Learning Theorist Digital Project –
Jean Piaget and Cognitive Development
Octavio Rodriguez
Illinois State University
C & I 408 – Learning in Educational Settings
For Dr. Rena Shifflet
June 20, 2012
Slide 1
http://www.holisticeducator.com/piaget.htm
Jean Piaget theory of Cognitive Development
Script
Piaget's is known all over the world and is still an inspiration in fields like psychology,
sociology, education, epistemology, economics and law as witnessed in the annual
catalogues of the Jean Piaget Archives. He was awarded numerous prizes and honorary
degrees all over the world.
Slide 2
http://mladiinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/zurich-university.jpg
University of Zurich
Script
Attended the University of Zurich in Switzerland and love to study psycho analysis or
the study of people. While he was in Switzerland he and his wife had their children. He
began to study the behavior of his children from birth to adolescence. While he studies
his own children he came up with the theory of Cognitive Development. The theory is
composed of four states that I will explain in the presentation.
Slide 3
Piaget’s basic assumption
Development is children’s attempts to make sense of the world.
Script
PIAGET BELIEVED THAT development was Orderly, adaptive, qualitative changes in
four areas: physical, personal, social, and cognitive
-Physical: changes in body structure, i.e. puberty
-Personal: changes in personality
-Social: changes in the ways we relate to others, i.e. playing as a baby we play
next to another kid but not with.
-Cognitive: Mental processes become more complex and sophisticated, i.e.
clay conservation, hypothetical reasoning
•Qualitatively different ways of thinking
Slide 4
Four Stages of Cognitive Development
http://wiki.ggc.usg.edu/images/b/b2/PaigetChart.PNG
THROUGH OBSERVING OF HIS OWN KIDS AND OTHERS PIAGET CAME UP WITH
THE FOUR STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT:
SENSORIMOTOR:
-Development based on info obtained through senses or body movements
•object permanence (a hidden object still exists even if they are out of site, Example
would be when parents play peek-a-boo)
•goal-directed actions: baby plans something, i.e. batting a swinging toy that has
been placed in front of them.
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE -Beginning of mental operations
•Operations child can think about doing something without actually doing it.
•Decentering (the object is red & square)
•Egocentrism: Sees world from their own view point
•Reversible thinking child can think backwards (i.e. counting)
•Collective monologue: group talk but no real interaction
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
-”Hands-on thinking” stage, mental tasks are tied to concrete objects and situations
•Conservation: changes in some characteristics of an object remain the same despite
changes in appearance
•Seriation can organize objects in sequential either by size, weight, vol or anything
that makes sense.
•Classification: can group objects into categories
•Compensation: change in one dimension can be offset by changes in another (i.e. a
balance scale or an algebra problem 2X + 7 = 3X - 9)
FORMAL OPERATIONS
-”Scientific”, hypothetical, inductive reasoning stage: What if . . . ?
-Adolescent egocentrism: everyone else shares one’s thoughts, feelings, and concerns
(i.e. realization that “gee my parents have grown smarter over time”)
-Achieved in areas of interest and experience/Do we all reach the fourth stage?
Slide 5 Sensorimotor
-Infancy: 0-2
Video 1
Slide 6 Preoperational
-Early childhood to elementary years: 2-7
Video 2
Slide 7 Concrete Operational
-Later elementary to middle school: 7-11
Video 3
Slide 8 Formal Operational.
-Junior and senior high: 11-15
Video 4
Slide 9 Underestimates children’s abilities
Fixed stages
Doesn’t take role of culture or social context into account.
Piaget vs Vygotsky
Slide 10
Lev Vygotsky 1896-1934
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/images/portrait.jpg
Script
Born a Russian Jew
His father was a banker, his mother a teacher, second of eight children
He was a child genius and was privately tutored for his schooling via Socratic Dialogue
Jews confined in a restricted territory, quotas for entering universities-no more than 3%
of the university’s population could be Jewish. The year before he entered the university
they changed the rules, instead of taking the best Jewish students, they would have a
lottery in order to dilute the quality of student’s entering-he was fortunate to have
gotten the draw.
Entered Moscow University 1913, graduating with a degree in literature, he taught
literature and opened a psychological laboratory--people came from miles around to
hear his diagnoses. He received his doctorate in 1925 with his dissertation on the
Psychology of Art.
He started to gain notoriety as he delivered very different ideas than the behaviorist
notions prominent at that time.
Writings:
He wrote over 180 works in 10 years
He died in 1934, at the age of 38, of tuberculosis.
