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Cognitive Development - Piaget . Piaget. Constructivism. The belief that children actively create knowledge rather than passively receiving it from the environment. Knowledge is constructed from experience Born with ability and desire to learn. Must be active to learn.
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Cognitive Development - Piaget • Piaget
Constructivism • The belief that children actively create knowledge rather than passively receiving it from the environment. • Knowledge is constructed from experience • Born with ability and desire to learn. • Must be active to learn. • Thinking/learning is internalization of physical knowledge.
Adaptation • Fundamental process by which schemes are altered through experience. • Comprised of two complementary processes.
Mechanisms of Change • Assimilation: information that fits into existing cognitive structure • schemas
Mechanisms of Change • Accommodation: changing beliefs to fit new conceptual information
Equilibration • Equilibration: regulatory process that maintains a functional balance between assimilation and accommodation
Process of Equilibration • Children are satisfied with mode of thought (equilibrium) • Become aware of shortcomings in existing knowledge (disequilibrium) • Adopt a more sophisticated mode of thought (return to equilibrium)
Characteristics of Stages of Cognitive Development • Each stage represents a qualitative change in thinking • Culturally Invariant • Includes structures and abilities of previous stages
Stages of Cognitive Development • Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Concrete Operational • Formal Operational
Sensorimotor Stage • Birth to 2 years of age • Use senses, motor skills to gain knowledge
Preoperational Stage • 2 to 6/7 years • Representational skills • Egocentric thought • Magical thought • Animism
Concrete Operational • 6/7 to 11/12 years • Understand concrete problems • Decentration
Formal Operations • 11/12 years through adulthood • Logical and abstract thought • Adolescent egocentrism: Elkind • Imaginary Audience • Personal Fable
EVALUATION OF PIAGET’S THEORY:Strengths • Children do move from being more egocentric to less egocentric • Also move from being less systematic and able to use logic to being better able to think in these ways • Children do pass through stages in same order • Constructivistic view of development
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory • Findings may only work with Piaget’s tasks • Can have skills characteristic of two stages at one time period
Criticisms cont. • Not all reach formal operational stage
Postformal thought • Characterized by recognition that: • 1) truth may vary from situation to situation • 2) solutions must be realistic in order to be reasonable • 3) ambiguity and contradiction are the rule rather than the exception • 4) emotion and subjective factors usually play a role in thinking
Themes • Continuity vs. Discontinuity • Nature vs. Nurture
Schaie’s Perspective on Adult Cognitive Changes • Achieving stage (early adulthood) • Responsibility stage (early to middle adulthood) • Executive stage (middle adulthood) • Reintegrative stage (late adulthood)
William Perry • Adolescents: dualistic thinking • Young adults • Multiple thinking • Relative subordinate thinking • Full relativism