Piaget

Piaget

1. Piaget was a swiss psychologist who provided a highly influential theory of cognitive development. He worked on intelligence testing in Paris in the 1920's and was struck by the fact that younger children gave different answers than older children to various questions and problems

   • Piaget's theory is interactionist, stressing that the child is a dynamic organism growing and developing psychologically through interaction with the environment.

2. SCHEMAS

   • In Piaget's view, the child's knowledge of the world is organised into schemas
     • From birth the child has action schemas enabling the child to know the world through acting upon it recognising objects.
       • During the second year, the child begins to think about actions and mental schemas develop too.
         • Mental schemas become more complex and integrated with each other throughout life.
   • At all times the child is motivated to keep their schemas organised
     • Schemas are never merely passive realities of knowledge, they are always geared for action guiding us to do things with our knowledge
     • From the age of 7, the child develops logical mental processes to organise and use the knowledge in their schemas. These logical mental processes are called operations
   • A schema is a basic building block or unit of intelligent behaviour

3. INVARIANT FUNCTIONS

   • Piaget suggests that there are a number of functions involved in basic learning
     • He believed that children are innately motivated by two processes
       • Adaption to the environment
         • Organisation of their thoughts
     • SCHEMATA
       • The internal representation of a specific physical or mental action. It enables the individual to interact with an understand the world
         • The schemata continues to develop and increase in their complexity and ability
           • A child has the schema of four legs, fur and a wet nose (a dog).
             • Every new instance of a creature with the same characteristics is assimilated into this schema
               • However, one day someone uses the word "cat" and this challenges the current schema. The new information cannot be assimilated into the existing schema so instead the child's schemas alter to accommodate the new information and a new schema is formed
                 • If an experience cannot be assimilated into existing schemas then there is a state of imbalance
                   • The driving force behind these changes are adaption and this is the principle of equilibrium. The intellect strives to maintain a sense of balance.
     • ASSIMILATION
       • The process whereby new objects, situations, or ideas are understood in terms of the schemata the child already processes. The world is fitted into what the child already knows
         • It becomes a part of them
     • ACCOMODATION
       • The process whereby the existing schemata have to be modified to fit new situations, objects or information. The existing schemata are expanded or new ones are created
     • DISEQUILIBRIUM
       • A feeling of imbalance and a lack of understanding.
         • This feeling is disliked and therefore is the driving force to learning and understanding the information by going through the invariant functions
           • EQUILIBRIUM
             • The state of balance and understanding after assimilating and accommodating new information in order to learn
   • These are always present and active and do not change throughout life. They are in the background of every stage