Slide 11
Vygotsky Key Principles
Children construct knowledge
Learning can lead development
-The Zone of Proximal Development
Development cannot be separated from the social context
Language plays a central role in mental development.
Script
•Constructivism:
Children piece together information in their world in their own way, learning is not
memorizing. Building relationships with what they already know to the new info.
•Learning can lead development Children can imitate something long before they
understand it. Therefore you get the zone of proximal development--the space
between actual development and potential development. Potential development what a
student can do with another person’s help
•Development and culture:
Learning is social, apprenticeships, as students in some cultures there is no word for
mine or a sense of ownership, how does one student then make sense of a situation
differently than another?
•Language
Self-talk aids development, sophistication of language=sophistication of thought?
Slide 12
Continuous and Complete Assessment
Scaffold and Assist Learning
Be Aware of the Role of Culture and Social Context in Learning
Facilitate Language for LEP Students
Script
Need to assess more than just actual development with SAT’s etc., the need to capitalize
on potential development. “With a little assistance, how far can I push them?” Students:
“When the T is there, I can do it, but then the test comes . . . “ Continual assessment
guiding your assistance to students.
•SCAFFOLDING:
The goal of the teacher is to provide scaffolding in the form of verbal cues, structuring,
cooperative groups as help--extending students towards their potential development
rather than stagnating at actual development
•CULTURE:
Learning can’t be separated from its social context, so, classroom learning should
focus on authentic, real-life tasks. If you’re talking about money in a social studies,
economics, or math class. Your economic status as “upper class” in some students eyes,
“lower class” in others, their status and role of money in their families. i.e.dinner with
my dad, $10 dinner “These prices are very reasonable”, everything you do and say has a
social/cultural context--awareness of that context may help you understand your
students’ motivation and understanding.
•The impact of LANGUAGE on thought:
Second language learners: How can you as a teacher facilitate development of
thought with less emphasis on the English Language? If students are missing the
words can they still achieve the complex thought? Yes, with a teachers’ assistance and
awareness of the need to understand language. Carefully examine your assumptions
regarding use of language. i.e. my use of “constructivism”.
How does it apply to education and how will I apply it to my teaching?
Slide 17
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/education-1.jpg
Script
Piaget's theories can be applied in many different educational realms. For example, his
basic premise that involved stages of development gives heavy weight to the individual
maturation of a child. This has educational implications in that teachers have to
understand that "mastery" occurs at different paces for the different learners in the
classroom. There is no one "end" in which everyone has "learned." Rather, it takes
place organically, and teachers have to understand that this maturation and growth
must be built into the curriculum and the planning of instruction. I think that another
relevant idea of Piaget comes in his view of education, in general:
Knowledge is a process, not a product; it is dynamic, never static, self-regulatory rather
than imposed from without. Even as mollusks taken from the lake of Neuchâtel and placed
in an aquarium change very little after five or six generations, the human organism has a
built-in blueprint that determines the course of cognitive evolution, a course not unlike
that of the evolution of scientific thought.
The idea of knowledge being a process and not solely a product is profound for
education. In a modern setting where so much is connected to high stakes standardized
assessment and standards based educational reform, Piaget's words about process and
product, the dynamic nature of understanding, and the evolution of the mind haunt the
modern educator. The applications of this idea in my classroom would be to construct a
realm whereby stakeholders are able to embrace an approach to learning that is rooted
in the child's development and their own sense of understanding. The assessment tools
that I have learn to use and create along with the understanding of how everyone learns
will help me create more ways to make sure my students get it. This is probably where
the realm of authentic assessment and student driven approaches to learning would be
something that Piaget I hope would embrace himself. Learning about someone like
Piaget and comparing him to Vygotsky made this class come alive.
Bibliography
Research for Piaget
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/piaget.htm
http://piaget.weebly.com/index.html
Research for Vygotsky
http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/wits/vygotsky-development.pdf
Comparative information between Piaget and Vygotsky.
http://www.taletwist.com/PYCV/achieving_understanding_in_cultu.htm
Video Samples of four States.
Piagets Stages of Development Downloaded from Youtube from most commonly used
examples.
Stage 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue8y-JVhjS0
Stage 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whT6w2jrWbA&feature=related
Stage 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA04ew6Oi9M&feature=related
Stage 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl7OGSf8T4Y&feature=related
Did not make the cut and ended on the cutting room floor.
Comparing both “Piaget and Vygotsky” video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axi7xctulbM&feature=related