The Theory
- Jean Piaget is as important to childhood education as Nelson Mandela was important to South Africa. Coming up with some of the basic foundations of childhood psychology, Piaget expanded the field to help us as educators better understand the kind of kids that we as teachers will be teaching and communicate with. One of, if not his most, important theory came with his Cognitive Development theory. By breaking it down in this way, we are able to understand what is happening during these stages of development, and what to expect or teach to the child/adolescent. Piaget, keeping it nice and broad, left it down to 4 stage of development:
1. Sensorimotor Stage: The earliest stage of development, we begin to see this take place in the early stages of infancy. This is one of the more "experimental" stages in a child's life. As you watch a baby, they are constantly checking consistency of items by teething on them, or trying to gain balance on objects to see what they can or cannot lean upon. The point here being the infant learns that there is SOMETHING there, and they need to find out what it is/does. This kind of stage also sees the infant trying to experiment with verbal communication. Coo's and Ca's of a baby trying to communicate what they want are prime examples.
2. Pre-operational Stage: This stage begins to show in the toddler, early childhood stage of life. We begin to see imagination, and creativity, and learning the concept of past, present, and future. The child begins to realize what he/she can create and do, but is based more on what they want to do, instead of what they can actually do. A parent or teacher will always ask "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and as a child, you would answer anything that came to your head. Prime examples are President, Pro-athlete, or the ever popular Super Hero. But the child has no sense of whether they can actually accomplish the goal or not.
3.Concrete Operational Stage: We begin to see the maturity of the child rise in this stage, with more solid thoughts and actions. We begin to see the child stop looking so inward, and start to see the world around them. We also begin to view our own thoughts and actions more clearly. Perhaps noticing that just because we love Scottie Pippen, doesn't mean that our best friend will feel the same way. The problem with this stage is the brain can get overloaded with too much happening at once. Stressful situations like multiple people being upset, or multiple things going wrong at once will be a struggle.
4.Formal Operational Stage: At least we come to the final stage of development, well in a way, according to Piaget at least. Our man Piaget would tell you that we all go through a life long stage of development. But over the course of his life after the theory was presented, he insisted that this was indeed the final stage for cognitive development. We are now at the stage where we can use complicated symbols to solve problems, and solve complex issues in our lives more clearly. Unlike before, we would get distracted by more than one variable in the equation of life, and now we are developed to a point that we can solve complex issues.
(Piaget, 1952)
1. Sensorimotor Stage: The earliest stage of development, we begin to see this take place in the early stages of infancy. This is one of the more "experimental" stages in a child's life. As you watch a baby, they are constantly checking consistency of items by teething on them, or trying to gain balance on objects to see what they can or cannot lean upon. The point here being the infant learns that there is SOMETHING there, and they need to find out what it is/does. This kind of stage also sees the infant trying to experiment with verbal communication. Coo's and Ca's of a baby trying to communicate what they want are prime examples.
2. Pre-operational Stage: This stage begins to show in the toddler, early childhood stage of life. We begin to see imagination, and creativity, and learning the concept of past, present, and future. The child begins to realize what he/she can create and do, but is based more on what they want to do, instead of what they can actually do. A parent or teacher will always ask "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and as a child, you would answer anything that came to your head. Prime examples are President, Pro-athlete, or the ever popular Super Hero. But the child has no sense of whether they can actually accomplish the goal or not.
3.Concrete Operational Stage: We begin to see the maturity of the child rise in this stage, with more solid thoughts and actions. We begin to see the child stop looking so inward, and start to see the world around them. We also begin to view our own thoughts and actions more clearly. Perhaps noticing that just because we love Scottie Pippen, doesn't mean that our best friend will feel the same way. The problem with this stage is the brain can get overloaded with too much happening at once. Stressful situations like multiple people being upset, or multiple things going wrong at once will be a struggle.
4.Formal Operational Stage: At least we come to the final stage of development, well in a way, according to Piaget at least. Our man Piaget would tell you that we all go through a life long stage of development. But over the course of his life after the theory was presented, he insisted that this was indeed the final stage for cognitive development. We are now at the stage where we can use complicated symbols to solve problems, and solve complex issues in our lives more clearly. Unlike before, we would get distracted by more than one variable in the equation of life, and now we are developed to a point that we can solve complex issues.
(Piaget, 1952)
Application
- One of the most important theories of my project, but one of the hardest ones to relate back to the classroom. To me, this one of the most student centered theory that doesn't necessarily have to do with our education system. But I believe it is important enough to discuss how I will use this theory in my class.
- Designing an assignment around this theory proved to be more a challenge than I anticipated so I plan to relate it back to my classroom environment as a whole. There is no guarantee that my kids will come in at the same stage in the developmental cycle. I plan on teaching in Junior and Senior level of English in the High school environment, so I am hopefully going to assume my students are in the 4th stage. One on one time is valuable to me, and that's where I think the bulk of this will come in handy. I plan on taking the assignments of each student and evaluating their use of application, and multi-tasking. If I notice a student is struggling in one of those fields, I plan on having conferences to find out what I can do as a teacher to have him/her catch up with their peers in the stage of development. Some may consider this rushed, or possibly not letting him/her naturally develop, but I think it is a teachers job to help the student reach their intellectual peak in each classroom setting.
- Designing an assignment around this theory proved to be more a challenge than I anticipated so I plan to relate it back to my classroom environment as a whole. There is no guarantee that my kids will come in at the same stage in the developmental cycle. I plan on teaching in Junior and Senior level of English in the High school environment, so I am hopefully going to assume my students are in the 4th stage. One on one time is valuable to me, and that's where I think the bulk of this will come in handy. I plan on taking the assignments of each student and evaluating their use of application, and multi-tasking. If I notice a student is struggling in one of those fields, I plan on having conferences to find out what I can do as a teacher to have him/her catch up with their peers in the stage of development. Some may consider this rushed, or possibly not letting him/her naturally develop, but I think it is a teachers job to help the student reach their intellectual peak in each classroom setting.
Standard
1.2 knowledge of developmental characteristics and developmental variation for students in grades 5–12, and the ability to use this knowledge to inform instructional decision making and promote student success