Multi-modal presentation based on a fictional case-study about adolescent development and behaviour, research and intervention.

Contemporary Adolescent Development

This task is from the unit Adolescent Development & Teaching 102081 offered by Western Sydney University. This collaborative task involved analysing a vignette provided as a fictional case study of a student. The aim is to utilise contemporary theory and research about adolescent development to develop interventions to support the student in today’s Australian classroom context.

The project involves identifying key developmental issues, investigating contemporary research, introducing intervention, justification of interventions with research and analysing their advantages and disadvantages, followed by personal reflection on the project.

MIA VIGNETTE

Mia is a Year 9 student who is physically more mature than her peers. She excels in sports and visual arts at school. She liked maths and science, but now often complains of forgetting class content and not being able to keep up. Mia does not seem to have a large group of friends, but does have two close friends that she spends a lot of time with. You notice Mia is often preoccupied with her phone in class and at school, often looking distressed after checking her phone. One of her close friends has told you that Mia is the target of cyberbullies. Other staff members have mentioned that she sometimes doesn’t show up for class. She has a supportive home environment however her parents have very limited English language skills, and are struggling financially. She has said to you that she actually wants to do well at school and hopefully do visual arts ar university, but just needs more help.

Video submission

The final submission is delivered as a 15 minute video including the vignette, research content, intervention and individual reflections. See the video below.

Michelle Zhang | Research and opening animation
Prachi Shukla  | Research and collating research
Emily Avero | Research and video compilation

Reflection

Below is the transcript of my reflection:

This unit has taught me that adolescent development, behaviour and wellbeing is determined by a range of social and biological factors; such as puberty, neurological developments, relationships with family, peers and teachers. Other contributors include school and and social environments, and with growing impact, technological influence.

The wellbeing framework for schools, view student wellbeing as being determined by building connection to learning and emotional self-awareness, fostering success through respect, and enabling students to thrive through purposeful learning. This also involves engaging parents to work with the school to build a cohesive learning environment where students are motivated, engaged and empowered.

Examples of challenges to student wellbeing and safety; include factors such as pubertal timing, peer influence, family environment, drug and alcohol use, technological distractions, cognitive overload, bullying, self-harm, and other risk taking behaviours fuelled by an overactive limbic system of socio-emotional responses and the paradoxical delay in cognitive control development which regulates these impulsive and emotional responses.

The GRIP method of support can be engaged for concerns relating to students experiencing bullying, mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse or risk of self-harm. Given that adolescents have higher emotional responses to peer-perception, it’s imperative to respect students’ privacy, autonomy and trust when involving parents, carers and counsellors.

The information processing model of cognition, Vygosty’s zone of proximal development,  socio-emotional learning are strong influences on my inquiry-based teaching philosophy. In my KLA, Design and Technology, inquiry-based activities allowing for self-creation of a design brief, can motivate adolescents by granting autonomy of choice and the chance at mastery experiences, for better self-efficacy and exploration of self-identity and interests. This also helps to differentiate for different students, ensuring optimal engagement at all levels. Additionally, design process recording can assist with design thinking and understanding individual creative processes, whilst also building knowledge schemas for long term retention.

I can also introduce a group task to integrate multiple briefs, to engage students in design thinking about planning for adaptability, and engage socio-emotional learning and group scaffolding. Through cooperative learning, students can teach each other, to reinforce knowledge schemas to assist transfer of knowledge to long term memory banks.

The unit also offers a wealth of knowledge about adolescent development and behaviours which can be translated in practice when differentiating for individual students too.