His Life His Theory Applications in Education Jean Piaget His Life His Theory Applications in Education

Outline Who is Jean Piaget? How did he Start Working in Psychology? Piagetian Glossary His Theory: Stages of Development: Sensorimotor Stage (0 – 2 years) Preoperational Stage (2 – 6/7 years) Concrete Operational Stage (6/7 years – 11 years) Formal Operational Stage (11 –15 years) Applications of his theory in Education

Who’s Jean Piaget? Place Of Birth: Switzerland Date of Birth: August 9th, 1896 First Appearance: at the age of 11, he wrote a short notice on an albino sparrow – this is considered as the start of a brilliant scientific career.

How did he Start Working in Psychology? PHD in Natural Science. Moving to France – Working at a school. First experiential studies of the growing mind.

Piagetian Glossary Genetic Epistemology: The study of the origins of knowledge. Do we just add more information over time? No! Children are not just little adults who have not acquired as much knowledge. They think in qualitatively different ways. Their thinking is not illogical, but employs a different logic. Example

Piagetian Glossary Schemas: Simple skills that the individual possesses and that direct the way this individual is to explore his/her environment and gain more knowledge. Example

Piagetian Glossary Example Assimilation: Incorporation of new material from the environment into a schema.

Piagetian Glossary Example Accommodation: Changing a certain schema to fit the environment.

Piagetian Glossary Adaptation: Piaget’s term of what we call “Learning”; individuals use schemata to understand features of the world.

Piagetian Glossary Equilibrium: when Assimilation and Accommodation work in harmony together; it means that adaptation is driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment. Further Investigations…

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Basic Assumption: Development is children’s attempts to make sense of the world. Development is the orderly, qualitative, and adaptive changes in: Physical Personal Social Cognitive Aspects of an individual.

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Factors that Influence Development: Maturation Activity Social Transmission

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Two major characteristics to the theory: The process of coming to know The stages the individual moves through as he/she gradually acquire the ability to know.

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Video 1: Introduction to Piaget.

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage (0 – 2 years) Preoperational Stage (2 – 6/7 years) Concrete Operational Stage (6/7 – 11 years) Formal Operational Stage (11– 15 years)

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage: (0-2 Years) Infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the world.

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage Period Characteristics 0-1 months Reflex activity only No differentiation 1-4 months Hand-mouth coordination Differentiation via sucking 4-8 months Hand-eye coordination Repeats unusual events

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage Period Characteristics 8-12 months Coordination of two schemata Object permanence attained 12-18 months New means through experimentation follows sequential displacements 18-24 months Internal representations New means through mental combinations

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Stage Video 2: Object Permanence

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage: (2-6/7 Years) The development of internal representation permits the young child to begin to use symbols to represent objects

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage Egocentric Stage (2-4 years) Problems are solved through representation Language develops Thought and logic are both EGOCENTRIC

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage – Egocentric Stage Video 3: Egocentrism

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage Intuitive Stage (5-7 years) Child cannot solve conservation problems Judgments are based on perception rather than logic

Video 4: Conservative Tasks Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Preoperational Stage – Intuitive Stage Video 4: Conservative Tasks

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years) Child attains reversibility Child can solve conservative problems Logical operations developed and applied to concrete problems Child cannot solve complex verbal problems

Video 5: Logical Operations Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Concrete Operational Stage Video 5: Logical Operations

Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years) Child can logically solve all types of problems Child can think scientifically Child can solve complex verbal problems Cognitive structures attained

Video 6: Formal Operational Child Piaget’s Theory: Stages of Cognitive Development Formal Operational Stage Video 6: Formal Operational Child

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education “Learning Comes Through “Doing” – It is an active process”

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Learner-Centered Philosophy Activity is Essential Individualized Instruction

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Teaching at all levels of education must be founded on the activity of the learner. Concepts CANNOT be taught through verbal instruction. Cognitive development arises out of the activity of the child; therefore, the best methods of education for development are those that foster the activity or active learning of the child. The child receives valid information about objects and events when he acts on them (such as touching, tasting, looking at, listening to, and thinking about them..) here, the child assimilates the actions and constructs knowledge in this process. Spoken or written symbols cannot replace the child’s actions in the construction of knowledge.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 1. The teacher should create an environment and an atmosphere in which children will be active and will initiate and complete their own activities. The teacher should provide time to spare and materials to complete self-initiated activities. There should be no formal periods or time blocks. Children should be permitted to complete the activities they start and maintain interest in the activities even if interest is maintained for several days or longer. Example of the 3rd grader page 103 – 104.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 2. Teachers should give feedback to their students when dealing with social-arbitrary knowledge, but when it comes to physical and logical-mathematical knowledge feedback should not be given. As we already discussed, knowledge is distinguished in three areas, social, physical, and logical. Teachers’ verbal reinforcement is not desirable in logical-mathematical or physical knowledge because the reinforcement comes from the actions of the child and the objects will correct the children; and direct verbal reinforcement diverts children from objects and their actions on the objects. However, it’s desirable to reinforce children when dealing with social-arbitrary knowledge because in this area, knowledge is practically other people.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 3. Teachers should let the preoperational child go through stages of being “wrong”. Being wrong is not a big problem! Really! A child needs to experience things in order to know whether it’s right or not. For example, in order to know whether a ball sinks or floats, the child needs to try; he need to put in ball in a bowl of water for instance and see. If he had predicted that it sinks, he would be wrong and learn that it sinks.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 4. Teachers should know that some types of knowledge are best learned and motivated through interaction with other children. - Children’s egocentrism is broken down slowly during the preoperational stage. In general, children can communicate with their peers more easily than with adults, that’s why children’s tutoring to each other has always been proved successful.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 5. View all Aspects of Knowledge as inseparable. While in concept the three areas of knowledge are separable, psychologically speaking they are not. Knowledge exists as a whole in the child’ mind and actions. For example, a child playing and trying to arrange sticks of different lengths activates his physical as well as his logic-mathematical knowledge. He is deriving physical information directly from the objects and mathematical-logical information from his action of arranging or ordering the sticks.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Six Principles 6. If you want a child to acquire a specific fact or piece of content that is not available to him, teach it directly and reinforce the learning. Direct teaching through reinforcement, such as token earnings or behavior modification, is a desirable approach and the most efficient way to change a person’s behavior. However, one should be careful not to reinforce the learning of the child but only the behavior because as we said earlier, direct verbal reinforcers divert the child’s learning from the objects and his actions on those objects.

Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Application of Piaget’s Theory in Education Other Teaching Considerations Teachers are organizers of the learning process. Teachers are assessors of the child’s thinking. Teachers are initiators of group activities Materials Development is not automatic Accelerations Page 112  119

References A Brief Biography of Jean Piaget – Piaget Archives. Jean Piaget – Psychology History The Piaget Handbook for Teachers and Parents – Teachers’ College Press Piaget for the Classroom Teacher – Wadsworth Knowledge and Development – Easly The Teaching of Young Children – Schoken Piaget in the Classroom – Shwebel and Ralph

The End