused on the drawing skills). It contains four points:

        - Introduction to the drawing aspect (definition, importance and stages of drawing)

        - Drawing reflections

        - Drawing strategies (to do with children)

        - References

     

• Thematic block IV: Cognitive development

        (It is based on the memory). It contains four points:

        - Introduction to the memory's concept (definition and different types of memory)

        - Memory reflections

        - Memory strategies (to use with children)

        - References

The fact of doing this learning portfolio is very useful, because it recquires to ordenate the notes taken in class, to complete them correctly, to read them paying attention, and to choose one of the items worked in class. Doing these things, you are reviewing the contents of the subject, so you are understanding them more carefully. Furthermore, it also recquires to look for more information and reflect about the chosen items, so it expands the knowldege and it makes you to go deeper in a content of the subject, as well as it is useful to learn to look for resources, information, in other words: it makes you more able to do research and investigating works, and it makes possible to reach more experience of it.

*To see the Thematic Block I (Biological, social, and cultural bases of the developmental process) and the Thematic Block II (Socio emotional development), follow this link: https://sites.google.com/site/learningportfoliocgs/

Introduction to the memory's concept

Memory is the mental capacity to store and preserve information, concepts, ideas, experiences, etc., in the human brain through neurons, and it has an important and integral role in the cognitive development. It gives us the possibility to remember what we have retained through the time, and to learn more about it associating it with the new information that is recieved. With the previous ideas, facts or experiences that people have and remember, it is easier to understand and retain other ones. It has three phases or processes in which information goes through: codification, storage and retrieval.

People have three kinds of memory:

• Sensory memory: It is the ability to store sensorial information, and it is the shortest-term element of the memory. It is percieved and retained precisely by the fifth sences through stimuli reception, but this kind of memory is very momentarily.
• Short-term memory: It is the capability to collect a small amount information, about 7 items, during 10 to 15 seconds, or occasionally maximum 1 minut. During this process, the mind remembers and processes what it recieves at the same time. 
• Long-term memory: It is the capacity to retain information for a long period of time, although some items can be forgotten with the years, little by little. 

* Short-term memory can be converted to long term memory by consolidation and association.

There are four types of long-term memory:

1. Declarative memory (explicit): Used for the objective information (decontextualized). For example: names, faces, dates, etc.
2. Semantic memory: The one we use for the general knowledge of the facts related with the world. For example: concepts. (It can be considered a subcategory of the declarative memory).
3. Episodic memory: Memory of the individual or personal facts or experiences of our life. For example: a trip. (It can also be included as a subcategory of the declarative memory).
4. Procedural memory (implicit): Memory for the motor and executive skills needed to undertake a task. It is the memory that makes us to know unconsciously how to do things, related to psychomotor abilities and skills (movements of the body), that are developed and improved practising and repeating them. For example: walking or riding a bicycle.

The long-term memories are classificated into  two temporal directions:

• Retrospective memory: Infromation and content about the past, experiences of past episodes that are recollected (declarative memory: semantic, empisodic and autobiographical).
• Prospective memory: Information, content or actions which must or should be remembered in the future. 

This information processing and the types of memory are explained in a wide and systhematic way in this audiovisual support:

The position of the different types of memory in the brain is the one of the picture:







In the educational context, different methods of memory are used to learn the concepts:

• Verbal reception (passive participation)

- Reading: people remember the 10% of concepts that they read.
- Listening: people is able to remember the 20% of what they have listened.

• Visual reception (passive participation)

- Whatching and seeing (pictures): it is possible to remeber the 30% of what we see.
- Both watching and listening (films, exhibitions, demonstrations): its is possible to remember the 50% of what people see and listen together.

• Reception / participation (active participation)

- Dialogue (taking part in a conversation or debate): the 70% of the conversations are remembered.

• Doing an action (active participation)

- Talking and doing (doing real experiencies and facts, or simulating them): the 90% of the actions in which people take part, or they simulate it, are remembered.

