Both Support And Challenge Are Needed For Development

By Author: Jack
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This well-known principle was first introduced by Nevitt Sanford (1966). When support is too high, there is no perceived need to change one's outlook or find a more adaptive stance. When challenge is too high, it is common to feel overwhelmed and tempted to give up and not stay engaged with the problem at hand. Finding the optimal balance can be tricky for educators, but this principle at least serves as a reminder to attend to both aspects of interactions and learning environments.

Fischer's findings on skill theory extend this principle. Like other developmental researchers, he observed variability in responses across levels of development; however, he noted that scores varied as a function of Rolex Watches feedback and practice, which Kitchener et al. (1993) documented in a study of reflective judgment. Fisher has interpreted findings of variability by positing that individuals work within a range of developmental levels. The most advanced level observed tends to occur with practice and feedback, and is called the optimal level. In the absence of support and scaffolding, individuals ...
... draw on their functional or ordinary, everyday level of cognitive functioning. Educational settings are ideal contexts in which to introduce challenging issues and tasks, and to provide feedback and many opportunities for practice (and more feedback), thus scaffolding development.

Development Occurs in Response to Perceived Dissonance or Disequilibrium. Changing one's worldview takes hard work. For this reason, it shouldn't be surprising that development is slow or that education that Fake Watches is discombobulating and turns one's world on its head is unnerving. Perhaps this resistance to change, however temporary, is a reflection of the stability of cognitive structures, and of their central role in meaning making. This central role was documented by King, Baxter Magolda, Barber, Kendall Brown, and Lindsay in their study of developmentally effective experiences, those that prompted students to see or think about the world, themselves, and/or their relationships with others in more developmentally advanced ways. They observed that what students learned from significant experiences differed dramatically by developmental level. Notably, students reported strong emotional reactions to many of these experiences and the effort they put into making sense of them.

Educators who endorse development as the aim of education embrace the charge by creating contexts for learning that engage students in ways that foster the kind of transformations to which Mezirow (2000) referred: Transformative learning refers to the process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action. For examples of these kinds of environments, see Baxter Magolda (1999) and Baxter Magolda and King (2004).