Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Blog Post 2 Module 7

You need different techniques for each child becayse they are in different stages of cognitive development. The little boy shows centration, so he is not able to focus on two things at one time. An effective teaching method would be sorting. not just sorting by something like colors, but sorting more than just that like colors, size, shape. I think that this would help the child with his centration. For the girl, she would need to be taught using reasoning skills technique. She can already think two dimensional, so now she needs to move onto more advanced techniques like her reasoning skills. She knew the feather broke the window because thats what the rule said, but now she needs to be able to tell the reasons why this happened. She knows the answer and now she just need to be able to move from concrete operational to formal operational stage. The techniques need to be different because the students are each at different stages. If the boy was to be taught in the way the girl should, he would most likely not understand what is being taught because he has not yet mastered the stage before this one. Piaget says they can only learn if they are developmentally ready. The stages affect what the child can process and actually learn. 

3 comments:

  1. I believe that the boy is in the concrete operational stage which would mean he cannot think abstractly. (Ex. He knew that the feather would not break the glass therefore he could not follow the rule.) The girl was probably already in the formal operational stage because she was able to understand the abstract rule that the feather would break the glass.

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  2. I agree with you. they should have approached the two children differently with the question. It was a given fact that both children would respond differently to the question. I like how you gave examples of how they should have approached the children and asked the question.

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  3. You are suggesting techniques to push a child beyond their stage of development, when Piaget would say this isn't possible from a teacher! Development/stages are only driven by biological maturation--you can't push someone to think in a more advanced way (according to Piaget). Vygotsky would say something different....

    You have a couple lines at the end that seem to conflict with each other. You say that children cannot learn if they aren't developmentally ready (which means they must be communicated with in a way that's appropriate to their stage). However, you use the language of "mastering the stage", which sounds like they are learning or being pushed out of the stage through cognitive challenges.... which couldn't happen--according to Piaget.

    What do you mean by reasoning skills? It seems to me the girl is thinking hypothetically--what would Piaget say about this? How are you sure she's in concrete operations?

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