Application of Piaget's Approach to Child Development to Education Today - Report Example

Application of Piagets Approach to Child Development to Education Today Application of Piagets Approach to Child Development to Education Today Introduction Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky were both famous scholars and generators of different versions of the theory of cognitive development. Both men were also from different academic backgrounds; with Vygotsky first specializing in Law and Piaget in Philosophy and biology. Both men supported the notion that children have to create a personalized view or perspective of the world in order to comprehend different things in the world in which they live. Jean Piaget’s views on cognitive development have been used to a greater extent than Vygotsky’s over the years. This has particularly been true in regards to the development of educational curricula in different nations. Jean Piaget’s Theory Jean Piaget asserted in his writings that his main objective was to discover how knowledge was acquired and developed within people’s minds. He conducted genetic epistemology research with children as the participants in order to establish how knowledge took root in their minds. Piaget stated that there are four areas which delineate the brain development of children (Mayer, 2005). These are a biological perspective of intelligence, the cognitive sequence of stages, intellectual competence, and knowledge. Piaget also affirmed that there are four principal cognitive phases that a child experiences in the process of cognitive development. These include the sensorimotor, concrete operations, preoperations, and formal operations stages (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2011). Piaget avowed that a child could not miss any of the phases because every one of them is essential in the cognitive development process. The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to two years of age and is characterized by physical interactions between the baby and his or her environment. In this stage, babies will not be aware of the fact that things that they do not see actually do exist. The next stage is the preoperational phase in which children are unable to comprehend abstract facts and thus require physical situations. This stage lasts between the ages of 2 and 7 years old. In the next stage, the concrete operations phase, a child will begin to form logical structures that can explain the meanings of physical experiences (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2011). Children in this stage, which lasts between the ages of 7 and 11 years, are also able to think in an abstract manner. In the final stage of childhood, which lasts between the ages of 11 and 15 and is known as the formal operations stage, a child will develop cognitive structures that are identical to those of adults and be able to engage in conceptual reasoning. Today, there are many preschool programs whose curriculum is based on Piagets theories , and which direct teachers as well as parents to test a childs abilities while avoiding ideas that the child may not have the ability to understand. Piaget’s theory tended to concentrate on factors such as spatial relationships, classification, movement, time, number, chance, and conservation. Lev Vygotsky, who also believed in the cognitive theory, concentrated more on establishing how children interacted with the larger society and culture (Karpov, 2006). Vygotsky thought that abilities like attention and perception were intrinsic mental properties that all human beings were born with. The experience of life and progress in age would only serve to further develop these qualities. Piaget’s Theory Piagets theory on child development has been used in numerous educational realms. In schools today, instructional principals are based on precepts that were further developed by Piagetian theorists. These precepts include the notion that learning environments in schools ought to be fashioned in such a way as to be discovery-oriented places that encourage children’s activities. In addition, children’s interactions with fellow children develop or encourage the progress of cognitive development and so should be encouraged through the implementation of social negotiation scenarios or even peer teaching experiences. The third fact is that when children are able to use instructional strategies, they become conscious of errors in their own thinking patterns. These Piagetian principles can be used to assist children in being able to understand issues and even acquire more knowledge without losing previously acquired skills (Mayer, 2005). These principles also allow teachers to be able to act as role facilitators who support student dialogue that is based on discoveries that are made by the students. This makes the whole learning process more enjoyable to easy for the students. Vygotsky, while supporting the importance of Piagetian principles, was more focused on allowing children to engage in social interactions which would develop language which was a central factor in cognitive development (Karpov, 2006). Language, according to Vygotsky, is also important because it is the basic transmitter of human culture in all societies in the world. The use of Piaget’s concepts in Education Today The idea that the acquisition of knowledge does not just take place in one sitting but is a gradual and never ending process had considerable effects on the planning of educational systems. Piaget’s theory basically generated an environment where educational stakeholders were encouraged to understand that the process of learning is an essential part of a childs individual sense of comprehension of the world around him. Piaget’s theory probably inspired the trend of authentic assessment as well as the institution of student driven learning approaches in schools. When he first introduced these ideas, they were quite controversial because they virtually meant that abstract ideas could not be introduced to children until they transitioned into adolescence. For a long time, children had been encouraged to think and behave as small-bodied adults. It was quite startling for Piaget to assert that their mental capabilities would not be developed fully until their teenage