I' M LOST

The ninth of september, I started with this subject in my new educational stage. Development Psychology was the first subject, that I had. During many days, we are talking about the concept of development.  Each classmate said his opinion about this term with drawings and practical exercises individually or in groups. Of this concept, step by step, others terms were arising as: lineal, cyclic, spiral, continuous, discontinuous. So, different kins of inference the context this concept was influenced through, deductions, inductions (lived experiences) and abductions (hypothesis, guess, other' experiences). 

This concepts give others concepts. But, Which does relation have with my future job like a teacher the primary education? Is a subjective term , then, How can I put in practice something that not depend on me? Something that can't  I control? Why do I learn something that I don't know if is correct or incorrect,  as, depend on context and person. Still, I don't get to know.    

The second module talk about attachment, When I studied Childhood Education, I learn the different milestones, according to age of child and how each type of attachment is going to influence in the adult life. I studied theory and theory, but when I was doing my practice in the Childhood School, the first that my educator tutor said me was "each child is different because each child has a maturation process". With this, I knew that the most important is learn how each individually children are. That is the key to be a good teacher. 

I read the text "Soñar Despierta", and its words are where is the focus to be the best teacher. When  I   have finished to read, I remember somethings that we have done in class of Development Psychology, for example, in this class teacher try create a friendly atmosphere, funny, with plays, to create good relationship working in groups; teacher try that we think by ourselves, for that, sometimes he makes activities and explain different concepts that, the naked eye, they seem don't have a bearing on the principal concept but next you start  thinking about it, and you join several concepts, ideas exposed and after much deliberation you find meaning. 

Now, I want to write the different things that I like of this text: "Soñar despierta". The best teacher:

- You close your eyes and you imagine everything what you want, and you can do it with your open eyes, too.

- They are lovers illusions and they are going to spin stories.

- To be teacher: to be alert, dream and to be "craftsman", someone with feeling, knowledge, giving and receiving, treading the earth and flying and she is able to make a friendly school.  

- Relationship between teacher and pupil: Warm, fun, surprise, play, work, relationships, stories, dream together. As a result, for understanding of what is being taught.

- Good humor, healthy environment, which is achieved confidence and security.

-Teacher hobbies mobilize the interest of children, it is their role model. An example appears in the text, the teacher does children interested by making them participate paired reading and sayings. She personalizes each poem with each child's name. This educator ensures that the child is part of that literature that gradually takes you to read the child to great writers of the Generation of 27. They are protagonists of theirs poems and  students identify with the protagonists.

- Attachment: achieve a link safe and sturdy to strengthen the road in the adventure of teaching and learning.

To acquire attachment between teacher and student has to be:individualized treatment and workgroups  (what happen, what thinking, what feeling, agree rules, acquire values).

- The teacher makes groups, but she isn't part of the group. She shows safety, control, wisdom, correction of behavior, enjoy.

When exist safety in the group, the child acquire independent, with this, the pupil develops creativity, is more critical, conflict resolution, the group is lived.

Plan a classroom:

- To know individually child and how the groups work.

- Flexibility in the classroom: the spontaneity of the teacher becomes more human. She takes into account the opinion of the pupil.

Resources:

- Imagination: Use fantasy to create reality. That actually takes part of us.

- Memories and experiences: The teacher relates her experiences as a child and today, with the experiences of pupils. With this, teacher gets in the child trust and avoides shame to tell their experiences and that all have the same importance.

- Tell stories: tales teach children values and behavior, that they may be carried into practice. 

- Play:  free play. It is necessary, children feel better, get initiative, help in the relationship.

- Theatre encourages to the reading, to meet characters, theirs stories. 

- To catch naturals things that child can transformer and to be part of the environment. 

- To tell in classroom events of every day. 

I think that this things are important in the life of a student. With this type of education the student acquire attachment in any stage of his life in childhood school, primary, school, secondary school, high school, University, F.P.,…

Everyone needs"The link or emotional bond that develops between two people as a result of interaction and leads them to maintain proximity and contact in achieving safety, comfort, and protection" in the life".

Our learning of Developmental Psychology until today

This subject helps us to acquire a basic and initial formation about psicoevolutions process that children experiment in the pass by their lives. This refers to the knowledge of the changes that the children are going to experiment. It's essential for future teachers and they will allow understanding of what happens in the classroom, and so more properly adjusting their pedagogical interventions. In this stage is so important, because is during the age school when the child has to know the basic processes of learning, the acquisition of identity and self-concept, like personality development.

