Jean Piaget

1
Jean Piaget

• Swiss Psychologist

2
Advance Organizer for Piaget

• Key terms assimilation, accommodation,
  equilibrium
• Constructivist approach
• 4 Stages
• Key concepts object permanence, conservation
• Teaching implications

3
Processes of Development

• Move from one stage to another via maturation,
  activity, social experiences and equilibration.
• Equilibration search for mental balance between
  cognitive schemes and information from the
  environment.

4
Processes continued

• Schemes-framework that exists mentally to
  organize and interpret information.
• Assimilation-fitting new information into
  existing schemes.
• Accommodation-altering existing schemes or
  creating new ones in response to new information.
  

5
Stage Theory of Development

• Everyone passes through 4 stages
• in exactly the same order
• Hierarchical Stages- that means one needs to be
  completed before you can move to the next.
• Step like development.
• Constructivist theory

6
Sensorimotor 0-2 years of age

• Experience the world via the childs actions
  which are primarily sucking, grasping, looking,
  touching
• circular reactions-events which the infant liked
  and tries to repeat.

7
Object Permanence

• Hide an object and the child will not look for it
• Out of sight, pretty well out of mind
• Pay attention for new info on this later in
  lecture

8
Preoperational Stage-2-7 years

• Extraordinary increase in mental representation
• Use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning
  emerges, use of concepts increases.

9
Centration

• What you see is what is.
• Process of concentrating on one aspect of an
  object ignoring other aspects.
• A boy in a dress is a girl.
• Longer rows of coins have more money. Smashed
  balls of clay are more clay.

10
So, they lack conservation

• Conservation knowledge that quantity is
  unrelated to arrangement physical appearance of
  objects.
• Up to about age 7 very perception bound

11
Irreversible Thinking

• Can not mentally undo things
• Do you have a brother? Yes
• Does your brother have a sister? No

12
Egocentrism

• Inability to take anothers point of view
• May cover their own eyes when they wish to hide
  from you
• Parallel conversation aka collective monologue

13
Parallel conversation

• Child 1 We went to the circus.
• Child 2 I got a new doll.
• Child 1 I rode the baby elephant.
• Child 2 My doll has 2 outfits.

14
Teaching Preops

• 1. Use concrete props and aids.
• 2. Have them make comparisons.
• 3. Avoid long explanations. Show the students
  what you want them to do.
• 4. Dont expect them to take anothers
  perspective well.
• 5. Take field trips.

15
Concrete Operations 7-12

• Given real materials, they can conserve.
• Can do Mental Representions.
• Still are not good at abstract thinking.

16
Teaching Ideas for this stage

• Continue with concrete props for more difficult
  material.
• Give students a chance to manipulate and test
  objects (bake real bread, make candles, make a
  hamburger grill, et cetera etc.)
• Present problems that require logical thinking.

17
Formal Operations Stage 11 Up

• Thought is more abstract and logical
• Can develop hypotheses to solve problems
  systematically reach a conclusion

18
Formal Operational Stage 12 Up

• can think about what ifs.
• Not restricted to thinking about acquired facts.
  What is possible is more important than what is
  real.
• Higher levels of math are possible.
• Should be able to consider more than one variable
  at a time.

19
Formal Operational Students

• This includes you.
• Continue to use concrete items but can use
  sophisticated graphs, diagrams, charts.
• Give students chance to explore hypothetical
  questions.
• Give students a chance to solve problems and
  reason scientifically.
• Teach broad concepts, not just facts.

20
Criticisms of Piaget

• Fundamentally correct in that human cognition
  does unfold the way he said
• Chief problem underestimated childrens
  competence
• Sensorimotor stage 2 studies which contradict
  Piaget
• Piaget said 6-9 months Baillargeon says 3.5
  months

21
Imitation

• Piaget proposed 18-24 months
• Meltzoff showed they could do this after 24 hours
  at 9 months old.
• TV depiction of adult manipulating unique toy.
• Next day, children imitated this. Control
  children did not.

22
Preoperational - Conservation

• Checker task Which has more? and the child
  takes the longer row. May think longer means
  more.
• When replaced with M Ms and asked which row
  they wanted to take home, they were clear on the
  concept.
• Children still fail on mass liquid so he was
  more right than wrong.

23
Formal Operations

• Do adults really use logic to solve problems?
• Only 30 of adults used a logical per unit price
  when asked to compare prices on objects.
• World Trade Center example.