Intellectual Development Goals

Intellectual development is first of all defined as "the process of deriving meaning from experience through acquiring, structuring and restructuring knowledge" (Primary Program foundation document, 1993, 57). The emphasis is on giving the child the tools to shape his or her life and to have an influence on the world at large. The subgoals listed are five in number:

--sustain and extend natural curiosity;

--develop thinking through meaningful learning experiences;

--use language to facilitate thinking and learning;

--use language to communicate effectively;

--develop and integrate the attitudes, skills, and knowledge of several subjects; and

--become an independent, lifelong learner.

The Program also notes the characteristics of the learner at this age. The child is curious, seeking, and a social human being, ch

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ois, 1991, 85-86). Categorization helps simplify the world to make it more understandable and achieves the following five things: 1) It reduces the complexity of the environment. 2) It permits the recognition of objects. 3) It reduces the necessity for constant learning. 4) It provides direction for activity. 5) It permits individuals to relate objects and classes of events (Lefrantois, 1991, 87). This cognitive conception leads Bruner to the idea of discovery learning, which is consistent with his theoretical framework. Discovery learning is defined as follows: [It is] the learning that takes place when students are not presented with subject matter in its final form but rather are required to organize it themselves. This requires learners to discover for themselves relationships that exist among items of information (Lefrantois, 1991, 93). The discovery approach requires far less teacher involvement and direction than most other methods. Teachers can offer a continuum of guidance by adapting their teaching to different students and different purposes: At one extreme, too little or no mediation can leave students without the means for discovery; at the other extreme, constant teacher direction and guidance may remov
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1436
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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