Jean Piaget
"The principle goal of education [...] should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."
The 4 Stages of Cognitive Development
its implications & impacts.
Simply put, educational psychology is defined as, "The study of how people learn, including teaching methods, instructional processes, and individual differences in learning. The goal is to understand how people learn and retain new information." (Cherry) In terms of educational psychology, Jean Piaget's stages of development has allowed us to gain insight on the intellectual needs of children at a certain age in order to develop their cognitive skills and effectively learn and retain knowledge. When applied in a classroom scenario, this means that the curricula, interactions, and environment should be well suited towards the psychological needs of the children.
For an explanation of each stage please click here: The 4 Stages of Cognitive Development
The implications of the...
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 Years Old)
This has taught us that:
Children at this age must be kept safe but interested in order to promote their intellectual development.
Since their cognitive development is highly reliant on their sensory and motor movements, this means that they need to be provided with stimuli.
They should be allowed to learn how to crawl, climb, push, pull, and walk in a safe and controlled environment as this allows them to learn through their bodies and develop spatial awareness.
They should also be provided with things to touch and explore; objects to manipulate. Toys that make noise are good at helping them become aware of cause-and-effect.
Their receptiveness of language should also be developed by having the people around them constantly talking to them, telling them what’s going on.
The development of object permanence and possibly separation anxiety should also be tackled. Try to keep the baby’s daily routine constant, making as few changes to their lives as possible. While educating the child, it’s important to also support their developmental needs.
Tangible Impact:
This has led to the creation of baby/parent classes, such as the ones Gymboree has to offer, which were built on the basis of early children development research such as Piaget's. These classes allow the babies to safely explore their environment, developing their senses and motor skills.
The implications of the...
Preoperational Stage (2-7 Years Old)
This has taught us that:
Children at this stage are dependent on their own experience, but they tend to make incorrect generalizations as they base their generalizations on single experiences, leading to what is usually a false conclusion.
The child's thoughts are egocentric, so to understand them, adults should try to look from their perspective.
It's more effective to ask questions that help children think through a problem on their own than to straight up tell them the answer.
They need to construct knowledge for themselves by puzzling it through, as they are more apt at taking that in as opposed to having to retain what someone else has told them.
To support the cognitive development of preoperational children, educators can: (1) allocate time for uninterrupted free-play time, (2) provide many real-world experiences for children throughout the year, (3) plan open-ended activities and ask open-ended questions. (Mooney)
When the child has difficulty forming connections, the teacher can ask questions that make them think a little more about the two separate aspects, so they can see the correlation for themselves. Open-ended activities and open-ended questions (i.e "how does that work?") forces the child to think, supporting their cognitive development. Put them in a position of inquiry in stead of being right or wrong, so they can explore the answers for themselves. For more effective acquisition of knowledge, children should experience what they're meant to learn about. It's more effective for the child to ride a taxi, bus, or a subway and learn about transportation from there as opposed to reading about "things-on-the-go". This is what it means to construct knowledge. Another important educational implication is the importance of play-time, as this allows them to explore the world and learn things like why its important to take care of it.
Tangible Impact:
The curriculum offered for children this age (pre-school to early primary) as well as their goals are all largely based on theories regarding children development. According to Kathleen McCartney, dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education, for children at this stage, what's important is that they "Become exposed to numbers, letters, and shapes. And, more importantly, they learn how to socialize, get along with other children, share, contribute to circle time." This is why a large aspect of preschool and early primary is strengthening socialization skills, learning compromise, respect, and problem-solving. Having to face the opinions of others and being actively involved with objects and processes will help build the cognitive structures needed to accomplish logical thought. Children learn things like pouring water or setting snack tables or making decisions regarding play time. This gives them a chance to increase self-awareness, socialize, explore, and build confidence. According to Angela Capone, PhD, senior program manager at Southwest Human Development's Arizona Institute for Childhood Development, "Quality preschools help children find answers through exploration, experimentation, and conversation."
Piaget's theory has showed us that the ideal educational curriculum at this age fosters young minds to experience things for themselves and learn something out of it, the teacher is merely guiding them, not telling them. This sustains the children's interest; it's not about how much they can learn or achieving academic milestones.
The implications of the...
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 Years Old)
This has taught us that:
Children at this stage possess the characteristic of reversibility, they are able reverse the direction of their thought.
They start to understand the concept of identity; if only superficial aspects of a situation are changed, the inherent identity remains the same. Same goes for reshaping things when nothing has been added or taken away. They understand conservation.
They start to make logical arguments, as information travels with greater speed through the nervous system and different parts of the brain begin to work in coordination with one another in new combinations.
Decentration. They can explore multiple perspectives, whether that be a different point of view or multi-dimensional objects, as long as its in a concrete context. They are not yet capable of abstract thinking.
