The child in this video is in the pre-operational stage because he is not able to connect the two concepts on the cards together. He understood that the hammer would break the glass, but he only understood this because he knew a hammer would break glass. However, when the card said that the feather would break glass, the boy didn't understand because he knew that in the real world, a feather wouldn't break glass. He couldn't connect the concept on the first card to the second card. This is an example of centration, the inability to focus on two dimensions simultaneously. The boy also can't engage in two-way thinking because he doesn't realize that the second card (the result of a feather hitting glass) can be related back to the first card (the rule that says feathers can break glass).
The woman in this video is in the concrete operational stage of development. I say this because she can make the connection between the second card (the result of a feather hitting glass) back to the first card (the rule that says feathers can break glass). This means she is engaging in two-way thinking and understands the reversibility of operations.
In order to teach the boy who is in the pre-operational stage, teachers should direct their focus on reversing operations. After the boy says, "the glass won't break because a feather is soft," the teacher should return to the first card and ask the boy how the first card (the rule) relates to the second card (the assumption). For example, "but remember what the first card said?" or something similar to help him associate the concepts on the two cards together. Other strategies teachers can use to teach students in the pre-operational stage include sorting by shape and color or size and color. Teachers can also try to explain why something has the same number even if it is occupies a larger area (for example, two marbles spread further apart from each other are still TWO marbles).
It is important to have different techniques for teaching students at different development stages. A student in the pre-operational stage could not be taught the same way as a student in the concrete operational stage because their reasoning skills are different and they understand things differently. For example, a student in the pre-operational stage wouldn't be able to understand if a teacher said, "well because if A then B, and if B then C" and so on. A student in the concrete operational stage would be able to understand that
I like the examples you used in the ways to further teach the boy and girl at different stages in development. I think it's important for students in the pre-operational stage of development to start to be able to connect two things simultaneously and avoid centration. I liked the example of using color and size to teach the boy two sort with two concepts. It's an easy way to show students how to categorize items in two different ways.
ReplyDeleteCareful--you mention that teachers could try to get students to reverse operations, but Piaget would say that you CAN'T do this, you just need to wait until they're biological able to think about things in that way. They can't learn in ways that require reverse operations until they are developmentally capable of thinking in taht way.
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