Furthermore, the general knowledge that this subject gives us, we have to develop a big sensibility to know the specific situation about each child and each family, we have to respect the maturation rate and the learning about each one, we must avoid falling into generalizations that might harm their development and progress of children. One way to get to this sensibility is to see this subject like a basic orientation without stiffness, promoting between us the understanding, patience and delivery to give children and provide them all help that they need to train like people and prevent all kinds of alterations and the difficulties in the learning.

             During the first sessions of developmental psychology, the teacher told us to make a single picture of what we understood by development to later compare it to other colleagues. And back to do another group drawing, explain this picture and compare it with other classes.

WHY? we think that the idea of ​​development was implicit in us, but we never stopped to think about it, when we have drawn, we developed the idea that we each one of us have the development and compare it, we realize that the idea of ​​development is somewhat subjective because everyone has his own and all are valid, but also we see that there are different ways to group development, this may be linear or cyclic, dynamic or static, linear with or without a final end, individual or contextual, development can also be forward, backward, forward but with multiple alternatives ... but we understand that many way, alternative or directions we take always achieve development.

Finally comparing it with colleagues and listening the following explanations of the teacher, we realized that the idea of ​​development is not simple as we thought in the first class; the development is very broad and complex.

            The next classes, the teacher ask us to go outside and see the building. When we were seeing the building, we realised that there were a lot of details that we haven’t noticed like that every floors have doors with different colours, then we started thinking that the building had a lot of factors and there were all connected to each other. The same day the teacher ask us to do an activity in pairs, we had to make a drawing line by line, we were seeing that the drawing was taking form and getting more and more complex, then we imagined what the person who was drawing wanted to draw before he finished.

            Next, we drew a line of our own life experience in paper that was an objective experience, then in pairs outside class we make a different one by walking when we were thinking about our life, we realised this development was more subjective. With this exercise we were experienced the different process: transit, transfer and transformation. As the teacher said transit is the whole experience without stops, transfer was the stages of the experience and then transformation is what changes you and make an before and after. We have experienced transformation when this module, now we could understand what development is and we now understand more than before.

            The last days, we started with some theory but our question is why we didn’t start with the theory and then do some practise about it? The answer comes easier to my mind, the teacher has been trying that we get the knowledge by ourselves first, so then when we see the theory we are going to have some previous base, furthermore getting the knowledge by discovering it, It’s going to help us to go understand it better and to go deeper. The first thing that he has tried to explain us is the concept of development, because if we are studying development psychology, first we have to understand development.

Then we have go deeper into some characteristics of the development, it has been like the example of the building, seeing it outside it looked like only one thing but when we get in, we could see that It also has another parts which are also complex and has their own characteristics. Some of these characteristics are the concept of subjectivism, objectivism, change...  Afterwards we saw the fisher model which was like the top of all we have learnt, also we could think development as this theory because development gets more abstract and abstract when you go deeper on it.

            Finally, like a conclusion of what we all have done, we can say that this development which we have learned, it has been from one method of knowledge that we can call “simple” until one that we can consider that is more complicated to understand. But, this does that now we understand better all the process of the development following all its steps and we realize that the knowledge has been correct and we have been conscious about it. We can show one example about this type of development, it reflects in the “process of wedding” that in the begging they are two people that have a friendship and with a long of time they get develop the love until one point in the summit. Like this subject, this subject didn’t start with the first class but this class started when the teacher started to prepare the classes of this year, also this subject won’t finish with the last day, it will keep going when we become teachers.

            But now, what are we going to do in the next classes? We think that in the following classes we may develop various topics to talk of them in class and to discus all the doubts that we will have, the topics we think that are going to appear is:

• The development of the children: related to these topics we think that we can talk about how a child evolves as the time as he grows or how to behave according to the past years.
•   Authors: we think that we have to understand some authors, to understand the children as Piaget, Kolhberg, Vygotsky, Pavlov or Ausubel.
• Children’s awareness of their development: we think that we have to discuss if the children are aware of their change and if they are aware that their future depends on those years.

Gemma García, Alejandro García, Cristina Martinez, Borja de Hevia, Laura Sanchez y Paloma Cendejas 

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

We have concluded that development is a progress, it can be complex or simple but it is always going to be a internal process where we can differentiate  three different forms: Transit (a continuity process), Transfer ( a continuity process but step by step) and the last one is  Transformation ( it is an ensemble of very important big steps, or better said,  a change that makes a different kind of change, a qualitative change)

Development can be changeable (variation) (this is the change of the content) and transformable (transformational) :( this is the change of the structure).

The most important point for us is differentiate between  the process and the product; if we don’t do a good process it’s impossible to obtain a good product. We have to focus on each step and do it right enough to have a good product.

