Reference

Salvin, E., Robbert (2000). Educational Psychology (sixth edition).United States of America

Yunus, M., Rohani&Razali, M., &JAntan,R.,(2011)HBET2103Educational Pschology.Malaysia

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Piaget 's theory

Some videos about Jean Piaget's Cognitive development theory

Conclusion

To sum up, Jean Piaget’s of cognitive development has been used by many people and also it has been criticized. His theory has a very big impact on the theory and practice of education. He is one of the best known psychologies and also he is famous for his theory of cognitive development. In his theory there is four stage of the cognitive development. They are sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage and last formal operational stage. To teachers it is very important to know the development of cognitive development . Also cognitive development is very important when you need to learn something because cognitive developments affect the learning of the child.

Why it is important to teachers?

For teachers it is very important to know the cognitive level of the students she teaches. So that she could teach well the students and also she needs to know it when she give works to do. In addition to checking the correctness of the answers, teachers must understand the processes children use to get to the answers” (Salvin, 2000). For teachers it is important to know why the students give a certain type of answers or why a student cannot process information like other students. Teachers also have to create a progress report of the students while doing this it is very important to know the cognitive development level of the children.

How cognitive development Effects Learning

Cognitive development plays a huge role in learning. If the child does not develop cognitively he or she might face problems in learning. When learning, thinking is important. “Piglet’s theory of development represents constructivism, a view of cognitive development as a process in which children actively build systems of meaning and understanding of reality through experiences and interactions”(Salvin,2000). If the constructivism is not developed the children may not understand how to build an understanding while they experience. They learn new things by doing this. If the child does not develop cognitively the child will not learn anything they would face many problems when they try to learn.

The stages of development

Jean Piaget has divided the cognitive development of both children and adolescents in to four main stages. They are sensorimotor (Birth to age2), preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7), concrete operational stage (ages7 to 11) and formal operational stage (ages 11 to adulthood).  “He believed that all the children pass through these stages in order to that no child can skip a stage, although different children pass through the stages at somewhat different rates”(Salvin, 2000). Piaget believed that all the children would pass the stages but different children will pass through the stages at different times. For example a child may not be able to pass through sensorimotor stage although the baby is three year old. This could be due to many reasons like diseases.

Sensorimotor stage (birth to Age 2)

Sensorimotor is the earliest stage in the cognitive development. This stage starts when the baby is born and normally goes on until the baby is 2 year old. In this stage the children uses their senses and movement to learn and to explore new things. “Piaget believed that all the children are born with innate tendency to interact with and to make sense of their environment” (Salvin, 2000). In this stage there would be many dramatic changes.  All the babies have an inborn behavior which is called reflexes. For example if you touch a infants lips or near the baby’s mouth then the baby would try to suck your finger and if you put your finger on their palm then they would hold your finger . This is what we call Reflexes. These behaviors are innate and from this the baby’s first scheme is formed. The children then learned to use these reflexes and they try to explore new things. This learning happens mostly unknowingly. However later they learn through more intentionally trial and error efforts. By the end of this stage the trial and error approach would be better and would also progress to problem solving.

Preoperational stage (Ages 2 to 7)

Normally in this stage the children in their pre-school. In this stage the children develops their ability of using symbols and also to represent objects in the world. Also in this stage the children develop their language and concepts in an unbelievable rate. “Pre-school children use their symbolic thinking ability to solve problems but their use of thinking does not follow the convention of logic and are therefore easily by different perception” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). Earlier Piaget had discovered that young children do not understand the concept of conservation. “Conservation is the concept that certain properties of an object (such as weight) remain the same regardless of changes in other properties (such as length)” (Salvin, 2000). For example if you pour water in to two jar that is same and ask the child which has more water than the child would say it is same. However  if you pour the same amount of water in to a jar that is small and wide and a jar that is long and narrow jar and ask the child which has more water than the child would say that the long and narrow one has more water. Piaget believed that this happen because the children only focus on one aspect. In this example the child only focus on the height of the jar. Another character of the Preoperational children is that the thinking of the children focuses on the state. In the water example the children forgets that it is poured from one container to another and then they only focus on the beginning state that is water in the same type of jars and then the end sate that is water in a long and narrow jar. The nest character of the preoperational children is that they are very egocentric. They believe that everybody thinks the way thinks.

Concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11)

In the concrete operational stage the children’s starts to go to school and they would be in their primary grades.in this stage “They think logically and concretely, they can solve problems through trial and error” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). In this stage the children could solve problems and also can form concepts and also can see relationship between things if only the problems and the objectives are similar or familiar to them. Like the preoperational stage in this stage also the children’s undergo dramatic changes in their cognitive development. In this stage the children would not have a problem in conservation when the children come to this stage they would understand the concept of conservation. In this stage the kids learn seriation or in other words arranging things in a logical way. For example arranging pencil from the smallest to the longest. “Children in elementary grades also moving from egocentric thought to decentered or objective thought” (Salvin, 2000). In this stage the children’s are not ego centered, the children’s in this stage has objective thought and they believe that other will not have the same perceptions that they have.

Formal operational stage (Age 11 to adulthood)

In this stage the puberty of the students starts and also they develop some of the adolescent characteristics. “Adolescents are able to think about abstract hypothetical concepts and are able to think about the long term effects of an action” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). In this stage the children’s think more abstract and also they could think about what will happen in the future if they do a certain action. Another ability of the Formal operational stage children is that they can reason about situations and conditions. They can apply logic to any to any given conditions. According to Salvin (2000) according to Piaget, the formal operational stage brings cognitive development to a close. However the intellectual development will continue to grow beyond adolescent.

His theory

                                        “According to Piaget, active children develop their understanding about their environment through four stages of cognitive development” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001).

There are two important processes in building this understanding, they are organization and adaptation. Organization refers to the nature of the adaptive mental structure. Adaptation means adjusting schemes in response to the environment. He said that the organization and processing information as cognitive structure. He also has children show patterns of behavior or the thinking is called schemes. “Schemes are mental patterns that guide behavior” (Salvin, 2000). An example of a scheme is when someone says school we think about books, home works, teachers and friends. This is what we call schema. In a nutshell the scheme is a mental picture that we have about something. “Piaget further elaborated that only were we able to organize all our observation and experiences, we also adapt our thinking by taking in new ideas in order to improve our understanding about something.”(Salvin, 2000). He also believed that the process of adapting occurs through two ways that is accommodation and assimilation.

Assimilation

Assimilation is “understanding new experiments in term of existing schema” (Salvin, 2000).this means that we are adding new information in to the schema. For example when a toddler get a rattle to play he banged it it’s his scheme to explore the world but when the toddler gets a block to play then also he bangs it. This is what we called the assimilation. Assimilation can also be defined as “the addition of new information to or enrichment of the existing cognitive structure” (Yunus, Razali &Jantan, 2001). It means that when the toddler got the block and banged it he got new information that not only the rattle but the block also can be banged.

Accommodation

According to Salvin (2000) accommodation is modifying existing schemes to fit new situation. Accommodation occurs when the object does not fit the existing scheme that that they have in their mind.  In the above example when the toddler got the block he experienced a new thing but the block fit in to his existing scheme. However when the toddler is given an egg and then he bangs it then the egg would crack because that does not fit his existing scheme. This is what we call accommodation. In accommodation the child learns something new and also he or she creates a new scheme. For example the toddler would know that he or she should not bang the egg.

Who is Jean Piaget??

Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in Switzerland. He is the most popular and best known child physiology in the world of psychology. He is most popular for his cognitive development theory.  He died in 1980. According to Salvin (2000) after receiving his doctorate in biology, he become more interested in psychology, basing his earliest theories on careful observation of his own three children. After that he applied biological principles and methods to study psychology and many of the terms he used were from biology.

About me and the blog

I am Maldha Abdulla a student from villa collage. I am doing Bachelors of education in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). This is my second year. I am 18 years old. Since childhood I had desire for teaching others so as soon as I finished my O’Level at Hiriya School I joined villa collage for my further studies, I joined villa collage in 2012. This blog is done for one of my assignment in Educational psychology. This blog mainly talks about the Piaget cognitive development theory. After reading the blog if you have any questions you are free to ask in the chat forum in the blog. I hope you gain lot of new information about piglet’s cognitive development theory.

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