“Significant intellectual processes are emerging during Adolescence

An adolescent learner

Significant intellectual processes are emerging during Adolescence” mentioned by Chitra Balasubramanian Principal of SEVAI Shanthi Matriculation Higher Secondary school in a school seminar conducted  for school teachers on “Educating Adolescent girls” recently. Chitra further said, “Young adolescents go through tremendous brain growth and development. Understanding" means, in the most literal sense of the word, to stand under another, that is, to bear his burden and take his place, to share his point of view. To understand the adolescent mind, we have to become perfectly aware of the way it conceives itself and reality, so as to share completely its point of view. Adolescence is a critical time for brain growth. Significant intellectual processes are emerging. Adolescents are moving from concrete to abstract thinking and to the beginnings of the active monitoring and regulation of thinking processes. They are developing skills in deductive reasoning, problem solving, and generalizing. This period of brain growth marks the beginning of a person's ability to do problem solving, think critically, plan, and control impulses. Some of these changes manifest themselves in behaviors that are observable and stereotypical of middle school students. Taken in concert with the other major development issues at this age, brain development reinforces the typical adolescent behaviors such as Engaging in strong, intense interests; often short lived; Preferring interactions with their peers; Preferring active to passive learning. As with other developmental changes, students reach the "starting point" of this brain growth cycle at different times and progress through it at different rates. Some students will be ready for problem-solving activities, while others may still be working at their best when dealing with concrete information. Given these facts and the fact that students learn in different ways and respond to different stimuli, the direction is clear: The school classroom should be an active, stimulating place where people talk and share, movement is common and planned for, and the teacher uses a wide array of approaches to introduce, model, and reinforce learning. -Govin