Tenth International School on Mind, Brain and Education
2015 September 8-12
Teaching
Brain
Directors of the School: Antonio M. Battro and Kurt W. Fischer
Directors of the Course: Sidney Strauss and Elena Pasquinelli
Program officer: María Lourdes Majdalani
School of Education. Boston University. USA
The development of children as teachers
Although a great deal of research in social cognitive development has focused on children’s sensitivity to characteristic of a teacher when deciding from whom to learn (e.g., Harris ;& Corriveau, 2011), surprisingly little research has focused on children’s development as teachers – and all of the available research examines children’s elicited teaching behaviors (e.g., Strauss, Ziv ;& Stein, 2002). In this talk, I focus on three new directions in preschool children’s developing teaching abilities. First, I discuss how children’s spontaneous teaching ability develops over the preschool years, focusing specifically on the mediating role of children’s understanding of mental states. Next, I show how children’s developing teaching ability is related to their selectivity as learners. Finally, I highlight similarities and differences in US and Chinese children’s teaching ability. I discuss implications for how these findings might be applied to classroom learning.