首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Preschoolers’ Innate Knowledge Means They Can Probably Do Algebra Child development specialists are uncovering evidence that
Preschoolers’ Innate Knowledge Means They Can Probably Do Algebra Child development specialists are uncovering evidence that
admin
2015-03-28
43
问题
Preschoolers’ Innate Knowledge Means They Can Probably Do Algebra
Child development specialists are uncovering evidence that toddlers may understand much more than we think.
[A] Give a three-year old a smart phone and she’ll likely figure out how to turn it on and operate a few simple functions. But confront her with an algebra problem and ask her to solve for x? Not likely.
[B] For decades, child developmental psychologist Jean Piaget convinced us that young, undeveloped minds couldn’t handle complex concepts because they simply weren’t experienced or mature enough yet. Piaget, in fact, believed that toddlers could not understand cause and effect, that they couldn’t think logically, and that they also couldn’t handle abstract ideas.
[C] That’s because, he argued, children learn to develop these higher skills through trial and error. But child development specialists are finding out that preschoolers without any formal education may have the capacity to understand more complex concepts than we give them credit for, such as complicated rules for operating a toy or even solving for an unknown in algebra. Some of this is due to their ability to be more open and flexible about their world than adults. But beyond that, toddlers may have the innate ability to understand abstract concepts like quantities and causality, and that’s fueling an exciting stream of experiments that reveal just how sophisticated preschoolers’ brains might be.
[D] Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology at University of California Berkeley and her team devised a way to test how well young kids understand the abstract concept of multiple causality — the idea that there may be more than one cause for a single effect. They pitted 32 preschoolers around 4 years old against 143 un-dergrads. The study centered around a toy that could be turned on by placing a single blue-colored block on the toy’s tray, but could also be activated if two blocks of different colors — orange and purple — were placed on the tray. Both the kids and the undergraduates were shown how the toy worked and then asked which blocks activated the toy.
[E] The preschoolers were adept at figuring out that the blue blocks turned on the toy, as did the purple and orange ones. The Berkeley undergraduates, however, had a harder time accepting the scenario.Their previous experience in the world, which tends to work in a single-cause-equals-single-effect way, hampered their ability to accept the unusual rules that activated they toy; they wanted to believe that it was activated either by a single color or by a combination of colors, but not both.
[F] The preschoolers’ lack of bias about causality likely contributed to their ability to learn the multiple ways to activate the toy, but the results also suggest that preschoolers really can think logically and in more complicated ways. Just because they can’t express themselves or aren’t as adept at demonstrating such knowledge, doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
[G] Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, for example, found a similar effect among preschoolers when it came to math. Previous studies showed that if you present infants with eight objects over and over until they got bored, and then showed them 16, they suddenly regained interest and sensed that things changed. "All the evidence so far leads us to believe that this is something that babies come into the world with," says Melissa Kibbe, co-author of that study.
[H] She and her colleague Lisa Feigenson wondered if that innate sense of quantity might translate into an understanding of numbers and higher math functions, including solving for unknowns — one of the foundations of algebra — which often isn’t taught until seventh or eighth grades. So they conducted a series of experiments using a cup with a fixed amount of objects that substituted for x in the equation 5 + x=17.
[I] To divert the four- and six-year olds’ attention away from Arabic numerals to quantities instead, the researchers used a puppet and a "magic" cup that contained 12 buttons. In one of the experiments, the children saw five buttons on the table. After watching the researchers add the 12 buttons from the cup, they were told there were 17 buttons on the table. In another test, the youngsters saw three piles of objects — buttons, coins or small toys — in varying amounts, and observed the researchers adding the fixed number of contents of the puppet’s cup to each.
[J] After training the kids on how the cup worked, the researchers tried to confuse them with another cup containing fewer (such as four) or more (such as 24) objects. However, the kids understood intuitively that the decoy cup contained the wrong amount of items and that a specific amount — x, the "magic" cup amount — had to be added to reach the sum. That suggested that the preschoolers had some concept of quantity. What surprised Kibbe was not just that preschoolers understood the concept of adding "more," but that they could also calibrate how much more was needed to fill in the unknown quantity.
[K] "These kids had very little formal schooling so far, but what we are finding is that when we tap into their gut sense, something we call the Approximate Number Sense (ANS), kids are able to do much more complex calculations than if we gave them numbers and letters," says Kibbe of her results. And there doesn’t seem to be any gender differences in this innate ability, at least not among the girls and boys Kibbe studied.
[L] There’s also precedent for such innate pre-learning in reading, says Jon Star, at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. To improve reading skills, some teachers have tapped into children’s memorization skills to make the connection between words and meaning more efficient.
[M] Kibbe’s and Gopnik’s recent work may have broader implications for education, since current math curricula in schools, which focuses on teaching Arabic numerals and on solving equations, may not be ideal for nurturing the number sense that kids are born with. "There’s an exciting movement in psychology over the past decade, as we learn that students bring certain capabilities, or innate knowledge that we hadn’t thought they had before," says Star.
[N] Though it may be too early to translate such findings to the classroom, the results lay the groundwork for studying similar innate skills and how they might be better understood. ANS, for example, is one of many constructs that young children may have that could enhance their learning but that current curricula aren’t exploiting. Developmental experts are still trying to figure out how malleable these constructs are, and how much of an impact they can have on future learning. For instance, do kids who hone their ANS skills become better at algebra and calculus in high school? "We still need to figure out which constructs matter most, and which are most amenable to interventions to help children improve their learning," says Star.
