Educational Principles Essay

Piaget claimed that children were in charge of the construction or the building of their own knowledge and that construction was superior to instruction (Gordon and Browne, 2004). Piaget thought that educators should provide a stimulating environment and have the children explore. Teachers should watch and also interact with the children, but they should let the children find and experience new ideas and knowledge on their own. (Crain, 2005)One of Piaget's major contributions is what is known as the general periods of development. He found four major general periods or stages of child development (Crain, 2005, p. 115): Sensorimotor Intelligence (birth to two years). Babies organize their physical action schemes, such as sucking, grasping, and hitting. Preoperational Thought (two to seven years). Children learn to think but their thinking is illogical and different from that of adults. Concrete Operations (seven to eleven years). Children develop the capacity to think systematically, but only when they can refer to concrete objects and activities. Formal Operations (eleven to adulthood). Young people

The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive development is known as the Formal Operational Stage, which occurs between the ages of eleven and sixteen. Adolescents have now gained the ability to think in an abstract matter, and can now understand things such as science and algebra. The most distinct difference between the

There are many different theories of development that help us to understand children’s behaviour, reactions and ways of learning. All equally important as they influence practice. To begin with there is Piaget’s constructivist theories which look at the way in which children seem to be able to make sense of their world as a result of their experiences and how they are active learners. He also suggested that as children develop so does their thinking. Piaget’s work has influenced early years settings into providing more hands on and relevant tasks for children and young people. In other words the children are ‘learning through play’. Teachers are working out the needs of children and plan activities accordingly.

From the age of seven to about eleven, children become capable of performing mental operations or working through problems and ideas in their minds. However, they can perform operations only on tangible objects and real events. Children also achieve conservation, reversibility, and decentration during this stage:

Jean Piaget is a key figure for development, focusing on cognitive constructivism – that being that we must learn from experience and development, building on knowledge that has already been developed. The strengths and weaknesses of Piaget 's cognitive development theory will be discussed.

As Piaget’s theory of child development is put into practice in nurseries and infant schools today I

His views of how children and young people’s minds work and develop have been enormously influential particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation and increasing the capacity to understand their world, they can’t undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. The research has spawned a great deal more, much of which has undermined the detail of his own, but like many other original investigations his importance comes from his overall vision. Today Piaget’s theories have helped to change how people viewed the child or young person’s world and the way they study them he has inspired many theorist to improve on his studies. Piaget’s ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating, particularly in education. What he didn’t consider was the effect in the

In order to create play, they must represent these activities mentally and translate them into actions. While the thinking of preoperational children is more advanced, Piaget emphasizes that children at this stage of cognitive development are still immature and are limited by egocentrism. They are all about self and perceive the world based on their own assumptions and experiences, they have difficulty relating to differences such as lighter, smaller, and softer.

At the centre of Piaget's theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct, universal stages, each characterized by increasingly sophisticated and

Piaget believe that children are active thinkers. He recognized that the mind develops through a series of irreversible stages. He also acknowledged that a child’s maturing brain builds schemas that are constantly assimilating and accommodating to the world around them. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is split into four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage occurs from birth to nearly two years of age. At this stage, infants learn about the world around them by sensing it and interacting within it. It is also in this stage that the idea of object permanence develops, that is, the awareness that things continue to exist even when they are not being observed. In my personal life, I am certain that in this stage of development I would have enjoyed peek-a-boo, because if I didn’t see it, to my developing mind, it wasn’t there at all. The second stage, preoperational, lasts from two years of age to seven years of

Three main theories of education exist: behavioral, constructivist, and cognitive. I find myself ideologically aligned most closely with the constructivist approach, yet for reasons to be explored later in this document, find the theory one that can only offer guidance for my actions as a teacher a portion of the time I am working with students. Constructivism means students don’t just absorb information and understand

Education is not the teacher but rather what the teacher does to encourage the transfer of knowledge. Students learn by an innate nature. It is this innate nature that drives humans to be curious and inquisitive enriching the learning process. Jean Piaget’s Developmental Stage Theory deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire, construct, and use it. According to

In practice of this philosophy there are many ways in which it can be done. In my classroom the subjects would be brought about in a unique way that would attract those children. First of all, I see teaching as an art.

The second educational belief grounded in Piaget’s theory is individual differences. Piaget’s theory asserts that children go through all the same developmental stages; however they do so at different rates* because of this teachers should put more effort to arrange classroom activities for groups of children and individuals rather than for the whole class group. Also because individual differences are

Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is well-known and provides a basic understanding of the cognitive process and how children