Jean Piaget





He may have looked crazy....but this guy understood how people learn.

Piagat believed learning involved 2 steps:

• 1)  Assimilation:
• Absorbing new information Into existing cognitive structures.
• 2) Accomodation:
• Modifying existing structures in response to new information

The Stages of Development

• Piaget believed that every child must enter each stage of development.
• No stages may be "skipped" while developing

Stage 1: Sensorimotor Stage

• Birth to 12 years
• Learn through concrete actions such as: touching, looking, putting, sucking
• Thinking consists of coordinating sensory information with body movement
• Major Accomplishment:   Object permenance (once out of view, still exists)

Stage 2: Preoperational stage

• Ages 2 to 7
• Children still lack the cognitive abilities necessary for
•      understanding abstract principles and mental operations
• Egocentric
• Cannot grasp concept of conservation: (flat vs not flat = same)

Stage 3: Concrete operations

• Ages 7 to 12
• Children's thinking is still grounded in concrete concepts
• Understand conservation
• Understand cause and effect

Stage 4: Formal Operations Stage

• Teenagers are capable of abstract reasoning
•      Can compare and classify ideas
•      Can reason about situations not personally experienced
•      Can think about the future
•     Can search systematically for solutions to problems

Current Views (Piaget errors?)

• Cognitive abilities develop in continuous, overlapping waves, not steps.
• Preschooolers are not as egocentric as Piaget thought.
• Children, even infants, reveal cognitive abilities much earlier. 
• Cognitive development is influenced by culture and education.

Questions?