* To know more details, you can follow this interesting webpage:

 Human memory

Memory reflections

Memory is an important and vital capacity, that retains all the information and experiences people have, live, recieve, etc., as the introduction of the memory aspect's section explains. It allows as to learn, because if the contents did not remain in the mind, the learning task could not be able to exist. Knowledge is a constant process that is extended little by little, preserving and accumulating information, and associating stored learning to the new one that is acquired through growth and mature. So, without memory is impossible to learn (well, is impossible to live because people need to remember their vital needs and functions, but this block wants to focus on the learning).

The knowledge acquired in the school is basically learned through memorization and then incorporation of the concepts learned. It is bad to make children to memorize all the contents and make them to take an exam to value if they have memorized all they have worked in class; but the school should develop and strengthen the memory ability through methods like memory dynamics, converting a developmental activity into a game. St this way children will remember better the concepts of the class, but also they will develop and improve the capacity to retain the infromation and the experiences at their mind, having a good long-term memory. It can be done playing some existing games, changing and adapting some other ones, or inventing new strategy games to develop the memory.

*There are some examples in the "Memory strategies" part of the block

Teachers must have into account the cone that is shown and descrived in the section of "Introduction to the concept memory's concept", into this thematic block (IV), in the moment of teaching. They should be aware of teaching by explaining, because the verbal reception is the one that is forgotten easier. They have to teach children making them to participate on the class, providing ideas, their thoughts, their point of view of the things that they are working, answering the questions of the teachers (they should make questions), making them questions to the teacher and discussing with the classmates, organizing debates, applying what they are learning (in real situations, focusing on working with material handling...), etc. At this way, children will be able to remember more concepts and for a longer period of time, without memorizing them for a short period of time.

One of the most important things that teachers should take care of, is to be sure thatthey are teaching well, what means that children understand the contents and they know to apply and explain them. To reach it, they should give resourses, tools and techniques to their students. If you are a teacher and you do not know any kind of strategy, look for some ones (in the part of this block that briefly talks about strategies, in the Internet, in books, asking for them to other teachers, inventing them...), but give students some support. Your objective as a teacher is make children to get their objectives, to help them develop step by step, like if learning was stairs that children have to climb, and the objective of the children is to climb these stairs step by step at the time they have to do it, not to stay for much time at the same step, to progress and to go as farther as they can (knowledge never finishes, so they will never arrive to the top (it does not exist). But they should put goals through the stairs in order to reach them, and when they get their objectives, put another goal farther. Learning is a constant fact, a long way in which teachers and students should go together to reach a common objective.

Memory strategies

Fisrt of all, it is important to know that there are three cognitive processes according to Piaget (psychologist, philosoph and biologist), that in my opinion they could be said as the kind of process that information follows in order to be retained to the mind, in other words, a type of phases that allows make easier the incorporation of the information, and so the memorization:
- Scheme: "Concept or structure that exist in a subject's mind to organize and interpret the information". It help us to take decisions and to understand more complex things. As people acquire more knowledge, more schemes are created through assimilation and accomodation (Berta Vall, 2014).
- Assimilation: Mental process that takes part when the child recieves new knlowledge or information and he or she assimilates and incorporated it to the previous knowledge, to the already existing schemes. 
- Accomodation: "Metal process that happens when the child adjust the information towards new schemes" (Berta Vall, 2014).

With this, it is possible to see that recollecting, processing and keeping the information has a process, it is not very quickly, and it is difficult to remember all the knowledge. So a teacher can not make the classes quickly and neither consider that an intem is learned and enough worked, if it had not been worked enough sessions. In only one class children are not able to preserve in the memory all the concepts, they have to apear in more than one session. Moreover, teachers should teach in a way that make easier the storage of the knowledge; it is said in the "Memory reflections" that strategies to develop memory and also to incorporate the learning should be worked in the school. A good strategy is to make games related to the contents of the subjects, in order to make easier the memorization of the information.

