Slide 1 A Topical Approach to LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT

Slide 1 A Topical Approach to LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT 6 Cognitive Developmental Approaches John W. Santrock © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 2 Cognitive Developmental Approaches • Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development • Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory • Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development • Cognitive Changes in Adulthood © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 3 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Processes of Development • Piaget observed own 3 children; believed six processes used in constructing knowledge – Schemes – Organization – Assimilation – Equilibrium – Accommodation – Equilibration © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 4 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Schemes • Actions or mental representations that organize knowledge – Behavioral schemes: physical activities characterizing infancy – Mental schemes: cognitive activities develop in childhood © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 5 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Assimilation and Accommodation • Both operate even in very young infants • Assimilation — incorporate new information or experience into existing knowledge schemes • Accommodation — adjust existing schemes to take in new information and experiences © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 6 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Organization • Children cognitively organize experiences - Grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order cognitive system; receives continual refinement - Grouping items into categories © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 7 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Equilibrium and Equilibration • Proposed explanation of cognitive shift (qualitative) from one stage of thought to next – Disequilibrium — creates motivation for change; shift occurs as children experience cognitive conflict – Equilibration — they resolve conflict through assimilation and accommodation, to reach a new balance or equilibrium of thought © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 8 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Stages of Development • Piaget’s theory unifies experiences and biology to explain cognitive development – Motivation is internal search for equilibrium – Four stages of development…progressively advanced and qualitatively different © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 9 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor stage • First of Piaget’s stages – Birth to about 2 years – Infants construct understanding of world by coordinating sensory experiences with motoric actions – Contains six substages © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 10 Four distinct stages in Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage (0 -2 years) This is experienced in the here and now (The active child: infants develop goal-directed behavior, means-ends thinking, and object permanence). Schemes- organized patterns of behavior, becoming more elaborate as development proceeds. The baby will organize their activity in relation to their environment via organization, adaptation, and equilibrium (first 5 substages). © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 11 Substages: a. Stage 1 (1 st/2 nd month): reflex activity. Reflexes organize the newborn’s interactions. Within 3 weeks, babies come to expect certain coordinations among perceptual events, such as sights and sounds. Begin to exercises some control over reflexes- even without normal stimulus. Suck reflexes when lips are touched; eventually searches for nipple even when not touched; then sucks even when not hungry but nipple present. Cannot grasp object looking at. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 12 Substages: a. Stage 2 (2 to 4 months): Self-investigation. Elaborates on existing schemes and integrates simple schemes into more complicated behaviors. Modification and repetition of scheme to achieve interesting sensations: coordination of different schemes (e. g. , looking and grasping). Primarily interested in own body. Repeats pleasant bodily sensations first by chance, then repeats for pleasure. Begins to suck different objects differently. Primary circular reactions: simple repetitive acts that center upon the infant’s own body (e. g. , thumb sucking, hand clasping). © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 13 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 14 Substages: c. Stage 3 (4 to 8 months): Coordination and reaching out. Development of a variety of schemes that produce interesting effects: a more externally orientated, “cognitively extroverted” approach. Do something that produces a result, will repeat it. Manipulating objects and learning about their properties. Repeat actions that produce interesting results (e. g. , shaking a rattle; coo when friendly face appears). © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 15 Substages: c. Stage 3 (4 to 8 months): Coordination and reaching out. Secondary Circular Reaction: no longer focus on infant’s own body, rather reaches out. Operant conditioning, when immediate reinforcement follows a spontaneous activity, the baby repeats the activity. Kicks the mobile, it moves interestingly, will do it again. Good at tracking moving objects with eyes and reaching for things to grasp. Retrieves a hidden toy under a transparent cup. Searches for missing objects. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 16 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 17 Substages: d. Stage 4 (8 to 12 months): Goal-directed behavior. Coordination of these schemes into intentional, “intelligent” looking means-end sequences, in which one scheme leads to another. Behavior is deliberate and purposeful. Try out new schemes in order to effect their environment. Combine sequences into order. Some schemes serve as a means for others in order to reach a goal. E. g. , removes a barrier to get a toy. Can also anticipate events that do not depend on own immediate behavior (e. g. , sees mother walking toward door, begins to cry). Crawls across room to get object. Baby is now a skillful imitator. