Jean Piaget (1896-1980)

was a biologist who originally studied mollusks (publishing twenty scientific papers on them by the time he was 21) but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.

His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory.

His particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so.

His research has spawned a great deal more, much of which has undermined the detail of his own, but like many other original investigators, his importance comes from his overall vision.

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities.

He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years.

This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum.

Development is the combined result of:

– maturation of the brain and nervous system

– experiences that help children adapt to new environments - adaptation: an organism’s ability to fit in with it’s environment (through the process of assimilation and accommodation).

Adaptation 

What it says: adapting to the world through assimilation and accommodation

Assimilation  The process by which a person takes material

into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit. 

Accommodation  The difference made to one's mind or

concepts by the process of assimilation.  Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have one without the other. 

Assimilation and Accommodation

are the two complementary processes of Adaptation described by Piaget, through which awareness of the outside world is internalised.

Although one may predominate at any one moment, they are inseparable and exist in a dialectical relationship. 

In Assimilation, what is perceived in the outside world is incorporated into the internal world, without changing the structure of that internal world

 If you are familiar with databases, you can think of it this way: your mind has its database already built, with its fields and categories already defined.

If it comes across new information which fits into those fields, it can assimilate it without any trouble.

In Accommodation, the internal world has to accommodate itself to the evidence with which it is confronted and thus adapt to it, which can be a more difficult and painful process. 

In the database analogy, it is like what happens when you try to put in information which does not fit the pre-existent fields and categories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate the new information

In reality, both are going on at the same time, so that—just as the mower blade cuts the grass, the grass gradually blunts the blade—although most of the time we are assimilating familiar material in the world around us, nevertheless, our minds are also having to adjust to accommodate it. 

Piaget was mainly concerned with children's developing understanding of the world, so for him (and for children) accommodation is no more problematic than assimilation. That does not necessarily hold as we grow older. We have ways of understanding our world which work for us, as relatively successful (i.e. surviving) adults. There is no problem in assimilating new information and ideas which fit with this world-view, but we find it increasingly difficult to accommodate to new stuff. One cognitive problem of ageing has been well labelled "hardening of the categories"!

Classification  The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features. 

Class Inclusion  The understanding, more advanced than simple classification, that some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. (E.g. there is a class of objects called dogs. There is also a class called animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals includes that of dogs)

Conservation  The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when they are changed about or made to look different. 

DecentrationThe ability to move away from

one system of classification to another one as appropriate.

 Egocentrism  The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it.

Operation  The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads. 

Schema (or scheme)  The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together. 

Stage  A period in a child's

development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others 

Sensori-motor  (Birth-2 yrs)  Differentiates self from objects  Recognises self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise 

Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue8y-JVhjS0&feature=related

Pre-operational  (2-7 years)  Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words  Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others 

Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of colour 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg&NR=1

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Piaget's_Stages#Stages_of_Cognitive_Development

This animation demonstrates one of Piaget's classic experiments known as the "Three Mountain Problem." He designed this experiment to support his theory that children possess egocentrism characteristics of thought during the preoperational period of cognitive development. Piaget wanted to show that children have a self-centered perception of the world at this age.

This flash animation demonstrates Piaget's theory. The girl is sitting in front of a mountain that has a cross visible only from her side. In addition, there is a doll on the other side of the mountain.

According to Piaget's work, if preoperational children are asked to say what the doll can see, their response would reflect what can be seen from their perspective only.

Clicking on the green button rotates the mountain to reveal the doll's true perspective. It does not show the cross. Critics of this experiment contend that the Three Mountain Problem is too complex. The same experiment was done using a simplified scene and the child was able to explain the view from the other side, thus displaying non-egocentric behavior Kuanchung Chen, Kris Irwin, Jamie Parker, Saied Roushanzamir (2004).

Concrete operational  (7-11 years)  Can think logically about objects and events  Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9) 

Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA04ew6Oi9M

Formal operational  (11 years and up)  Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically 

Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJdcXA1KH8&feature=related

The accumulating evidence is that this scheme is too rigid: many children manage concrete operations earlier than he thought, and some people never attain formal operations (or at least are not called upon to use them).

Piaget's approach is central to the school of cognitive theory known as "cognitive constructivism": other scholars, known as "social constructivists", such as Vygotsky and Bruner, have laid more emphasis on the part played by language and other people in enabling children to learn.

Criticisms of Piaget's Theory

Researchers during the 1960's and 1970's identified shortcomings in Piaget's theory.

First, critics argue that by describing tasks with confusing abstract terms and using overly difficult tasks, Piaget underestimated children's abilities.

Researchers have found that young children can succeed on simpler forms of tasks requiring the same skills.

Second, Piaget's theory predicts that thinking within a particular stage would be similar across tasks.