There is the typical game called "memory", that consists on having cards with different couples of drawings in the facedown position, and the objective is to find the two equal pictures, turning only two cards in each turn (except when you find a couple, then it is your turn again). Teachers could adapt this game with pictures or words related to the contents of the subject. At this way children would learn or review dynamically the knowledge they are acquiring. It can be applicated in each subject, let's see some cases: 

- In a natural science class: children are working the animals. So it could be interesting to create a memory with pictures of the animals. Depending on the age it is possible to adapt the game in a way or another. In nursey education it would be sufficient with relating two equal pictures, but in the first courses of primary education it would be possible to relate the picture of an animal with the kind of animal that it is (mammal, reptile, amphibian, insect, crustacean, birds or fish), having cards with pictures, and cards with the name of the type.

This kind of memory could be interesting
to learn words of another language

Example of a memory about animals
for children of nursery education

- In a mathematics class: infants of nursery education, or children of the 1st course of primary education (the activity would be adapted), are working the numbers. They can descover them through a memory created with numbers (they have to find two equal numbers and say the name). At this way they will learn the numbers, their names and also they would learn to count (the teacher has to complement the activity). 

Or imagine a class in which children are learning geometric figures, it could be fine to create a memory with pictures of the different figures, and when each child turns the card, he or she has to say the name of that figure. 

Another strategy to remember contents is to make a story based on what we have to learn or memorize. For example, imagine that catalan students have to memorize some words in english. They could repeat one time and another: bycicle, cat, street, car, tree..., or they could invent a story like this: I was riding my bycicle when I saw a cat crossing the street. A car was going towards its direction, but for lucky the cat ran and climbed a tree.

References

Articles or webpages:

- Mastin, Luke. (2010). The human memory. Recovered on 17th May, 2014, from from the webpage: http://www.human-memory.net/index.html

Audiovisual support:

- Yue Carole. (24th October 2013). Information processing model: Sensory, working and long term memory [video]. Revovered on 19th May, 2014, from: http://youtu.be/pMMRE4Q2FGk

Class Notes:

- Vall, Berta. (2014). Notes of developmental psychology. University of Vic.

Introduction to the drawing aspect

Drawing is a visual art, but it also is an important skill of the development of the psychomotricity of the children, and it contributes in the evolution of the graphic gestures. It is a representation or transposition of something (an object, an emotion…) related to the reality, manifested by creating an own space that allows the children to take control about their reality, about the way they interpret and represent it. It is a kind of transmission of expressive, communicative and creative values, that are important aspects of the integral development of the children.

Artistic drawing consists on making pictures with a basic knowledge of this aspect (about colours, techniques, materials, equilibrium, harmony…) and having followed a developmental process, through different materials and techniques, working with different ways and methods, testing and improvising, being creative etc. It is supposed that the artist has developed a maturative and educational process to reach the artistic drawing’s ability, and the capacity of represent what he or she is interested in drawing, and as he or she wants to transmit it.

Children also follow a process in the drawing aspect, but not in the same context and neither with the same objective. Fisrt of all, it must be said that an artist does this process voluntary, to aquire knowledge and experience in order to be benefited, and children do a natural process.The evolution of the drawing skills through childhood requires three developmental aspects: motor skills, cognition and affective aspects.

- The motor skills consist on the draws of the children made as they can, according to their maturative and experience. It can be trained and developed through different manipulative activities.

- Cognition (symbolization), refer to the draws that show what the child knows and perceives, and the draws can be made in a symbolic way (by representation), or also in a realistic way (similar to reality).

- The affective draws are those in which children are interested in, they represent what they like or dislike. 

The drawing development during the childhood is diveded into three big stages:

• Motor or scribbling stage (1-2 years old)

• Representative stage (+2 years old)

                  - Subjective realism (2-4 years old)

                  - Conceptual realism (5-7 years old)

• Realist stage (artistinc drawing from 8 years old) 

                  - Realist drawing

1. Motor or scribbling stage (1-2 years old)

"- Action as the basis of the representation.

- Control of the hand and forearm's motor skills.

- Increasing of the movements' control and coordination (voluntary movements referred to the body position and of the corporeal segments).

- Improvement of the fine motor skills.

- Emergence of the symbolic function (cognitive plane together with the motor action)."