[O] "The hard part is, educationally, how do you build up and upon this intuitive knowledge in a way that allows a child to capture the complexity but not hold them back," says Tina Grotzer, associate professor of education at Harvard. Tapping into a child’s still developing sense of numbers and quantities is one thing, but overloading it with too many new constructs about algebra, unknowns, and problem solving may just gum up the working memory and end up adversely affecting his learning and academic performance.
[P] Still, that doesn’t mean that these innate skills shouldn’t be explored and possibly exploited in the class-room. Preschoolers may be smarter than we think, but we still have to figure out how to give them the right opportunities in the classroom so they know what to do with that knowledge.
Kibbes’ study showed that both girls and boys are born with the Approximate Number Sense.
选项
答案
K
解析
段末句提到,这种天赋并没有在性别上有什么差异。至少在基布研究的女孩和男孩中,没有差别。其中的mis innate ability即指上文提到的gut sense或the Approximate Number Sense。由此可见,从基布的研究可以看出,女孩和男孩都天生具有直觉感或近似值感。本题是对该句的转述。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Heh7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
HowExerciseCouldLeadtoaBetterBrainA)Thevalueofmental-traininggamesmaybespeculative,asDanHurleywritesinhisa
中华民族的传统文化博大精深、源远流长。早在2000多年前,就产生了儒家学说(Confucianism)和道家学说(Taoism),以及其他很多在中国思想史上有地位的学说流派(theoriesanddoctrines),这就是有名的“诸子百家(Hund
Cellphonesprovideinstantaccesstopeople.Theyarecreatingamajor【C1】______inthesocialexperiencesofbothchildrenand
秧歌舞(Yangkodance)是中国汉族的一种传统民间舞蹈,通常在北方省份表演。秧歌舞者通常穿上明亮多彩的表演服装,他们的表演动作迅速有力。在农历春节、元宵节等节日期间,人们一旦听到锣鼓声,不管外面天气有多冷,他们都会蜂拥到街上观看秧歌舞表演。近年来,
A、Byusingthecomputers.B、Byreferringtothecataloguethelibrarianhasgiven.C、Byaskingthelibrariantohelpher.D、Byc
月饼是中国人在中秋节食用的传统食品,一般呈圆形,寓意团圆幸福,反映了人们对家人团聚的美好愿望。在古代的中秋节,月饼被用来祭拜月神(Luna),后来逐渐形成了中秋吃月饼的传统。月饼通常是烤制而成的,外皮(crust)一般是由面粉制成,里面包进某种馅(stuf
A、Theforecastsaiditwouldn’train.B、Theweatherwasgoodatthebeginning.C、Hethoughttheforecastwouldchange.D、Hedidn
A、TherelationshipbetweensleepandweightB、Thequestionofchickenortheeggs.C、Thedifficultyofpersuadingkidstolosep
A、Thelengthofthecourse.B、Theroutethecycliststake.C、Thenumberofparticipants.D、Thedatewhenthetourisheld.B男士说,
A、Havedinneratafancyrestaurant.B、Enjoyaromanticdinnerathome.C、Inviteallthefriendstotheparty.D、Takeashorttr
随机试题
下列哪些选项是1991年颁布实行的《民事诉讼法》(2007年修正)未作规定的制度?
配制pH=9的缓冲溶液,应选下列何种弱酸(或弱碱)和它们的共轭碱(或共轭酸)来配制()。
C市有一化工园区,其中规模最大的企业是甲石化厂,该化工园区内,与甲石化厂相邻的有乙、丙、丁三家化工厂,针对该化工园区的火灾、爆炸、中毒和环境污染风险,该市编制了《C市危险化学品重大事故应急救援预案》。在应急救援预案颁布后,该市在甲石化厂进行了事故应急救援演
下列关于会计职业道德和会计法律制度二者关系的观点中,错误的有()。
恒利发展是在上海证券交易所挂牌的上市公司,股本总额10亿元,主营业务为医疗器械研发与生产。维义高科是从事互联网医疗业务的有限责任公司,甲公司和乙公司分别持有维义高科90%,和10%的股权。为谋求业务转型,2015年6月3日,恒利发展与维义高科、甲公司、乙公
在某一时段内通过河流上指定断面的径流总量除以该断面以上的流域面积所得的值,相当于该时段内平均分布于该面积上的水深。下图为我国某河流下游某断面的月径流深的变化示意图。结合材料与示意图,完成题。结合材料分析,以下河流中,从中游到下游径流深呈现明显减少的是
《中共安徽省委关于贯彻落实党的十八届四中全会精神、全面推进依法治省的意见》中,提出了“坚持‘三个法治’一体建设”的目标任务,这“三个法治”是()。
一件工作,已知甲、乙合作需4小时完成;乙、丙合作需要5小时完成;如甲、丙先合作做2小时,则余下工作乙需6小时完成。设三人的彼此合作均不影响对方的工作效率,则乙单独完成这件工作要多少小时?
设计一个网络时,拟采用B类地址,共有80个子网,每个子网约有300台计算机,则子网掩码应设为(13)。如果采用CIDR地址格式,则最可能的分配模式是(14)。(14)
Cheatingisnothingnew.Buttoday,educatorsandadministratorsarefindingthatinstancesofacademic【C1】______onthepartof
最新回复
(
0
)