Cognitive Developmental Approaches

1. Cognitive Developmental Approaches Krista Reale

2. Cognitive Development • How do children actively construct their thinking? • How does thinking change from one point in development to another?

3. Jean Piaget

4. Piaget’s Theory ofCognitive Development • Processes children use to construct their knowledge of the world: • Schemes • Assimilation • Accommodation • Organization • Equilibrium • Equilibration

5. Schemes • Mental representations that organize knowledge • Baby’s schemes = sucking, looking, grasping • Older children’s schemes = planning and problem solving

6. Assimilation: Incorporating new info. into existing schemes Accommodation: Adjusting schemes to fit new info. and experiences Assimilation & Accommodation

7. Organization • Grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order • More smoothly functioning cognitive system • Grouping or arranging of items into categories

8. Equilibration • How children shift from one stage of thought into the next • Shift occurs as children experience cognitive conflict in trying to understand the world • When conflict is eventually resolved, they reach a balance (equilibrium) of thought

9. Piaget’s Stages of Development • Individuals go through 4 stages of development • Sensorimotor • Preoperational • Concrete Operational • Formal Operational • The way children reason at one stage is different from the way they reason at another stage

12. Sensorimotor Stage • Divided into 6 sub stages: • Simple reflexes • First habits & primary circular reactions • Secondary circular reactions • Coordination of secondary circular reactions • Tertiary circular reactions, novelty & curiosity • Internalization of schemes

13. Simple Reflexes • First month after birth • Rooting and sucking reflexes

14. First Habits & PrimaryCircular Reactions • 1-4 months of age • Habit = scheme based on a reflex that has become completely separated from eliciting stimulus • Circular Reaction = Repetitive action

15. Primary Circular Reaction • Attempt to recreate an event that initially occurred by chance • Infant’s own body is center of attention • No outward pull by environmental events

16. Secondary Circular Reactions • 4-8 months of age • Infant becomes more object-object oriented • However, infant’s schemes are not intentional or goal-directed

17. Coordination of SecondaryCircular Reactions • 8-12 months of age • Infant must coordinate vision and touch, hand and eye • Actions more outwardly directed • Combine previously learned schemes in coordinated way • Presence of intentionality

18. Tertiary Circular Reactions,Novelty & Curiosity • 12-18 months of age • Infants intrigued by the many properties of objects • Starting point for human curiosity and interest in novelty

19. Internalization of Schemes • 18-24 months of age • Infant develops ability to use primitive symbols

20. Object Permanence • By the end of the Sensorimotor Period, objects are separate from the self and permanent • Object permanence = understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they are not seen, heard or touched • one of an infant’s most significant accomplishments

21. Research • In the past two decades, revisions of Piaget’s view have been proposed • Researchers have found that a stable and differentiated perceptual world is established earlier than Piaget had envisioned • Many researchers conclude that Piaget wasn’t specific enough about how infants learn about their world • Are infants more competent than Piaget thought?

22. Preoperational Stage • 2-7 years of age • This is Piaget’s 2nd stage • Cognitive world of the preschool child: • Creative • Free • Fanciful • Piaget described the preschool child’s cognition as preoperational

23. Preoperational Thought • Convenient waiting period for the next stage, concrete operational thought • Emphasizes that the child does not yet perform operations • Operations = internalized sets of actions that allow children to do mentally what before they had done physically • also reversible mental actions • example: mentally adding and subtracting numbers • Children begin to represent the world with words, images and drawings

24. Preoperational Thought • Divided into 2 sub stages: • Symbolic function sub stage • Intuitive thought sub stage

25. Symbolic Function Substage • 2-4 years of age • Young child gains the ability to represent mentally an object that is not present • Although young children make great progress during this sub stage, their thought has limitations • egocentrism • animism

26. Egocentrism • Egocentrism = inability to distinguish between one’s own and someone else’s perspective • Example: Telephone conversation between 4 year old Mary at home and her father who is at work • Father: Mary, is Mommy there? • Mary: (Silently nods) • Father: Mary, may I speak to Mommy? • Mary: (Nods silently again)

27. Animism • Animism = the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action • Examples: A young child might say: • “That tree pushed the leaf off, and it fell down” • “The sidewalk made me mad; it made me fall down”

28. 4-7 years of age Children want to know the answers to all questions By age 5, they’ve just about exhausted adults with “why” questions: Questioning Period “What makes you grow up?” “Why do leaves fall?” “Why does the sun shine?” Intuitive Thought Substage

29. Limitations ofPreoperational Thought • Centration = focusing attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others • Clearly shown in young children’s lack of conservation • Conservation = idea that an amount stays the same regardless of how its container changes

30. Conservation • Piaget devised a study of conservation • His most famous task was having a child observe 2 beakers the same size and level of liquid: • Liquid from the one beaker was poured into a taller beaker • The child was asked if the amount of liquid was the same • The child says, “no” • This indicates that child is still at the preoperational stage of cognitive development.