The development of the scribbling is divided into three stages:

"Homo-lateral lines (16 months)

Example of a sribbling with lines

 - The line has a proximal origin (on the shoulder).

 - All the arm is in movement.

 - Straight segments from left to right (right handed).

Horizontal or oblique sweepings (20 months)

 - Lines that combine the start from the axis and the return to the same point.

 - Back and forth movements, symmetric for both hands.

Circular lines, positives or negatives

 - More flexible lines (in shapes of loops, elongated cycloids, etc.) that substitute the sweepings.

 - Those lines are combinated wwith a proximal origin movement (shoulder) and a rotatory movement of distal origin (wrist).

 - Spontaneous graphic gestures - srcibbles.

 - Instrumental dominance with the adult help".

(Vall, B., 2014)

2. Representative stage (+2 years old)

 - Representative intention: the child starts to be worried about the result of the drawing action, losing interest in his or her gesture.

 - Better eye-hand coordination: The trace is guided and checked by the eye, which is following the hand movements.

 - In enters into action the flexor muscle of the thumb: "it can guide a line to a precedent one"; it is able to do closed types of shape, united for some points (example: square or circle); "it appears the double rotation (positive and, then, negative direction)".

 - Figurative intention: The child becomes conscious that sscribbles are ways of communication and expression, and that adults have reactions caused by their drawings.

 - Verbal description of the graphic activity: Althouh the pictures of the children are not equal to the real object they wanted to draw, they are able to assign a name to their scribbles.

 - Graphic activity is converted to an instrument of  communication and a representation.

2.1  Subjective realism (2-4 years old) 

Draw of a person

 - It has a representative intention.
 - The affective model predominates.
 - The child draws what he or she thinks that is significant, affectively related to reality.
 - Evocation of the real model.
 - The figurative form is emerged, the child is able to recognize the object but not its structure.
 - Additive drawing.

2.2 Conceptual realism (5-7 years old)

Draw of herself, a friend and I

 - Intensification of the figurative intention; they draw with more realist tendency.
 - Cognition influences the perception of the children; they draw more what they know than what they see.
 - Appearance of more details in the representation of the objects.
 - Disproportioned sizes of the figures (a long leg could represent a boy kicking a ball).
 - Representation of te movement through horizontal lines.
 - Juxtaposition is disappearing progressively.
 - Representation of the space bye lines (the floor and the sky).

Draw about the body
(reality, disproportion)

 - Perspective (three dimensions) and transparence.
 - Drawings about personal facts, interests or experiences.

Horizontal lines represent
people moving very fast

A draw about where this child lives,
with all the details (street, trees...)

A self-portrait draw of a
10 year-old girl

3. Realist stage (+8 years old)

- The graphic-plastic techniques dominate in the drawing.

- Children are able to appreciate the shapes configuration, they can take into account the proportion, the volume and the perspective.

- They draw with a creative expression and the capability to appreciate arts apear (from 15 years old). 

A draw of the Tona's castle
with shadows

A draw of a bed with watercolours

Draw of the 15 year-old
girl's interest with pen texture

Draw of the corridor
with perspective

*The image from the motor or scribbling stage is from Google Images

* The drawings from the Subjective realism are from an article I did with some classmates

* The drawings of the Conceptual realism are from the children with whom I do practises

*The drawings of the Realist stage, one is from the same article of the pictures of the Subjective realism, and the other ones were done by me when I was 15-16 years old.

*To see this information in an interesting and different way, into a schematic table, click this link: Table of drawing deveopment

An article called The evolution of psychomotor skills through drawing representation, was created by four classmates and I into the Developmental Psychology's subject. It consists on the investigation of the drawing skills, watching and knowing the characteristics presented in each stage of the childhood's process od development. As the introduction explains: "This investigation was focused on talking about the psychomotor skills, concretely on the evolution of children’s drawings through their schooling. Some children of different ages  were asked to draw a human body, without specifying how they had to draw it, giving them completed freedom. The objective was to see the evolution of the drawing through the time, and the changes children have in the perspective of the body. By analyzing these drawings this research could get some conclusions focused on the hypothesis and the approaches presented on the introduction".