We have learned that  are different concepts associated with the life course theory such as  "life events" (transition), that means something depending on when they happen (you did not elaborate this too much... you could or should say more, for example a life event is something that happens to you meaningful enough to remember it, it is an example of transfer in your life, so when you begin a new course is a life event and around it there will be a transition taking place for weeks or even months, depending on how long is the time needed to adapt to that life event, such as starting a new course). Do not forget the concept of "turning point" a special life event because it signals a qualitative change because there is a change in your developmental trajectory or a quality change as a change in your subjective structure)

In all developmental process there is a expected trajectory (this idea would need longer elaboration)

A concept that has come to our attention is the turning point: special change that marks a change in your trajectory that it can be in a positively or negatively way. It changes you as a person.

SERGIO

In my opinion the most important thing that I’ve learnt during this time is to analyze lineal and cyclical pictures of the life because I think that is a very good activity that you can use to describe your life in different ways.

In this activity I saw  different type of pictures to represent life, with metaphors as a little tree which becomes in a big tree and simple human lifelines.

In conclusion this activity made me think a lot   about my 20 years old life.

CARLA

In the exercise of the drawings in which every couple of students had to do a drawing progressively , ensuring that the partner would guess what was going to be drawn , we have learned that everything has a process and starts with something simple, and is slowly taking a complex form . In this case , we've seen the pictures , but like these , however ; for example, when we build a house, we start with the foundation and gradually the structure grows until it is fully completed.

In short, everything is a process and it starts being something simple, and finally becomes more complex

SOFÍA

The activity that surprised me most, was the one  in which we explored subjectively the transit and the transfer. You had to close the eyes and be walking thinking about the step of your life, from the first recollections till now. Stepwise. This way we could understand better the difference between transit and transfer, and see the transformations. I liked it very much because I remembered things that  I already had forgotten.

GABRIELA

The best part that I liked was when we had to draw what meant the idea of development for us.
I used to have just one idea of development but when we were in groups, I realized that there are many different ways of considering the idea of development. For  example: environment development, physical development, mental development, etc
It was nice to share the ideas with the rest of the class and to know more about that topic.

MARÍA

Steps of Life

The exercise consists of drawing a straight line, and go on drawing a line for each memory ,starting with the earliest memory of your life, until the last . Besides we closed our eyes and and we walked every step as an example of any of ours memories .

Every time we passed through our lifeline we stressed three different ways of understanding change : transit , transfer and transformation .The first was every step , every memory is all fluid. The second is when you have produced little change in you life  and finally transformation is a brutal change (not necessarily brutal ;) but meaningful indeed).

From my point of view is a peculiar exercise, because initially it was not easy to understand it and remember your first actions since birth , but it made you think and reflect on the steps you have been taking and  you are also seeing how life evolves and  we change 

SENAY

One of my favourite things that we have done in this subject, is drawing ourselves as teachers and then having to draw our lives or the most important events from them.

Having to draw myself as a teacher, made me think which was my main aim and what type off teacher I wanted to be. That exercise actually  makes you realize whatt is more important to you, as you have only a couple of minutes to draw your life, spontaneously, random events came to our minds, and maybe we hadn't thought about them in ages, but as it is meaningful for us we had the need of remembering them as a positive or negative change.

So we could say, that what I like the most of this subject is the fact that it makes us notice little things that have always been there but that we just had ignored .Now I focus more on the process than on the product.

SILVIA

 At the beginning I didn't know anything about this subject,  It was unknown for me but now I have learn that the development is a process that can be a transit,transfer or transformation.It is lika a state of increasing differentiation, structures develop from simple to complex like most things in the life.I have learnt that It is impossible to return, to begin again.

A thing that has called my attention has been the importance of the process.We don't have to concentrate just in the end in the product because the most important is the process.If the process has been made corretly way, the product will be perfect.

Another activity that has called my attention have been the drawings because we have focused on that a little and important things of life and we have realize about things that we haven't thought before.

 For us the most important part of these classes has been the things that we talk about, development the idea of transfer, transit and transformation, that this has been the most difficult part because it is difficult to understand. It has helped us to concentrate not only in the product, but also in the process (progress, steps…).Specially, in our lives we have been able to notice about steps and turning points that we have lived, and that have changed us as persons. The content of this subject is totally different about we had thought before the beginning of it.

GROUP OF: Senay, Sergio, Sofía, María, Gabriela, Carla y Silvia.

The different ways to see the concept of develop.

We are a group of 6 future teachers(Nacho, Mara Paula, Pedro, Lidia y Ana), who attend the first course of Primary Education. We are going to learn many abilities related to development.

