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Comparing Theories of Mathematical Development

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For this assignment I will describe two theories of mathematical development. I will discuss Jean Piaget’s and Tina Bruce’s theories about how children’s understandings of mathematical develop. Jean Piaget’s research led him to believe that we develop by taking in information, which is then processed by the brain and as a result of this our behaviour changes. He stated that there are stages of development that children move through. The ages are approximate but the sequence is the same for everyone. According to http://ponce.inter.edu/cai/tesis/lmrivera/cap2.htm “The stages of cognitive development that Piaget distinguished are: 1. Sensorimotor (0-2 years of age) - children begin to use imitation, memory and thought. They begin …show more content…

But whereas Athey believed that schemas dominate children’s play as they explore, experiment and the way they learn, Piaget believed that children progress through three stages of learning when they are absorbing events into existing schemas they already have. Athey developed Piaget’ theory and showed how children forms of thought develop through experiences and developed a framework for teaching which extends schema through curriculum experiences. In my placement the teacher planned a group activity that all the children could take part in to learn about a certain subject which was a write up on the counting cars activity that they did the week before. Children and their partners created their own piece of work that was added to a class group display on a wall. The work included drawing of the cars, tables and charts recording the results, diagrams and short sentences on the activity. The wall represented the group as a classroom project. The nature of this kind of activity demonstrates the sharing of information, which can be a key component of learning and links well with Piaget’s theory as it shows that children think in symbolic form as the diagrams were written up as a symbolic form of a tally chart and every tally mark represented a vehicle. According to Squire G “children become totally absorbed and will spend a great deal of time carrying out related activities as they develop a particular schema.” For example in placement children love to

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