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 18 Substages: d. Stage 4 (8 to 12 months): Goal-directed behavior. Play, that is, practicing sensorimotor schemes for the sheer fun of it, becomes prominent here. Play for longer periods of time engaging in same behavior. Infants in this stage learn from both play and imitation. Can retrieve object hidden. Learn from past experience, modify and coordinate previous schemes. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 19 Substages: e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation. Curious, trial and error experimentation, often leading to the discovery of new means to achieve goals; outer directed efforts to learn about the world. Experiments with hands or mouth. Explores new properties of objects by trial and error, systematically testing different approaches as if thinking “Lets see what happens if…” © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 20 Substages: e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation. Varies approaches. This is the last “pure” sensorimotor stage. Still deals with only the “here and now”. Cannot yet imitate events that have occurred earlier or elsewhere. Imprisoned in own cognitive world by limited ability to communicate. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 21 Substages: e. Stage 5 (12 to 18 months): Experimentation. Tertiary (third-order) circular reactions: child begins to actively experiment with things in order to discover how various actions will affect an object or outcome. (e. g. , sitting in highchair, dawdling over oatmeal, drops handful over side. Does it again with more force, delighted in the splash; learns things fall down, not up; the force determines the degree of splash; can make an interesting patter on the floor with the oatmeal; and oatmeal is on the finer things in life!) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 22 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 23 Substages: f. Stage 6 (about 18 to 24 months): mental combinations and problem solving. Representational ability- to mentally visualize objects and actions in memory. Anticipates consequences. Invention of new means thorough internal, mental combinations; first appearance of deferred imitation, symbolic play, and speech. This is the transitory stage between sensorimotor and conceptual intelligence. Beginning of the representational intelligence and preoperational thought, which occur in the preschool years. Changes include the ability to represent objects and events in thought by symbols and to act on those symbols. Demonstrates insight! © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 24 Substages: f. Stage 6 (about 18 to 24 months): mental combinations and problem solving. Can contemplate a problem, pause to think, and then act to solve it, without trial and error. Able to visualize own actions and thus use mental trial and error. Toddlers in this stage have not mastered symbolic thought, but do have mental images and apparently are able to use them in solving problems. E. g. : play with shape box; searching for right hole for the shape before trying; succeeding! © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 25 Object Permanence Objects have an existence of their own (object permanence). Occurs between 812 months. Takes 2 years to fully develop. 4 -8 months: drop something, will look, then forget. 8 -12 months: will look where they first found it after seeing it being hidden, even if it seen it move to another location (does not recall where moved to). 12 -18 months, look where last seen. 1824 months- will look for object even if did not see it placed somewhere. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 26 Object Permanence Requires ability to have mental representations of the world and objects. Without mental images, symbols, or depictions to represent an object, you would be unable to think about it, because you have no internal was of representing it. In other words, without object permanence, “out of sight, out of mind”. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 27 Spatial Knowledge Development of object concept and spatial knowledge linked to self-locomotion and coordination of visual and motor information. Causality 4 -6 months and 12 months- discovery of effects of own actions and then effects of outside forces. That one event causes another. Allows to predict and control own world. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 28 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Substages 1 Simple reflexes Basic means of coordinating sensation and action through reflexive behaviors First habits and 2 primary circular reactions Infants’ infant’s attempt to reproduce interesting or pleasurable event (1 -4 mos) 3 Secondary circular reactions Infant is more objectoriented moving beyond preoccupation with the self (4 -8 months) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 29 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Substages Coordination of 4 secondary circular reactions Significant changes in coordination of schemes and intentionality (8 -12 mos) Tertiary circular 5 reactions, novelty and curiosity Intrigued by objects’ many properties; explores new possibilities with them (12 -18 mos) 6 Internalization of Ability to use primitive symbols; shift to mental manipulation (18 -24 mos) Schemes © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 30 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Object Permanence • Understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched – One of infant’s most important accomplishments – Acquired in stages – Violation of expectations testing © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 31 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Infant’s Understanding of Causality (a) (b) (c) Fig. 6. 