Learning Outcome: Evaluate
theories of cognitive
development (for example,
Piaget and Vygotsky).
Introducing Piaget
Read the information on Piaget and answer the following
questions (on a word document or in your green books):
1. Outline Piaget’s main assumptions about cognitive
development.
2. Outline the role of schema’s in Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development.
3. Describe the process of adaptation in relation to
schemas.
4. Why is Piaget know as being “constructivist” in his
approach?
Summary of Piaget’s theory
• http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/piagetstheory-of-cognitive-development.html#lesson
Adaptation
The process by which the child changes its mental models of the world
to match more closely how the world actually is.
Cognitive development
As the child gets older its schemas become...
More complex
More numerous
More abstract
More interconnected
Cognitive development
The child’s understanding develops because...
Its brain is
developing
(maturation)
It is exploring
the world
around it
(experience)
Types of Adaptation
5. Using two examples, outline the process of
Assimilation.
6. Using two examples, outline the process of
Accommodation.
Assimilation and Accommodation
• http://educationportal.com/academy/lesson/assimilation-andaccommodation.html#lesson
Summary
• Remember that Piaget’s assumptions are about child
development in general.
• His specific theory of cognitive development involves
the use of schemas and the constructivist nature of
learning.
• Children are born with innate schemas to suck, reach
and grip for example.
• These schemas are are modified (constructed) as a
result of experience in a process called adaptation.
• Adaption involves Assimilation and Accommodation.
• Assimilation-consolidation of existing knowledge
• Accommodation-creation of new knowledge and the
rejection or adaptation of existing schemas.
Assimilate
Equilibrium
Adaptation
of
schemas
Accommodate
Disequilibrium
Piaget proposed four stages each child
moves through in sequential order
during cognitive development.
• The sensorimotor stage
• The pre-operational stage
• The concrete operational stage
• The formal operational stage
Task
• In three’s outline two of Piaget’s
stages and evaluate research that
provides evidence for these theories.
Present this to the rest of the class.
Operations
• As well as knowledge of things we will encounter in the
world, we also need to understand the rules by which
the world operates.
• Piaget called these rules operations.
• Piaget suggested that the reason that children think in
different ways at different stages of their development
is because the operations of which we are capable
change with age.
• Piaget believed that while schemas develop with
experience, operations develop as the child’s brain
matures (biologically controlled).
• Very young children do not have operations at all, and
are said to be pre-operational.
• The first operations that appear are concrete. This
means that children understand the rules governing
something as long as they can see it.
• Later, rules governing abstract concepts are understood.