Jean Piaget, born on August 9, 1896, Swiss and an occupation as a biologist but mainly a psychologist, declared that there were several stages of mental development, and founded the fields of cognitive theory and development psychology. Unfortunately he died in Geneva, Switzerland on September 16, 1890.
His theory called, Piaget’s Cognitive Theory has very different characteristics from other learning or cognitive ideas for example, this only focuses in children in an early stage of development such as 1-year-old to early teens. Also, it does not talk about learning techniques or related to learning but more about the children’s development, which affects its way of how he absorbs information in later stages of his/her life.
Before all these was done it was thought children were far away to think like an adult there for less competent thinkers, but Piaget showed that young children think in a surprisingly different way matched with adults.
Does this want to go somewhere?
Yes, its goal is to explain the ways and processes in which a baby, then a child can development a mechanism to reason and make its own hypothesis and learning skills.
In this theory consists of 3 basic components:
Schemas. (Building the elemental blocks of knowledge)
Equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation. (Processes that can make possible the transition of one stage to another)
Stages of Development. (Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational)
Piaget's Cognitive Theory
SCHEMAS
Schema is a framework of something we already know but don’t fully understand. They are use as shortcuts to connect, relate, or interpret new information and have a better grasp of the material we receive. Sadly this can contribute to stereotypes and make it hard for one to recall new information that does not follow our settled ideas about the world.
An example of a schema could be a child seeing a horse, she know its large, has 2 pointy ears, four long legs and a hairy tail, with all this characteristics she knows how horses look. Later on, she encounters a cow, it large, has two ears and four long legs but has no hairy tail and goes “moo” once in a while, she is confused but still thinks it’s a horse, her parents explains it’s a cow and she has to tie the new information that not all animals with two ears, four long legs are horses but sometimes cows because they “moo” and have a different type of tail.
On a new situation it could be that she encounters a small horse, and at first thinks it’s a dog, her parents explain that it’s a different type of horse. Now, she put together that horses have 2 ears but may not have four long legs and its still a horse.
Equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation is when a child includes new information or expierence in a schema. There is a quantitative change but no qualitative change. No new schemas are produced because old schemas are used.
Accommodation is the creation of a new schema or the modification of an old one because the new intake of information is so raw that the child has no prior experience thus has to create a new one.
Equilibrium is the balance of accommodation and assimilation because both need each other or the child would be in a complete mess and be very confused. If he or she is successful, equilibrium is achieved. If the learner cannot assimilate the new information, he or she attempts to accommodate by modifying a schema or creating a nee one. If the new information can be accommodated, equilibrium is reached. According to Piaget, learning proceeds in this way from birth through adulthood.
Stages of Development
Describes the stages a person goes through in their cognitive development through their infancy to adulthood.
Sensorimotor. Birth through ages 18-24 months
Infants are only aware of the things that are in front of them. The reason they shake, put things in their mouth and throw stuff around is because they lack experience in the reaction of things. Infant then, is aware of things that are hidden from his sight, sign of memory development
Preoperational. Toddlerhood (18-24 months) through early childhood (age 7)
More mature language and think symbolically about things, develop imagination and memory, recognize fantasy vs. reality, but only based on intuiton.
Concrete operational. Ages 7 to 12.
Shows logical concrete reasoning, they realize feelings are unique and that sometimes unexplained.
Formal operational. Adolescence through adulthood.
Teens that reach this stage can now think about abstract symbols such as algebra and science. Can create hypotheses and possibilities. Piaget believes this is the final stage that can only be more developed by how much the adult keeps receiving new information and learn.
BIBLIOGRAFY:
McLeod, Saul. "Jean Piaget." Simply Psychology. SimplyPsychology, Jan. 2009. Web. 18 Jan. 2014. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html>.
"Jean Piaget." 2014. The Biography Channel website. Jan 20 2014, 11:11http://www.biography.com/people/jean-piaget-9439915.
Cherry, Kendra. "What Is a Schema?" About.com Psychology. About.com, n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. <http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_schema.htm>.
Benaroch,, Roy. "Children's Health." Piaget Cognitive Stages of Development. WebMD, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 19 Jan. 2014. <http://children.webmd.com/piaget-stages-of-development>.
By: Silvia Pons
Created: January 20, 2014