In this subject we started to create a drawing about what our thoughts about the concept of development, and we discovered that there were different ways of representing the concept of development (lineal, cyclic, continous and discontinuos and spiral). After this we compared our drawings with other groups in order to get different types drawings in terms of its structure. Finally, each group made another drawing with the new acquired perspective of development.

The following activity we did consisted of:
       
          First, in an objective activity in which we have to talk around the building of the faculty and               paying attencion in the structure. The activity involved exploring  our lecture room building attending to its physical structure and also to the function this structure provides. Attending to something that is outside is more objective than attending to our inner experience. This sequence of exercises is what we call an performative metaphor. It is a metaphor that you do... not just a metaphor that you read or listen from a symbolic perspective. 
         
          Then, we made the same activity but with a subjective point of view: what that structure (the building) suggested to us from a visual and emotional perspective.  This second part of the sequence involved attending in a more complex way: what kind of changes can we find in that structure. For example we have the different floors and the stairs that connect the floors. Or we have the thresholds that signals the change from a room to a corridor... or the change from the builiding towards outside. In this part we could also reflect on where is a structure beginning or finishing? For example the footbridge belongs to the main building of the Faculty of Education or to the colourful lecture room building? As we understand it now these were metaphors of the distinctions we worked later of transit, transfer and transformation (do you understand it know ;) ?  In addition (this was a very complex exercise) you could connect the structure with your relationship to it. I mean, if you liked or not, if you felt confortable or tired when going up through the stairs, etc... etc...and then a change in the structure implied a change in your bodies. 

Both activities led us to new three concepts: Transit, Transfer, and Transformation. 

         Transit is a continuous experiential process.
       
         Transfer is a discontinuous process (changes you notice but that do not change the general activity or quality of the experience. For example I celebrate my birthday every year but I have had very few special birthdays, for example when I was 18 years old, or when I was 30 years old. Every normal birthday is just a transfer in having birthdays).

         Transformation is a process with different changes.This change is different in quality: is a change that makes a change so to speak. It is not a mere quantitative change it is a qualitative change. For example going out of the building (spatial transformation) is diferent that changing of floor (quantitative transformation, you change but you are still in the same structure-building). 

To understand these concepts, we made an activity whose purpose was to compare two different ways of representing information: objective and subjectively. We made a line of our lifespan, with our negative and positive experiences. This was a way of objectifying our life experience externalizing it into a line we can watch and handle. 

Furthermore, we combined the theoric concepts with our lifespan , we went out of class, we made with a partner three walks through our timelines. A timeline is a subjective representation of our lives. In this case we embodied our memories sequencing them lineally. The space is a metaphor of time in this exercise. A change in space (a step) implies an advancement in time, for example changes of courses in School (transfer). Finally we had to pass stressing the special changes we had lived, those changes which had marked us more (transformation, quite related to the idea of turning points we would study in a following class). 

Finally, we learnt the Orthogenetic principle (among other principles such as the epigenetic principle). We studied the change from simplicity to complexity in terms of structure.  As an example we reviewed the theory of Kurt Fisher (whose brief bio we provide here)

Single element                                                                                                      Mapping

System                                                                                                     System of systems

SEARCHING IN INTERNET : BORING OR INTERESTING?

When we connect the computer to search in internet, I think that the 90% of young people only search music in youtube, pages to buy clothes, pages to see the new videogames that have been promotioned, etc. The unic moment that we search something in wikipedia, for example, is when the teacher have said to search some information which we have to do a work. Is interesting or boring? The mayority says that is boring, but they don´t think that in the past anybody could permit the luxury of search imformation if they didn´t have books or diccionaries to search it, and know, with the new technologies, is so easy. It´s true that I don´t search in wikipedia all time, but sometimes I like search things that i didn´t know and then you remain it, because if you search something that the teacher has ordered, you only search it to do the work and then you forgot it, but when you search something because you want, always you are going to remain it. For example, last day I was playing a game and i was boring, so i enter google and search "Developmental Psicology", and i was watching the page when i see an interesting theory of Freud, that explain the different periods of the child when he is one year, that he likes to bite allthings, when he is 3, that he likes to play with his pooh, when he is 14, that he is interested (more or less) in girls and starts to interest in his sexual appearance,he is developping his body, etc, and then the last period in which he is mature, he is responsible, etc; but when I read this I remainded that I have studied it last year! I was very surprised and i know that I didn´t forgot it never.

So, I Invite you to search more in internet because is good for your mind and I´sure that you could learn a lot.