Peer Review (Term Paper Sample)

Peer Review
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Peer Review
Topic 1
New communication technologies and social media, in particular, have significant influence in the lives of adolescents. Nowadays, many parents employ technology for interaction with friends, workmates and sometimes their children. Notably, the Facebook accounts, which used to be lucrative to the teenagers, are gradually becoming appealing to parents, and some grandmothers have not been spared either. In fact, 73 percent of the Americans online users comprise of teens of between 12 to 17 years ("ABC News -Facebook Turns 10: The Social Network in Numbers" 2014). In essence, the social media accounts such as Facebook give teens a platform where they develop a sense of who they are and allow them to fit express themselves freely.
While parents may be using Facebook and other forms of social media, teens are less likely to accept them as their friends. Impliedly, teens want privacy for whatever they share and they feel embarrassed when it leaks to the parents because sometimes such content may not be so good for moral growth. Besides providing teens with an opportunity to share with friends, social media poses adverse impacts on the lives of adolescents including lower school grades, online harassment and cyberbullying and addiction ("InternetSafety101.org: Statistics”).
Topic 2
Admittedly, adolescence is a developmental stage, which is often characterized by the imitations of adult behaviors by teens. Substance abuse is no longer meant for the adults as it was thousands of years ago. Nowadays, teens easily engage in substance abuse because of peer pressure. Interestingly, the cost of not yielding to peer pressure is sufficiently high in the sense that a teenager who does not keep the habits of his or her peers may compromise personal happiness because of social alienation ("Aussie teens online | ACMA”). Usually, use of drugs such as tobacco, bhang, alcohol among others causes interruption to learning and subsequent drop in performance. More specifically, adolescents waste time in substance abuse, spend more days out of school and lose concentration in learning, which explains the decline in academic performance.
Similarly, parental involvement in adolescent learning is pertinent to the academic achievement of the adolescents. Family socialization is central to the development of certain beliefs, attitudes, competence and self-concept (Marsh 2010). In the modern Australia, where most parents have less time for their children because of leading busy lives, it is elaborate that most adolescents lack the parental behavior modeling and their motivation for learning may decline. In essence, socialization is essential to the development of either positive or negative behaviors. Simply, this means that when parental involvement is poor, the adolescents’ motivation for learning declines, which further lowers their grades. Impliedly, students do not worry about the statistics of drug abuse the same way they do not value the much-needed parental support, a situation that poses a challenge to improving adolescent learning.
Topic 3
Usually, the students’ sense of belonging to school and classroom culture tends to decrease from primary school to high school respectively. In essence, the social environment that characterize school communities and classrooms influence adolescent learning including major aspects of their emotional, ethical and social development. The quality of students’ and staff relationships is one of the most important factors that characterize the classroom or school culture. In fact, the school environment supports adolescent learning because it entails general protective factors including high expectations from teachers and parents, clear rules and penalties, and a caring school climate.
Evidently, when the classroom and school environment is supportive, the adolescents are less likely to engage in disruptive behaviors such as violence and substance abuse. In fact, the adolescents find the environment emotional and psychologically satisfactory and they develop positive behaviors and attitudes towards learning. Because adolescents undergo many developmental changes, the classroom or school culture, provide them with social connectedness that is essential for creating a sense of belonging and bonding. Besides, the efforts to foster adolescent learning, the feelings of social connectedness and belonging are pertinent to the adolescent academic achievement.
Topic 4
Young people learn a lot from teachers in educational institutions and their early year’s practitioners. In fact, the guardians or parents are the first educators of children or young people. Considerably, much of the learning for young people occurs within community and family settings-outside the classroom environment. Usually, the more hours that young people spend outside the classroom environment has positive effect on the development of such individuals. Learning within the commu...