To further support their cognitive development, the child should start to learn how to think in abstract.
Their logic increases as they learn inductive reasoning. They know how to mentally combine, separate, order, or transform objects and actions after learning reversibility and conservation. They are also not as egocentric, having learned how to understand different perspectives.
Tangible Impact:
As with the other stages, this theory has impacted the educational curriculum as well as treatment children at this age receive. Since they think best in concrete terms, students at this age are usually put in controlled environments where they seek to find the answer to a problem by doing it for themselves. For example, to learn science, students are told to plant seeds, or build a terrarium. Teachers know that they must sustain the children's interest, but since they are more capable of focusing now, there's a higher degree of educational content like mathematics, english, and writing, instead of just sensory exploration. Students are usually provided with opportunities to problem-solve. At this stage, it's also important to stretch their imagination to improve deductive reasoning, but teachers should be careful of overwhelming the children. The child should be provided many interactions with concrete materials as the ability to think abstractly is based upon the strength of these skills.
The implications of the...
Formal Operational Stage (11+ Years Old)
This has taught us that:
Children at this stage typically focus on the present, but are starting to understand the idea of long-term effects.
They've learnt deductive reasoning and are able to use thinking and reasoning to develop expectations of specific outcomes, and to formulate long-term goals; they can hypothesize and think abstractly.
Active learning, manipulating ideas in interactive ways, is still more effective than passive learning.
They are capable of building off the ideas and knowledge shared by their peers.
They are more eager to become active participants in increasing their knowledge on various areas of interest across disciplines, if their academic confidence has not be deflated.
They are able to devise structured plans and systematically test solutions.
They have stronger metacognition skills.
They are able to see beyond literal interpretations and understand metaphors or analogies.
Adolescent egocentricism, where they believe that everyone's paying attention to them and that their experiences are very unique. Self-consciousness.
Tangible Impact:
As with all the other stages, this has supremely impacted the way children at this age are taught and the things they learn about. Students start to think about their future (prospective universities, careers) as they develop specific areas of interest (i.e "I'm a good pianist player so I want to be a musician"). Schools emphasize more interdisciplinary learning, and their stronger metacognition skills add to their responsibility and accountability at school. There's more competition. Students at around this age are often given "talks" about relationships, bullying, mental health, amongst other things due to their development of adolescent egocentricism. Simple maths becomes trigonometry, sciences becomes neurology, students are expected to be able to look deeper into subjects. Their ability to abstract think also means that they'll be subjected to more analysis, with teachers telling them to find deeper meaning in books (usually on abstract concepts like love or justice), or to create a question about this and find the answer to it. Students are slowly expected to choose subjects they want to learn more about, and do things to support their future.
If you're reading this and you're a student about to go into the IBDP program, I'm sure you can relate to most, if not all, of the impacts written above. Yes, it's more complex than primary; you're expected to choose subjects, think of your future, to constantly write reflections on your self, make science lab reports, and write analysis papers. But, that's a testament to your cognitive capabilities at this age, and it's all down to these theories which reflect just what you're capable of learning at this point in time.
Andreas Demetriou, former Minister of Education and Culture of Cyprus,
"Successful methods of teaching abstract, depersonalized content appear not to be those that treat content in an abstract, depersonalized way."
Further Implications
of Piaget's Theory
As explained above, the stages of development correlate heavily to what children learn and the way they are taught. Although the content (i.e basic maths, algebra) and context (i.e through senses, or through metacognition) the children use to learn differs slightly with each stage (growing more advanced as their cognitive skills develops), there are some implications of Piaget's theory that can be applied to educational settings of any age, such as how successful learning has been particularly noticed when:
"Students teach other students: ‘There is a wealth of evidence that peer teaching is extremely effective for a wide range of goals, content, and students of different levels and personalities’ (McKeachie et al. 1986: 63).
One-to-one interaction occurs between tutor and tutee, involving ‘scaffolded’ instruction (Fischer and Bullock 1984; Wood, Bruner, and Ross 1976).
Formal content is learned in the context of solving actual professional problems. Problem-based learning has become hugely successful in professional education (Boud 1985; Newble and Clarke 1986).
Abstract, conceptual learning is built on lower-level learning, particularly where a variety of hands-on experiences are used (Bruner 1964; Dienes 1963).
Formally taught knowledge is specifically linked to sensory and enactive experiences (McKenzie and White 1982)." - Neo-Piagetian Theories of Cognitive Development as edited by Andreas Demetriou et al.
These five approaches to learning can be culminated into 3, that being; peer study, active learning, and student-centric learning.
... even more implications & impacts
Piaget's theories proved the importance of these three approaches to learning, popular even now.
