Who is Jean Piaget? Piaget is credited as being the father of cognitive psychology. He was a Swiss Psychologist who was educated
in the fields of biology and philosophy.
Why did Piaget begin studying child development? Piaget wanted to know "how we come to know." He was meticulous in his
observations and recordings of his own 3 children during infancy.
What is his thesis? Piaget theorizes that people think in terms of "abstract symbolic reasoning." Humans develop in stages that
build upon the previous stage. Piaget combines nature and nurture in his theory to explain how thinking and knowledge develops
over the life span of a person.
How is Piaget’s theory of cognitive development important in the classroom? Piaget emphasized the need for prior knowledge;
Teachers can use this theory to help “build” lessons throughout the year and increase student learning. Piaget also theorized about
how children learn at different ages of development; Teachers can utilize this theory to tailor their lessons in order to optimally
communicate lesson objectives for the children in terms they most connect with.
theory of cognitive development has two main parts:
Cognitive Learning Theory- This part of Piaget’s theory describes how he theorizes children take
in and interpret information (learning). Piaget said our mind is a cognitive structure (filing cabinet)
made up of schema (files) used to organize our experiences (stimuli) within the environment.
When a stimulus does not fit in an already existing schema, cognitive dissonance occurs, and a new
schema must be created to accommodate the new experience and establish equilibrium. This is
how our minds build and connect within concepts and experiences. Piaget viewed our knowledge
like a giant web of related facts and experiences.
The Stages of Learning Theory- This part of Piaget’s theory establishes and describes four stages of cognitive
development. Each stage is age related and has a distinct way of perceiving the surrounding world.
Sensori-motor: (0-2 years old) Infants are born with reflexes.
As they develop, knowledge is gained from
physical actions. They use their senses and physical actions to make sense of their world. Children develop
object permanence (knowing things exist even when we cannot see them) during this stage.
Pre-operational: (2-7 years old) Symbols are used to communicate and represent the world (words and
images). Children are egocentric (cannot recognize any other perspective but their own) and show animism (the
belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action). This stage is preparatory for the
operational stages.
Concrete Operational:
(7-11 years old) Children begin to replace intuitive reasoning with logical
reasoning when the reasoning can be applied to specific (concrete) examples. They realize the law of
conservation, begin to order stimuli (seriation), and recognize transitivity by visually seeing items that describe:
(if a = b, and b = c, then a = c = b).
Formal Operational: (11 – 15 years old) Adolescents move beyond concrete reasoning into thinking
abstractly and logically. Develop mental “ideals” and consider their future. Children begin using hypotheticaldeductive reasoning
Applying Piaget to the classroom: allow children to be active and hands on and discover things, observe students, use
level appropriate materials, help students correct false thinking, use ongoing assessments, do not put too much pressure
on learning, allow it to develop naturally, allow DISCOVERY to happen!