Fundamental Aspects of Human Development, According to Piaget Children are active agents in shaping their own development, that is, children’s behavior and development are motivated largely intrinsically rather than extrinsically. Constructivist theory Organismic world view Cognitive Adaptation Adapt to their environment. Will do a gradual understanding of the world Children as inherently active, continually interacting with the environment, Children are active in developing or constructing their worlds,

Adaptation: assimilation and accommodation Using already existing knowledge in learning new things Use existing scheme to deal with the unfamiliar object, people. Assimilation Modify or change their schemas, or ways of behaving and thinking, in order to adjust to a new situation. Accommodation Functional invariants They don’t change but use as scheme

The four stages of cognitive development Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2yrs.) Preoperational stage (2 to 7 yrs.) Concrete operations stage (7 to 11yrs.) Formal operations stage (11 ~ )

Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2yrs.) Most impressive and dramatic areas of development Motor development Develop of thought in action Mind: infant’s action on the objects and people Pulling a cloth to obtain an out-of-reach toy They learn that objects continue to exist even though they cannot be seen or heard. Able to reason through thought as well as through action

Infants Shape perception Size constancy Shape constancy Perception of object unity Perception of subjective contour Perception of face, voice Preference for attractive faces Imitation Object of permanence Violation of expectation technique Drawbridge study The number of objects in an event Discriminate different numbers of items Memory limitation (searching visible and invisible location Habituation Brown bear brown bear What do you see?

Piaget and cognitive development theory

Cognitive Development: information-processing approaches The human mind as a complex system through which information flows. Three components of mental system. Information is received from the environment and encoded in some form. A variety of internal processes, such as memory storage, problem-solving strategies, or relating new information to existing knowledge, act on the information and transform it. The individual is able to change their cognitive structures in order to act on the information.  So children develop increasingly improved ways of acting on the world. (Use of boxes to get a jar on the top of a cupboard)

III. Two broad aspects of mind changes The size or capacity of its processing units Age related or genetically developed cognitive or intelligent capacity hardware The variety and effectiveness of the strategies and action capabilities that allow more efficient use of the information. software Information passes smoothly through the mind, rather than in discrete or separate steps or stages.

Comparing information –processing approaches with Piaget’s approach. Something in common Specify children’s abilities and limitations as development proceeds and both try to explain how new levels of understanding develop from earlier, less advanced ones.

Information processing approaches Differences Information processing approaches put the great importance on the role of processing limitations in limiting children’s thinking and reasoning at any point in time. Emphasize the development of strategies and procedures for helping to overcome these limitations- Quantitative change in processing capacity.: child’s information processing capacity has increased Piaget Discusses developmental changes in terms of the child gradually constructing logical frameworks for thought Qualitative change in thinking: differences in the different stages of development

Piaget and Behaviorism

Behaviourism Introspectionism Classical Conditioning Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) Vygotsky (1896-1934) The analysis of self-reported perceptions Introspectionism Operant conditioning: Manipulating received reinforcement Classical Conditioning Objective Method Pavlov’s Dog Association between what happened and effect

Thorndike’s law of effect Stimulus Responses Responses Stimulus Likelihood of an action being repeated is increased if it leads to reward, and it decreased if it leads to punishment. The infant is born with little more than the machinery of conditioning, and infancy and childhood consists of constant warping and molding under pressure of the environment. Even language learning Reductionist Criticism Denies the role of the mind as an object of study and reduces all behaviour to chains of stimuli

What are the differences between Piaget and behaviourism?

Piaget and Social Learning theory Think and Talk Role of Interaction & Instruction

Metaphors of mind: how do we talk about how we think? Mind remember, searching, looking for, from our memories. Metaphorically physically place or room Reasoning picturing, making a mental model of, talking to oneself, image,, prove, or explain, demonstrate, more physical activities Metaphor

Thought as internalized action Piaget shares with Vygotsky a similar conception of the relations between action and thought. Foundations of mental processes lie in action-in the world. Consideration of motor activity Human knowledge & Intelligence Practical problem-solving

Initially, reflex responses to internal and external stimulation With experience, starts to discover some of the predictable patterns in his experience. Intending to produce anticipated end results through his own actions,  true intelligence (e.g. many tools for one goal) Exhibits a sequence of different actions to achieve the same purpose  anticipating or desiring a state of affairs, being able to hold or represent what is sought in mind and trying out various actions that, in the past have accomplished desired ends, Mental actions start to substitute for physical actions; action is being internalized to form thought

Sensory motor learning mental operations ? Their effects can be reversed (an observed). Understanding there are variant and invariant properties and some actions changes the configuration of the blocks is operations. Piaget; under 7 do not recognize Recognizing the fact is operations. Mental operation Physical activities

Such mental operations are abstracted from physical and mental actions, they have a special status. Although, they are derived from practical experience they are not a direct product of learning in any simple sense. One may observe an action but not an operation. Operations are mental constructions which the child creates to make sense of his experience of the world.

Piaget’s approach to language and cognition If Piaget places action at the foundation of thought, where do perceptual images and verbal thinking come on the scene? How does Piaget’s theory tackle the notion of mental images and what implications does his view have for teaching and learning? Perception and thought

Perception and thought Piaget relegates perception to action. Infant sees an object, what he perceives, recognizes and shows about it depends upon his past actions. (schemata?) Perception, also involves activity.  what we see is determined, in part, by where we look what we remember is largely dictated by what we attend to. A child’s ability to control where and how he looks at things is itself determined by his stage of development.

Preoperational children don’t have logic. Unreliable and idiosyncractic than --- Any attempt to teach them by demonstrating how things work is bound to fail.

Language and thought Perceptions: realization, recognition. Thinking: thinking logically and leads to a certain action. Language for Piaget, is a system of symbols for representing the world. As distinct from actions and operations which form the processes of reasoning Teaching a certain word, number, or teaching the abstract, invariant property that we call number, (e.g. blocks) do not work until a child reaches to an operational thinking.

So Such an understanding is constructed by the child through his own, self-selected problem solving; not through any direct efforts of his teachers.

Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years) Solve practical, concrete problems By the intelligent use of means ends problem-solving, the use of tools, requesting objects, asking for things to happen, and other means Communicate well and represent information and ideas by means of symbols In drawing, symbolic play, gesture, and particularly speech. Egocentric: find it difficult to see things from another’s point of view) Animism in their thinking: they ten to attribute life and lifelike qualities to inanimate objects: is the sun alive? Of course, otherwise, it wouldn’t follow. Centration: the focusing or centering of attention on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others. conservation task: conservation of numbers. (Smarties)

Task Look at the activities and think about the optimal way of learning phonics for pre-operational thinkers. Use of Three mountain perspectives (Centration, egocentric, Equilibrium) Conservation tasks Phenomenism vs Realism

2 yr olds Understanding spatial relations Credible shrinking room Conservation of number, liquid, length, and mass: 6 – 7 yrs. Conservation of mass/weight is mastered 9 Conservation of volume: 11 -12

Class inclusion Transitive inferences: A>B>C Perspective taking: Three mountains