Peer Study
Piaget’s theory emphasized on the importance of social interaction, including with the student’s peers. For lessons, this means that individual activities should be done in the presence of peers, providing the students the opportunity to discuss and share input. Of course, individual effort is required for cognitive development, but peer study allows for encouragement and assistance, helping the students through relations that facilitate mental growth. Different students will have differing skill sets, some more advanced than others. When these different students are placed in a group, they can seek in each other skills that they have yet acquired, making it a mutual learning experience and not just in terms of the syllabus. Additionally, since in a classroom setting, most of the students are in each other’s age range, they are most likely to be near the same cognitive level as each other, so when they explain concepts and exchange ideas, their explanations may be clearer than that of the teacher who is more advanced. There are still benefits even if the students aren’t on the same cognitive level; the less advanced students can receive insight and correct inaccuracies in their thought process, while the more advanced students must think through their own reasoning in order to explain the concept to someone less advanced. When these students ask each other questions, or work together to answer a given one, ideas can be differentiated and expanded, broadening the scope of their knowledge. The effectiveness of peer study to facilitate mental growth is backed up by empirical support. One study placed children at different cognitive stages and had them share their (usually contradictory) views to problem situations. After this interaction, a significant number of the preoperational children advanced to the concrete operational cognitive stage (Strauss, 1972). A different study placed students in small classes and had them do a lot of group work. By the end of the study, these students scored significantly higher in logical and abstract reasoning. They also increased their marks in personality skills and social interactions. (Tomlinson-Keasey and Eisert, 1978).
Real-Life Application Examples: Group work provided in schools, older or more advanced students being told to tutor a younger or less advanced one, “study dates”.
Active Learning
Piaget also believed that children’s senses should be educated first before their intellect, theorizing that children learned best through direct and active interaction with their surroundings. He believed that the most important means of growth is through action and through operations that the student himself performs within the confines of their surroundings. If we restrict a child’s experiences, we are also restricting his conceptualization. Educating a child does not only equate to an increase in knowledge; the lessons should be able to stick with the child so they can recall it easily. If this weren’t the case, then active participation from the student may not be as vital. When the student answers a question incorrectly, the teacher could simply provide the right answer, and the child will simply discard that wrong answer without fixing their reasoning. But, in order to promote cognitive growth, the teacher should instead help the child analyze the same problem, and correct their reasoning as they go through it, filling in the needed details to correct their answer. The primitive ideas the students had should not be suppressed, but explored at its core and integrated with the correct answer, so that when facing a similar problem that’s presented differently, the child would have the correct primitive idea. In other words, in active learning, the teachers should facilitate situations where the children can construct their own understanding, guiding them when their conclusion requires correction. This allows the children to discover ideas for themselves, structuring them in a way that they understand so that it can be easily called upon when needed. This also means to teach students content within the context that it occurs, also known as problem-based learning. This requires the students to take active part in finding the solution, so that the information falls into place. Information that does not “fall into place” is usually memorized but quickly forgotten, a temporary increase in knowledge. Context-based / problem-based / active learning is much more efficient than memorizing disembedded content for a while, bringing meaning to the lesson.
Real-Life Application Examples: Field trips, case studies, Model United Nations, science lab experiments.
Student-Centric Learning
Every student’s cognitive schémas are constantly revising itself through the assimilation and accommodation of new stimuli, refining the mental structures to incorporate all the input. Piaget believed that children are motivated to learn only when their curiosity is not fully satisfied, because that way, there will be no stimuli for the student to expand their knowledge. But, the theory also deems it important that a learner must already master earlier levels in order to attempt more complex ones. The reason behind that is not only the lack of groundwork, but also the fundamental issue of failing to master the thought process needed in further endeavours. So, in a classroom environment, there needs to be a balance between what the students already know and what they have yet to learn. The thing is, different students have different levels of understanding. What is high-level for some children can be low level for others, and intellectual growth “occurs only when the learner is doing thinking that is high level in relation to [their] own stage of development” (Furth and Wachs, 1975). A level that is too high will produce frustration, distortion, and will usually lead to rote learning, while a level that is too low will result in disinterest and boredom, no intellectual stimulation. Because of that, Piaget’s theories show that it is imperative for educational programs to progressively become more student-centric, structured for individualization, not convergence. Avoid lessons that are so structured that there’s only one way to approach the answer, the learning milieu should encourage constant thinking from the students, the class should neither be too easy nor too hard and out of reach.
Real Life Application Examples: Reduced class sizes. Many top universities and schools have extremely good teacher to student ratios. For example, Harvard’s student-faculty ratio is approximately 6:1. Back in the 50s to 60s, there could be over 30 children being taught by just one teacher (ratio 30:1), this makes the environment teacher-centric, all the students are expected to succumb towards the expectations and levels set by the teacher. Learning by rote was very popular at the time as the teacher is not able to accommodate the students’ cognitive needs. Having a smaller class makes it easier for the tasks to suit the educational needs of each student.