Section A- Literature Review Jean Piaget’s theory of child development along with effective learning methods and teaching strategies used in secondary school classrooms with particular attention paid to science A child’s developing mind1,2,3 Without a doubt, Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the most influential child psychologists. In his day he was at the forefront of research into child psychology and even today, his word is cited by many in the profession. The constructivist theory (see later) in particular has many of its roots seated in Piaget’s early work. Initially a biologist, Piaget was interested in the way in which organisms adapted to their environment. His initial theories on this subject led him to conclude that a …show more content…
This stage normally lasts until the end of a child’s second year. Six sub-stages make up the sensorimotor period which overall involve the development of reflexes, coordination and symbolic representation. The first sub-stage is the development of reflexes, the reflexes of a newborn child appear to be concentrated on those reflexes that will be important in later life, such as the sucking reflex and the palmar reflex. The reproductive nature of these reflexes also causes a general rise in sucking on objects between meals or sucking new objects. Towards the end of this stage a child will develop recognitive assimilation ie, will gain the ability to distinguish between a bottle and nipple from other objects. The second sub-stage sees the introduction of conditioned reflexes and habits. Perhaps the clearest example, though not the most relevant, is that of Pavlov’s dog. In this experiment every time a dog was given food a bell was also sounded; because of the food the dog started to salivate. After a while, once the dog associated the sound of the bell with the food, the bell was rung without any food being given, yet the dog continued to salivate. However, after a brief period the food-bell association died off and the dog no longer salivated upon hearing the bell. The third sub-stage sees the development of hand eye coordination. Because of this a baby
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
The first of the four stages, sensorimotor, occurs from birth to the time the child is two years old. The preoperational stage begins when the child is about two years old and continues until the child is seven. The next stage, and also the stage in which Pelzer is in during a greater part of this memoir, is the concrete operational stage. This stage continues until the child is roughly eleven years old. The final stage lasts into adulthood. This stage is called formal
Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development. Piaget’s work includes a detailed observational study of cognition in children. Piaget showed that young children think in different ways to adults. According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent knowledge is based.
Extending from birth to one month, the first stage is known as reflexive schemes. This stage emphasizes the reflexes newborns are born with that allow for
The first being the sensorimotor stage during which the infant child learns about the world around him/her by using their senses to make sense of their environment. Towards the end of this discrete stage the child begins to understand that things are represented by symbols, for example, mummy, dog and ball. The next stage of development as described by Piaget is the Pre-Operational stage when a child comes to understand that written words can be used in order to communicate information about the world around
The second sub-stage is primary circular reactions that occur around one to four months of age. In this stage infants start to organize schemes for sensory and motor activities, actions are voluntarily repeated, but the infant actions are still centered on bodily experiences and instinct satisfaction. The third sub-stage is when the baby starts to focus on the external world and secondary circular reactions; this happens around four to eight months. Babies also develop schemes for repeating actions with interesting effects on things and people in the world during this sub-stage. The fourth sub-stage is coordinating the secondary circular reactions around eight to twelve months. In this stage infants can organize a series of mental structures for various actions and develop intentionality of behavior, they can separate schemes for means and ends, and facilitate the accomplishment of simple goals. The fifth sub-stage is when the external-oriented attention generates and tertiary circular reactions, this is from twelve to eighteen months. Around this time infants grow into toddlers and they seek discovery of new information about how things and people work. The final/sixth sub-stage is pretty important and several development milestones occur, this is eighteen to twenty four months. In this sub-stage object permanence is acquired and toddlers understand objects continue to exist independent from self-generated actions and sensory experiences. (Petrill,
Jean Piaget was a remarkable scholar in a variety of areas, with a publishing career that began at the age of ten and that would eventually come to include more than fifty influential books and many articles, essays, and other shorter works (Feldman, 2008). Though his youth and adolescence were consumed primarily by an interest in biology and the study of animals, today Piaget is largely remembered for his contributions to psychology, which was still in its very early stages when Piaget became involved in its development (Feldman, 2008). Piaget's theory of development and his stages of learning provide a simple yet profound and still accurate way of examining early human development.
The third substage is similar to the second, but it focuses on the external objects not the infant’s own body. Once the primary circular reactions become boring the infant advances to the secondary where they explore with objects. The child is more focused on the world and begins to intentionally repeat an action in order to trigger a response in their environment. (Piaget, Gruber, & Voneche, 1977) The child may shake a rattle, hit a mobile, or drop or throw objects repeatedly. Depending on what they feel about the outcome of their actions the action may or may not be repeated. When a child shakes a rattle and it makes noise that scares them they learn to not repeat that action. If the child knows that by kicking the side of the crib it will make the mobile move they may repeat this action if they enjoy the movement of the mobile.
Piaget *Missing Works Cited* Piaget work has received world wide acclaim and recognition , as well as having a positive impact in areas such as education and social curricula. Though he had made an impact on understanding of the child cognitive development , his theory of cognitive development has suffered a great deal of critics that it neglects the social nature of human development.(Hook, Watts and Cockroft ,2002).So the following essay will discuss on whether this critic is valid or not based on detail discussion of Piaget theory. The theory of Vygotsky shall also be discussed to prove that indeed social factors play a role .
Infants begin experimenting different sounds and actions through a trial-and-error pattern in order to be exhibited to the parent’s attention often. During this stage, infants show goal-directed behavior displaying purposeful responses to other people. For instance, a crawling baby will show goal-directed behavior by crawling to a covert in the kitchen, where his sippy cups are stored, taking one out holding it up and grunt to his father as if to say, “I’m thirsty!” Their actions are purposeful. Another important thing happening in the secondary circular reactions sub stage four is that infants achieve object permanence. Object permanence is when an infant is watching an object which then disappears, the infant is still thinking about it or can try to look for object. Even if it is out of sight, it is still on
In current educational psychology, both the works of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky have become prominent in an understanding of developmental cognition in childhood (Duchesne, McMaugh, Bochner & Karuse, 2013, p. 56). Their theories are complimentary and provide a more rigorous comprehension of childhood development (Shayer, M., 2003, p. 465). Their varying principles are applicable to many situations concerning the development of children. The focuses of Piaget and Vygotsky on the ways of childhood development differ. Piaget was focused on the four developmental stages of cognitive growth in his Theory of Cognitive Development, whilst Vygotsky’s principles were based on development in a societal manner with his
In the sensorimotor stage the child discovers the environment through physical actions such as sucking, grabbing, shaking and pushing. During these first two years of life children realize objects still exist, even if it is out of view. This concept is known as object permanence. Children in the preoperational stage develop language skills, but may only grasp an idea with repeated exposure. As Piaget describes in the next stage, children draw on knowledge that is based on real life situations to provide more logical explanations and predictions. Lastly, in the formal operational stage children use higher levels of thinking and present abstract ideas.
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.
Jean Piaget is considered to be very influential in the field of developmental psychology. Piaget had many influences in his life which ultimately led him to create the Theory of Cognitive Development. His theory has multiple stages and components. The research done in the early 1900’s is still used today in many schools and homes. People from various cultures use his theory when it comes to child development. Although there are criticisms and alternatives to his theory, it is still largely used today around the world.
The first stage, which is birth to two years old, basically states what I have stated in paragraph one. Children are learners of their environment. Also that after the child learns from his environment he will then apply those learnings to the outside world. For instance communicating with someone even if it’s just a word or two. The child is still showing that they are trying to apply the information they have learned and watched.