Piaget believes that every student learns and develops over time and there are not that many different things that teachers can do to help students learn faster or better. In this chapter, Piaget's theories on cognitive development were discussed. According to Piaget, we go through multiple stages in our lives. These stages are sensorimotor (infancy-2 years), pre-operational (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-11 years), and formal operational (11 years-adulthood). In the sensorimotor stage, the main aspect is the idea of object permanence, the awareness that objects continue to exist when they can't be seen. In the pre-operational stage, children are egocentric, meaning they think about the world from their own point of view. In the concrete operational stage, they can can start solving abstract problems without needing concrete representation. In the formal operational stage, children are now able to think abstractly without limitations.
I was wondering if a child could exceed out of their specific group? Could a child that should be in the pre-operational stage get out of that stage early and begin the concrete operational stage?
The difference between development and learning according to Piaget is that development comes before learning, because a person must be developmentally ready to learn. People have to reach a certain developmental age before they can move on to learning more complex things. A brain researcher would disagree with this idea. Toddlers have the power learn multiple languages because they have such a new and open mind and can adapt to speaking different languages. So that says children can learn easier than adults.
I would probably teach my students and children by Vygotsky’s theory. He bases his theory on a child’s achievements in life. He doesn’t hold children into certain category based upon their ages.
A child can definitely exceed out of their specific group if they are developing at a faster speed then children of the same age. Children develop at different speeds and Piaget's stage theories have an age guideline of how old children generally are, but that does not necessarily mean that every child will be a specific age at a specific stage in the theory. A child could be in the pre-operational stage for example and learn at a faster pace which means they are developing at a faster pace and move to the concrete operational stage. On the other hand, some children can be slow to develop as well. Children with disabilities develop at a slower pace than their peers so it could take longer for those children to learn sensorimotor skills and ultimately take them longer to form concepts and schemas as they develop. Development depends upon the independent child, not a group of children.
ReplyDeleteYour post made me think of a question I had, but forgot about. I liked how you had the age groups next to Piaget's stages, however, do some individuals develop more slowly, or more quickly than others? Therefore, the ages would be different from individual to individual?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica that a child could go in and out of stages more quickly than the prescribed times. If development is biological, as Piaget claims it is, then these biological processes, like any biological process, will follow general patterns but not be exactly the same in each child.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar question to yours. If a child's thinking is more mature than the group they are suppose to be in, would we consider them advanced enough to be in a specific group. I feel like that contradicts Piaget's entire theory in a way, but it makes sense to me. Would Piaget argue that there is no way to exceed out of your group? Often times children show knowledge far exceeding their expected capabilities, so I would think they would be advanced enough for the nest level.
ReplyDeleteYour opening statements sound totally reasonable if you're talking about development (according to Piaget), but not learning. There are lots of ways that you can promote good learning (according to Piaget) as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteAs people discuss in the comments, the stages are definitely not absolute. A 7 year old could be in nearly any stage. Piaget mainly said that people EVENTUALLY progress through each of these stages, and the ages were added later, but they are just guidelines.
It's true that development should preceed learning, but what does that mean? I'm still not sure how you're thinking about development as different from learning. What is learning, according to Piaget?
I like your point about the brain researcher, but would they say that a toddler HAS developed to learn these complex concepts--therefore being consistent with Piaget?
For that last piece, I'm not sure which question you choose, but I wasn't looking for opinion here. I realized later the question might be confusing because we haven't discussed metacognition, but would these higher order thinking practices be more likely to occur in a classroom designed by Piaget or Vygotsky? We'll discuss this more next week. Piaget doesn't absolutely categorize children either--but the stages allow for a guide for teachers.