3 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 32 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage • New research techniques suggest Piaget’s theory needs to be modified – Some abilities develop earlier • Intermodal perception; substantiality and permanence of objects – Transitions not as clear-cut; AB error – No general theory on how development changes in cognition and nature-nurture issue © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 33 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage • Second Piagetian developmental stage – About 2 to 7 years of age; two substages – Children begin to represent the world with words, images, and drawings • Not ready to perform Operations – Internalized actions that allow children to do mentally what they only did physically before – Reversible mental actions © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 34 Cognitive Development- Piaget Preoperational Stage (ages 2 to 7; 18 months to 8 years old) • The intuitive child • Children can use symbols and words to think • Intuitive problem solving, but thinking limited by rigidity, centrism, and egocentrism Understand that things have identities that are stable, unchanging • Understanding of cause and effect • Ability to classify • Understanding of numbers • Empathy • Theory of mind (aware of mental activity) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 35 Two stages of the Preoperational Stage: 1. Preconceptual Stage (2 -4 years) Begins to symbolize and develop ability to internalize objects and events, develop preconcepts. (e. g. , the Santa they saw is the one and only Santa; recognize birds, but not types of birds) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 36 Two types of reasoning: syncratic and transductive. Syncratic: how preschoolers tend to sort and classify objects; according to a limited set of criteria. (e. g. , the boat goes with other boats because they are boats; this glove goes with the boats because they are both green; this block goes with the boat because they are blocks and fit onto the deck of the boat). © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 37 Two types of reasoning: syncratic and transductive. Transductive reasoning: involves drawing a reference about the relationship between two objects based on a single attribute. Generally leads to wrong conclusions. (e. g. , if A has four legs and B has four legs, then A must be B and vice versa). Animism: the magical belief that inanimate objects have thoughts, feelings, and motives. Magical thinking: take rhymes/stories seriously (Rain, rain, go away; Step on a crack and break your mother’s back). © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 38 2. Intuitive stage (4 -7 years); centers on one aspect at a time, egocentrism. Beliefs are generally based on what they sense to be true rather than on what logic or rational thought would dictate. (e. g. , recalling what color bead was first and last in a tube, even if reversing the tube. Unable at this stage to use logical operations (e. g. , if tube turned 29 ½ times, which bead on top? Must be able to count number of times tube turned with recalling what color was on top, etc. ). Unable to understand concept of reversibility. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 39 From action to symbol. Can use images and symbols, but lacks logical abilities. Object permanence. Deferred imitation occurs. Better grasp of symbols. Acquisition of language is a major achievement here. Another major achievement is Intuition. Can look at a problem and quickly deduce the solution. Applies trial and error, applying one scheme after another until one works. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 40 Egocentrism: unable to take role of another person or view the world from other vantage points. Does not know yet that others have different wants, needs, and perspectives. Precausal reasoning: the inability to distinguish between psychological and physical causes, between subjective experiences and objective events. E. g. , convinced that dreams are real. Centering: inability to consider more than one dimension at a time. Also, seeing is believing: appearance vs. reality. Only focus on one aspect at a time. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 41 SUMMARY • Beginning of organized language and symbolic thought • Child begins to perceive language as a tool to get needs met • Much of child’s language is egocentric-they talk to self and do not listen to other children • Child does not use logical thinking; as a result, cannot reason by implication • Child’s reasoning is transductive reasoning: reasoning from a particular idea to a particular idea without logically connecting them © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 42 Pretend Play Deferred imitation: based on mental representation of previously viewed event Pretend play: fantasy/imaginary play, make object represent or symbolize something else. Language: uses system of symbols to communicate Conservation: Cannot yet grasp this concept (Two things remain equal even if appearance changes) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 43 Distinguishing between Appearance and Reality Age 5 -6 What seems to be and what is (e. g. , is the cookie monster (costumed person) really the cookie monster? Distinguishing between Fantasy & Reality 18 months-3, distinguish between real and imagined events magical or wishful thinking of age 3 and older does not seem to stem from confusion between fantasy and reality © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 44 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The Symbolic Function Substage Symbolic function Egocentrism Animism First substage of preoperational thought; young child gains ability to represent mentally an object that is not present (2 -4 years) Inability to distinguish between one’s own and another’s view Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, capable of action © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 45 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The Three Mountains Task View 1 View 2 (d) (c) Child seated here (d) (b) (a) (c) (b) Child seated here Fig. 6. 4 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 46 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The Symbolic Drawings of Young Children (a) A 31/2 -year-old’s symbolic drawing. Halfway into this drawing, the 31/2 -year-old artist said it was “a pelican kissing a seal. ” (b) This 11 -year-old’s drawing is neater and more realistic but also less inventive. Fig. 6. 5 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 47 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development The Intuitive Thought Substage • Children begin using primitive reasoning and want to know answers to all sorts of questions (4 -7 years) – Why? questions exhaust adults – Centration — focusing attention on one characteristic to exclusion of all others – Conservation — object or substance amount stays same regardless of changing appearance; lacking in preoperational stage © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Slide 48 Piaget’s Conservation Task Fig. 6. 