PRESENTATION ON JEAN PIAGETs THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

PRESENTATION ON JEAN PIAGET’s THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT BY ABDUL SAMAD SAMO FACULTY: MRS. IFFAT SULTANA SUBJECT: ADVANCED EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY DEGREE: M. PHIL(EDUCATION) Date: 08 -11 -2014

OUTLINE *Introduction *Background to the Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development *Definition of Cognitive Development *Piaget’s stages of theory of Cognitive Development *Examples of stages of Cognitive Development *Key concepts emphasized by Piaget(Schemas, Assimilation & Accommodation) *Examples of these concepts *Implications of Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development on Education *Criticism of Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development

INTRODUCTION • Jean Piaget was born in Swizerland in 1896. • After receiving his Doctoral degree(in science) at the age of 22, Piaget formally began a career that would have a profound impact on both psychology and education. • After working with Alfred Binet, Piaget developed an interest in the intellectual development of children. • Based upon his observations, he concluded that children were not less intelligent than adults, they simply think differently on the basis of their attained ages. • Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of Cognitive Development.

Background to the Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development • Jean Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920 s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. • He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers on the questions that required logical thinking. • He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children. • According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure(genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning follows.

DEFINITION OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT • Cognitive Development is the construction of thought processes including remembering, problem solving and decision making from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. • Cognitive Development refers to how a person perceives, thinks and gains understanding of his/her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. Among the areas of Cognitive Development are information processing, intelligence, reasoning, language development and memory.

PIAGET’s STAGES OF THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT • According to Psychologist Jean Piaget, children progress through a series of key four stages of Cognitive Development. • Each stage is marked by a shift in how kids understand the world. • Piaget believed that children are like “little scientists’ and that they actively try to explore and make sense of the world around them. • Through his observations of his own children, Piaget developed a theory of intellectual development that included four distinct stages: the sensorimotor stage(from birth to age 2), the preoperational stage(from age 2 to 7), the concrete operational stage(from age 7 to 11) and the formal operational stage(( from age 12 to onwards)

Sensorimotor stage of Cognitive Development(birth to 2 years old) • This stage of Cognitive Development is centered on the infant trying to make sense of the world. • During the sensorimotor stage, an infant’s knowledge of the world is limited to his/her sensory perceptions & motor activities. • Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli. • Children utilize skills and abilities they were born with to learn more about the environment. • Examples: A child picks things up; does not let them go and puts them in his/her mouth • Looking, sucking, grasping and listening

Pre-Operational stage of Cognitive Development(between 2 to 7 years) • Piaget noted that children in this stage do not manipulate information & are unable to take the point of view of other people, which Piaget termed “egocentrism”. • Examples: Children of this age group easily develop language, use an object to represent something else such as pretending that a broom is a horse, playing the roles of mommy, daddy, doctor and many other characters. • The child is aware only of himself and his own likes, dislikes and desires. • A child does not have the capacity to conserve things • Can now walk and run.

Concrete Operational stage of Cognitive Development(7 to 11 years) • According to Piaget, during this age, children gain a better understanding of mental operations. • Children begin thinking logically about concrete events(which they see or touch). • But the children of such age group have difficulty in understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts • Examples: Children of these age group now develop a complete sense about numbers, weight, area occupied, the amount of water and the length of an object. • Develop capacity of conservation

Formal Operational stage of Cognitive Development( from 12 till adulthood) • People within this age group develop the ability to think about abstract concepts. • Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning and systematic planning also emerge during this age. • Examples: the choice of a career, distinction between right and wrong, creation of this world(hypothetical involvement). • Capacity formal reasoning • Becomes adult conceptually • Capacity for abstract thinking • Development of deeper moral questions such as justice, fairness, freedom and equality.

IMPORTANCE OF KEY CONCEPTS DURING COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT • According to Piaget, certain key concepts play an important role during the Cognitive Development of a child as they influence him/her how to learn and grow. These key concepts are schemas, assimilation and accommodation. • SCHEMAS(Building blocks of knowledge). This term was introduced by Piaget in 1926. A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing. Schemas are categories of knowledge that help us to interpret and understand the world. A mental structure of pre-conceived ideas. • Example of Schemas: A young child may first develop a schema for horse. He/She knows that horse is a large, has hair, four legs and a tail. When the little boy/ girl encounters a cow for the first time, he/she might initially call it a horse. After all, it fits in with his/ her schema for the characteristics of a horse; it is a large animal that has hair, four legs and a tail. Once he/she is told that this is a different animal called a cow, she will modify her existing schema for a horse and create a new schema for a cow.

• Assimilation: Using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation • Example: A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts ”clown, clown” • Accommodation: Changing or altering our existing schemas in the light of new information or new experiences. • Example: In the clown incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he was not wearing a funny costume and was not doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of a clown.

Implications of Piaget’s theory on Education • Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development has been extremely influential in developing educational policies and teaching. • For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. • Discovery learning-the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring-was seen as central to the transformation of primary school curriculum in most of the world’s countries.

Criticism to the Jean Piaget’s theory of Cognitive Development • Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of Cognitive Development and biological maturation. But he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on Cognitive Development, as advocated by Vygotsky. • Several studies have shown that Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand. • Piaget carried out his studies with a handful of participants(i. e small sample size)and in the early studies he generally used his own children. This sample is biased and accordingly the results of these studies cannot be generalized to children from different cultures.

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