The results were:

Course	External / internal body	Proportioned / disproportitoned figures	Abstract / real figures	Other observations
Kindergarten	External	Disproportioned	Abstract	·They are not ready to coordinate what they draw
P3	External	Disproportioned	Abstract	· They only draw faces, not the completed body
P5	External	Disproportioned	Real	·They draw the bodies, so the figure is more completed than P3
1st of primary	External and internal	Disproportioned	Real	·A black-skin girl draw a dark-skin body ·Some children pointed and writed some simple parts of the body ·The majority of external drawings were with cothes except two
4th of primary	External	Proportioned	Real	·More details ·The majority draw themselves ·One picture were an external body without clothes

(Bosch, A., Casañas, M., Font, S., Navarro, J., Nonell, M., 2014, p.1/p. 5)

Drawing relfections

Drawing is an important task of the development skills of the children, and for this reason it should be worked and practised at school. The majority of the draws done at class are because the child have finished the activities and he or she does not know what to do like. But, for example, at the school I am going to do the practises of the degree I am studying, I had seen that some children also draw when they arrive at school while the classmates are coming, and while the teacher is writing the date at the blackboard, or in special cases the teacher let them draw if she sees them with a real interest for this task, occasionally looking for an association to the subject.

Including the drawing activity in classes is vital in nursery and primary education, so teachers should promote it every time they could, and not also as something to do when children are bored or they have finished the work. They are children, they need activities of this type, and also they are developing their motor and muscular abilities, and as it is explained at the introduction of this topic, it is important to develop drawing skills because it is a way to develop at the same time the coordination, the movement regulation and the graphic gesture, as well as the imagination, the creativity, the visual communication, the expression (of objects, emotions or thoughts, being real or unreal), the perspective and the point of view of the things… 

If children have more experiences in drawing, their possibilities of drawing during their developmental process are larger because they have more knowledge, they have lived more situations, they have seen, felt, testing and experiment more things and with different points of view, and they can choose how to draw something, being real or not, because people base their drawings on what they have in their mind. Drawings can also be a reflex of the feelings and emotions of the drawer, even when the draw is based on a real object, because these two aspects influence on the drawing. 

In addition to de promotion of the development of drawing skills, teachers should make children discover different materials and techniques, explore and experiment them testing the different options, knowing that there are more things farther from the pencils, pens and colours. They can draw with paintings, watercolours, charcoal, oil paint, making a collage… and with different tools like a brush, with the body, with a toothbrush… They have to explore, know, discover and experiment a variety of options, to play with all they can in order to find what they can do with each material, tool or technique. For this reason the art class is important through schooling, to make possible the exploration and the discovery of the variety of options people have to draw. If children does not do it at school it is difficult that they do in other places (except if they or their family are interested in it, and they can achieve to pay for art classes out of school).

Reading this is possible to see that the importance is in the process, not in the result (it is not mentioned). During thre process children learn a lot, ideas about at (all that is mentioned before), values and skills. But the result is only a material thing that demonstrates that a process have been done. Children should not only be avaluated for their results, the most important avaluation should be during the process of creation. However, when children show their results have de desire of being valued and they expect that adults recognize their effort. This make them to feel understood and acceptes, as well as it gives them security and confidence with theirselves. 

It is important to take in account that, as it was said before, drawing is a way of communication and expression, a draw transmits the point of view of the child, his or her prespective of the real things, or also his or her feelings, emotions or thoughts. So, the drawing imperfections seen by the adults (a draw not similar to the real object) are not mistakes, they are expressions and representations of the reality of the child; they must be respected, and not interpreted, because it is his or her representation, it is created with the child's eyes and thoughts, and we should not make our interpretations. An adult can neigther correct the child's creation, it should say some advises for technical aspects, but if a child is always being corrected, he or she would not develop creativity imagination and self creation (it is also important that children do not recieve always the stimulus, they should draw with freedom).   Then is when adults cut the children's wings. Children follow a process of developing skills as this blog explains at the introduction of the drawing aspect, so let them develop step by step, giving them the chance of creating with liberty.