31. Concrete Operational Stage • 7-11 years of age • This Piaget’s 3rd stage • Logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning • In this stage children can perform operations • Horizontal decalage = Piaget’s concept that similar abilities do not appear at the same time within a stage of development

32. Concrete Operational Stage (cont.) • Children can understand the interrelationships among: • Setsandsubsets (a family tree) • Seriation (the ordering of stimuli along a quantitative dimension, such as length) • Transitivity (the ability to reason about and logically combine relationships)

33. Thinking… Piaget’s Theory: • Concrete operational thinkers do • Preoperational thinkers do not

34. Formal Operational Stage • Piaget’s 4th and final stage • 11-15 years of age • Individuals start to think in abstract and logical ways • Develop images of ideal circumstances • Use logical reasoning to solve problems

35. Abstract/Idealistic& Logic Thinking • Abstract thinking is evident in the verbal problem solving ability • Another indication is the ability to think about thought itself • Adolescents engage in extended speculation about ideal characteristics and compare themselves to others based on those standards

36. Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning • Develop a hypotheses or best guesses and systematically deduce or conclude which is the best path to follow in solving the problem • Example: • Let’s play 20 Questions!

37. Operational Thinking • Only about 1 in 3 adolescents are operational thinkers • Adolescent Egocentrism = elevated self consciousness reflected in the belief that others are as interested in them as they are themselves, and in their sense of uniqueness and invincibility • Imaginary Audience = attention getting behavior motivated by a desire to be noticed, visible and “onstage” • Personal Fable = adolescent’s sense of uniqueness and invincibility

38. Piaget stated that children learn best when they actively learn Learning is better when teachers design situations that allow students to learn by doing, then they observe and ask questions to the students Teachers must consider a child’s prior knowledge and level of thinking Use ongoing assessments like portfolios and individualized meetings Promote intellectual health, don’t pressure Change the classroom into an exploratory and discovery setting Piaget & Education

39. Lev Vygotsky • Vygotsky suggests that mental functions have social connections • He believed that other people and language play key roles in a cognitive development

40. Zone of Proximal Development • Zone of proximal development (ZPD) = Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children • The ZPD captures the child’s cognitive skills that are in the process of maturing and can be accomplished only with the assistance of a more skilled person

41. Scaffolding = changing support over the course of a teaching sessions, with the more skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child’s current performance level Dialogue is an important tool of scaffolding in the zone of proximal development Teaching Strategies: Assess the child’s ZPD Use the child’s ZPD in teaching Use more-skilled peers as teachers Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech Place instruction in a meaningful context Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas Scaffolding

42. Social Constructivist Approach • Social Constructivist approach = emphasis on the social contexts of learning and the construction of knowledge through social interaction • Vygotsky’s theory reflects this approach

43. strong emphasis social constructivist no general stages of development proposed zone of proximal development, language, dialogue, tools of the culture a major role; language plays a powerful role in shaping thought education plays a central role, helping children learn the tools of the culture teacher is a facilitator and guide, not a director; establish many opportunities for children to learn with the teacher and more-skilled peers little emphasis cognitive constructivist strong emphasis on stages schema, assimilation, accommodation, operations, conservation, classification, hypothetical-deductive reasoning language has a minimal role; cognition primarily directs language education merely refines the child’s cognitive skills that have already emerged also views teacher as a facilitator and guide, not a director; provide support for children to explore their world and discover knowledge Vygotsky Piaget SocioculturalContext Constructivism Stages KeyProcesses Role of Language View on Education Teaching Implications

44. Review Let’s see what you’ve learned…

45. Question 1 • Q: Name the two psychologists featured in this chapter • A: Jean Piaget & Lev Vygotsky

46. Question 2 • Q: Describe the difference between assimilation and accommodation • A: Assimilation is incorporating new info. into existing schemes; Accommodation is adjusting schemes to fit new info. and experiences

47. Question 3 • Q: What is the cognitive world of the preschool child like? • A: Creative, Free, Fanciful

48. Question 4 • Q: What is this an example of? • “The sidewalk made me mad; it made me fall down” • A: Animism = the belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and are capable of action

49. Question 5 • Q: Roughly how many adolescents are operational thinkers? A: Only about in

50. Question 6 • Q: Describe the Zone of Proximal Development & who developed the concept • A: Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children