years. Piaget also emphasized on the fact that children’s intellectual development did not happen at the same time. Each child would develop various levels of cognitive mastery at varying times or periods. This meant that children had to be given instruction according to their current level of cognitive mastery. This challenged the theory of the utilization of a single set syllabus which was expected to cater for all children in most schools. The Implementation of Piaget’s Theory in Education Today Discovery-Learning In general, any curriculum that is Piagetian-inspired will stress on the importance of having an educational philosophy that is learner-centered (Mayer, 2005). Piaget encouraged the institution of active discovery-centred learning environments within schools. Piaget stated that the acquisition of intelligence is basically dependent on the processes of accommodation and assimilation (Egan & Judson, 2008). This means that learning experiences have to be prepared in such a way that they offer numerous chances for students to independently engage in accommodation and assimilation. Piaget stressed that the kind of intellectual curiosity displayed by children who were allowed to be able to acquire knowledge independently was significantly different from that displayed by students who were force-fed facts that they had not come upon independently. In schools that use Piaget’s theory when deciding on the educational curriculum, teachers are first encouraged to independently assess and evaluate the cognitive stages of each of their students, as well as their weaknesses and strengths (Dimitriadis & Kamberelis, 2006). This will then allow the teachers to create individualized courses of instruction while permitting the students to debate on different issues with each other. Piaget did not glorify teachers and portray them as the harbingers of knowledge that many societies view them as. He instead believed that they were merely facilitators of knowledge who were entrusted with the opportunity to be able to direct students and inspire them to seek for more knowledge (Garner, 2008). In schools that use Piaget’s theory, teachers will allow their students to commit errors because they know that the students will be able to learn from them. Such methods of teaching usually generate eager and stimulated students because learning will be embraced to a greater extent if it is based on an individual’s personal progress and not the teacher who has a definite and u to comply with. Teachers in such schools are also expected to display confidence in their student’s abilities to acquire knowledge for themselves even if it is through unorthodox ways. Scaffolding Scaffolding is essentially a Piagetian process in which the instructor or teacher adjusts the educational support that is given to a student in the course of learning so that it can be aligned to the child’s current educational performance. This is important because it affords the student the chance to be able to understand the subject matter without being pressurized to understand at a faster pace than he or she is capable of (Dimitriadis & Kamberelis, 2006). This also allows the teacher or instructor to be to divide the course into a sequence of understandable units that can be well understood. Scaffolding is a process that can be employed effectively as an instrument for teaching both teenagers and children. This process is also valuable because it allows for children to be able to benefit from emotional support in the form of encouragement. Constructivism supports the notion that teachers should encourage the development of holistic thinking processes in students. This is quite different from the more common method of teaching which allows for direct instruction. In constructivism, the learning process is basically decontextualized, and happens through experiences that occur to individual students. The theories of constructivism also supports the premise that knowledge is not some separate entity that exists independently from the learner (Cubero & de la Mata, 2008). The popularity of the educational movement known as constructivism is thought to have been a reaction to over-reliance on rote memorization in the majority of educational systems around the world. In many quarters, it is believed that the best way in through which children can learn is if they are taught how to think for themselves and learn independently how to solve problems. There are many examples of school curricula, particularly in the Western world, that have embraced learner-centered constructivism in order to generate students who can will be able to operate effectively in real-world contexts . Conclusion Jean Piaget was mainly interested in revealing the process through which children acquire knowledge. His theory on cognitive processes stated that cognitive structures are sequences of mental action that trigger intelligent acts. Piaget believed that children would be able to learn best if they were continuously allowed to interact with the world while engaging in finding answers to any problems that were created by their environment. Piaget believed that learning could only occur when children were given the opportunity to take independent action in solving the problems that they came across. References Cubero, M., & de la Mata, M. (2008). Activity Settings, Discourse Modes and Ways of Understanding: On the Heterogeneity of Verbal Thinking. Culture and Psychology, 14(4), 403-430. Dimitriadis, G., & Kamberelis, G. (2006). Theory for education. London: Routledge Publishing. Egan, K., & Judson, G. (2008). Of whales and wonder: By using cognitive tools to shape instruction, we can make the curriculum more imaginatively engaging. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 20-25. Garner, B. K. (2008). When students seem stalled: The missing link for too many kids who don’t “get it?” cognitive structures. Educational Leadership, 65 (6), 32-38 Karpov, Y. (2006). The Neo-Vygotskiam approach to child development. Cambridge: Cambridge Publishing Press. Mayer, S. (2005). The early evolution of Jean Piaget’s clinical method. History of Psychology, 8(4), 362-382. Smith, P., Cowie, H., & Blades, M. (2011).Understanding childrens development. London: Blackwell Publishing. Read More