Piaget

Piaget

1. Explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world.

2. Schemas

   • P was interested in how children coped with and adapted to the world.
   • Sees children as little scientists; learning through interactions with and experiences of the world.
   • 'Schema' to describe the way in which newly acquired info was stored internally.
   • Mental structure which contains all of the knowledge and experience about a given object or occurrence.
   • As knowledge and experience increases, the schema becomes more complex.
   • These structures are used to interpret, understand and act upon the world.

3. P viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation to the world. this happens through:

   • Assimiliation - using existing schema to deal with new object
   • Accommodation - when schema needs to be changed to deal with new info
   • Equilibrium - when a childs schemas are capable of explaining what is happening