In other words, preschool children should perform at the preoperational level in all cognitive tasks.

Research has shown diversity in children's thinking across cognitive tasks.

Third, according to Piaget, efforts to teach children developmentally advanced concepts would be unsuccessful. Researchers have found that in some instances, children often learn more advanced concepts with relatively brief instruction. Researchers now believe that children may be more competent that Piaget originally thought, especially in their practical knowledge.

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Piaget's_Stages#Criticisms_of_Piaget.27s_Theory

This illustration demonstrates a child developing a schema for a dog by assimilating information about the dog. The child then sees a cat, using accommodation compares existing knowledge of a dog to form a schema of a cat.

When the parent reads to the child about dogs, the child constructs a schema about dogs. Later, the child sees a dog in the park; through the process of assimilation the child expands his/her understanding of what a dog is. When the dog barks, the child experiences disequilibria because the child's schema did not include barking. Then the child discovers the dog is furry, and it licks the child's hand. Again, the child experiences disequilibria. By adding the newly discovered information to the existing schema the child is actively constructing meaning. At this point the child seeks reinforcement from the parent. The parent affirms and reinforces the new information. Through assimilation of the new information the child returns to a state of equilibrium.

The process of accommodation occurs when the child sees a cat in the park. A new schema must be formed, because the cat has many traits of the dog, but because the cat meows and then climbs a tree the child begins to actively construct new meaning. Again the parent reinforces that this is a cat to resolve the child's disequilibria. A new schema about cats is then formed and the child returns to a state of equilibrium.

Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory• Because Piaget concentrated on the

individual child, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting may have on cognitive development.

• The way that adults use language and gestures and the child's experience through social interactions are very influential on cognitive development

Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory is the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who lived during Russian Revolution.

Vygotsky’s work was largely unkown to the West until it was published in 1962.

Vygotsky’s theory is one of the foundations of constructivism.

Major themes: Social Interaction and culture has a

dramatic impact on cognitive development.

In contrast to Jean Piaget’s understanding of child development (in which development necessarily precedes learning), Vygotsky felt social learning precedes development.

He states: “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).” (Vygotsky, 1978).

The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)“Learning is largely mediated by

social interaction of students and "More Knowledgeable Others"

The MKO refers to anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO is normally thought of as being a teacher, coach, or older adult, but the MKO could also be peers, a younger person, or even computers.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)Vygotsky centred much of his research on a

phenomenon he coined as "the Zone of Proximal Development," or ZPD.

he stated: “The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured, but are in the process (of doing so)…”

“…what is the zone of proximal development today will be the actual development level tomorrow – that is, what a child can do with assistance toady she will be able to do by

herself tomorrow”.

The ZPD is the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently.

According to Vygotsky, learning occurred in this zone.

In this case “proximal” means what comes next.

The idea is that a child is only able to take the next step in their cognitive development if another person – typically an adult – supports and prompts them to do so.

This sort of assistance has been called scaffolding.

Vygotsky focused on the connections between people and the sociocultural context in which they act and interact in shared experiences (Crawford, 1996).

According to Vygotsky, humans use tools that develop from a culture, such as speech and writing, to mediate their social environments.

Initially children develop these tools to serve solely as social functions, ways to communicate needs.

Vygotsky believed that the internalization of these tools led to higher thinking skills.

Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) developed Vygotsky’s notion of a zone of proximal development.

They introduced the concept of scaffolding, which refers to the context provided by knowledgeable people such as adults to help children to develop their cognitive skills.

An important aspect of scaffolding is that there is a gradual withdrawal of support as the child’s knowledge and confidence increase.

Left to his own devices, could this boy make his sister a birthday cake?

His mother uses scaffolding to create a situation in which he can begin to move into a zone of proximal development.

Source of cognitive development

Piaget believed that the most important source of cognition is the children themselves. Piaget emphasised the role of an inbuilt (biological) tendency to adapt to the environment, by a process of self-discovery and play.

Vygotsky emphasised the role of culture and experience. Vygotsky believed that what drives cognitive development is social interaction – a child’s experience with other people. Culture shapes cognition.

Language and Thought

For Piaget, language is a product of cognitive development. In other words, cognitive development (IV) determines language use (DV).

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions, for communication purposes. Later language ability becomes internalised as thought and “inner speech”. Thought is the result of language.

In other words, social interactions (IV) determines language use (DV).

Stage Theory

Piaget emphasised universal cognitive change.

Vygotsky’s theory can be applied to all ages (not a stage theory) and emphasised individual development.

Discovery Learning (Education)

Piaget advocated for discovery learning with little teacher intervention.

Vygotsky promoted guided discovery in the classroom with the help of a MKO.