6 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 49 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Some Dimensions of Conservation: Number, Matter, and Length Fig. 6. 7 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 50 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Concrete Operational Stage • Piaget’s third stage (7 -11 years) • Children can perform concrete operations • Logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning if applied to specific, concrete examples • Consider several characteristics of object at once • Cross-cultural variations exist © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 51 Cognitive development Piaget: the Concrete Child • The major cognitive achievement of middle childhood (ages 6 to 12) as the development of logical thinking. Less egocentric. • In the sensorimotor stage, the infant’s actions and expectations show that they have begun to appreciate certain regularities in their environment. • In the Preoperational Stage, the child is able to form mental images and to represent and communicate their practical knowledge of the world symbolically. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 52 The preschooler: • can talk about people and events, make drawings, reenact events in symbolic play, and invent stories • their verbal explanations of time, space, and cause and effect may be poetic, but they are rarely logical • their thinking is intuitive. • They leap to conclusions and often confuses desires with reality, coincidence with cause and effect • The preoperational child deals in particulars; they have not discovered general rules, and don’t seem to feel a need for them © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 53 The concrete operational child: • Thinks more like an adult • Spatial thinking: can use a map, give someone directions, judge distances • Adult logic takes the form of deduction and induction • Both modes of thought establish connections between generalizations and particulars • Deduction is reasoning from the general to the particular (if all men have hearts of gold, then this man has a heart of gold) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 54 • Cause and effect- understands this • The preoperational child reasons from particular to particular; therefore often assuming connections that do not exist; now Induction is reasoning form the particular to the general • Catagorization- sorts objects into categories; knows subclasses • Transitive reasoning occurs for the child: “I have not had my nap so it is not afternoon”)- understanding the relationship between two objects by knowing the relationship to a third object (three sticks, identifies longer one) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 55 • Changes in the Concrete Operational Stages: • Thought becomes more systematic and planful • They can think ahead • Can shift mental gears • The preoperational child is a spectator, viewing the world as scenes seen while looking out a train window, have not explored the view/world yet. Now the child is in control; can sped up or slow down the thinking as the situation demands • Can think of alternate routes © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 56 • Most important, can shift mind into reverse, retrace their mental route, and maybe discover where they made a wrong turn • These new found abilities Piaget named “operations” • An operation is a mental activity that organizes and transforms information • The difference between operations and schemes is that operations are mental manipulations of information, not physical or sensory associations • It is the difference between winding up and throwing a baseball and contemplating your next move in a chess game. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 57 • Inductive and deductive reasoning- inductive reasoning (conclusions about an entire class- my dog barks; your dog barks; all dogs bark); • deductive reasoning- usually develops in adolescence- general statement about a class (premise) and applies to particular members of that class (all dogs bark, Spot is a dog, therefore, Spot barks) © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 58 • A child in this stage is limited to operations on the concrete or physical world; hence the term concrete operations: they think about real people, real objects, and possible events. • When formal operations occur, they will be able to deal with abstractions and hypothetical situations. • Concrete operations help the child to the discovery of logical relationships among objects and actions. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Conservation • Mastery of conservation is the major achievement of the concrete operational stage. Slide 59 • For the preoperational child, seeing is believing: they don’t understand that certain properties of a substance remain the same (are conserved). • • Between ages 5/6, the child vacillates. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 60 There comes a time somewhere between ages 6½ and 7 years, 8 months when the child’s attitude changes: they do not need to reflect, but rather decide, and may even look surprised that a question is asked, they are certain of the conservation. Complete conservation may not fully develop until adolescence. Piaget believes that conservation reflects a basic reorganization of the child’s mind. They are able to coordinate different pieces of information in their mind. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 61 The preoperational child focuses on one dimension (e. g. , length); the conserver is able to decenter attention and consider two or more dimensions simultaneously. They can comprehend the functional relationship between height and width; focusing on the transformations that occur (the clay is rolled into different shapes). They have reversibility: they can mentally undo the transformation by imagining rolling the clay back into its original shape. © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 62 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Classification Skills • Concrete operations child understands one person can be father, brother, and grandson • Seriation — involves stimuli along quantitative dimension (e. g. length) • Transitivity — if relation holds between first and second object, and holds between the second and third object, then it holds between first and third object © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 63 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Classification: An Important Ability in Concrete Operational Thought Fig. 6. 8 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 64 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Formal Operational Stage • Individuals move beyond concrete operations and think in more abstract and logical ways (11 -15 years) • Abstract, Idealistic, and Logical Thinking – Verbal problem-solving ability increases – Increased ability to think about thought itself – Thought is full of idealism and possibilities © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 65 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Formal Operational Stage • Children solve problems by trial-and-error • Adolescents think more like scientists • Hypothetical-deductive reasoning – Have cognitive ability to develop hypotheses, or best guesses, and systematically deduce the best path to follow in solving a problem • Assimilation dominates initial development © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 66 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Adolescent Egocentrism • Heightened adolescents’ self-consciousness • Imaginary audience – Belief that others are as interested in them as they are – Involves attention-getting behavior motivated by desire to be noticed, visible, and “on stage” • Personal fable — adolescent’s sense of uniqueness and invincibility © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 67 Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory Piaget and Education • Take a constructivist approach • Facilitate rather than direct learning • Consider child’s knowledge, level of thinking • Use ongoing assessment • Promote the student’s intellectual health • Turn classroom into setting of exploration and discovery © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 68 Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory • Contributions – Vision of children as active, constructive thinkers • Criticisms – Some estimates of children’s competence is inaccurate – Development not uniformly stage-like – Effects of training underestimated – Culture and education influence development © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 69 Applying and Evaluating Piaget’s Theory Neo-Piagetians • Argue Piaget got some things right, but theory needs revision • More emphasis to memory, attention, information-processing strategies, and processing speed © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 70 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development • Social contexts; minds are shaped by cultural context in which they live • Tools are provided by society • Children actively construct their knowledge and understanding through social interactions © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 71 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development The Zone of Proximal Development • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) – Tasks too difficult for children to master alone but that can be mastered with guidance and assistance from more-skilled person • Scaffolding – Changing level of support over course of a teaching session to fit child’s current performance level; dialogue is important tool © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Slide 72 Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Fig. 6. 9 © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 73 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Vygotsky: Language and Thought • Believed young children use language to plan, guide, and monitor behavior • Language and thought initially develop independently, then merge • Private speech: language of self-regulation – Self talk (3 to 7 years of age) – Inner speech: child’s thoughts © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 74 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Teaching Strategies based on Vygotsky’s Theory • Successfully applied to education – Effectively assess child’s ZPD – Use child’s ZPD in teaching – Use more-skilled peers as teachers – Monitor and encourage private speech – Place instruction in meaningful context © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 75 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Tools of the Mind • Emphasizes child’s self-regulation • Give special attention to at-risk children – Poverty – Difficult conditions (e. g. homeless, drug problems in home) – Dramatic play has central role in classroom – Child writings are important © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 76 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development Evaluating Vygotsky’s theory • Social constructionist approach • Importance of skills valued by specific culture • Knowledge constructed through social interactions (sociocultural) • Criticisms: – Overemphasize role of language – Facilitators may be too helpful, overcontrolling © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 77 Cognitive Changes in Adulthood Piaget’s View of Adult Cognition • Thinking qualitatively in formal operations same as adolescents • Adults have more knowledge • Research shows: – Many don’t reach highest level until adulthood – Many adults don’t use formal operational thinking © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 78 Cognitive Changes in Adulthood • Thinking of young adults is beyond formal operational stage of adolescents. It is… – Realistic — Idealism decreases in face of real world constraints – Pragmatic — Switch from acquiring knowledge to applying it – Reflective and Relativistic — Move away from absolutist thinking of adolescence © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 79 Cognitive Changes in Adulthood Is There A Fifth, Postformal Stage? • Postformal thought is – Reflective, relativistic, and contextual – Provisional – Realistic – Open to emotions and subjective • More research needed • Another possible stage may be wisdom © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 80 6 The End © 2008 The Mc. Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.