IMPLICATION OF THE PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY IN TEACHING

The cognitive development theory has claimed that teachers and educators can learn about children’s thinking by attentively listening to them and closely observing how they use their thinking skills to solve certain problems.  If it is accomplished, it would be easier for the teachers to use different teaching methodologies and techniques which is more adequate to their level

A typical classroom have students of different level in which their capabilities, thinking, experiences and knowledge varies from one another. According to Case (1985) teachers can identify and understand individual’s abilities and their weaknesses only by observing how they attempt to solve certain problems.

For example teacher can observe the procedures they follow during the task, the kinds of logic they use, how they use their thinking and reasoning skills, how they attempt to solve certain task like directly trying to complete the given task or divide it into parts and then solve the problem. In addition, it is very important to understand how they correct errors and observe whether they repeat the same mistakes or how they reduced those errors. In order to understand such think teachers can even ask them how they solve the problem. 

Another important application discussed in cognitive theory is matching the strategies and the activities to student’s ability (Woolfolk, 2012).To do this, teachers can make the lesson interesting and effective to the students by using an elastic approach of teaching and assigning the work according to their level and interest. Which means student should not get bored by giving too much of work or they must not thought things which is higher than their level. Also drills and rote learning must be discourage as it affect their development.

When developing a curriculum for the children the educators need to consider the cognitive developmental stages and include various aspects which enhance the intellectual growth of children at every stages in a sequential form. In teaching and learning environment the teachers have to make the student actively participate and encourage them to involve in various task. 

As discussed by (Aggarwal, 2005)  it is important to use different teaching techniques and activities that enhances students development in organized and systematic manner. Such activities can be storytelling, reciting poetry and rhymes, singing, role-plays and so on. In addition, to cater their intellectual development the teachers must use different teaching aids such as picture, videos, graph and many more. Such material used for teaching have to be simple and familiar to the students and they should have relate on the lesson.

CONCLUSION

Despites the influence of Piagetian theory on developmental psychology and education, many psychologist disagree with his explanation as it lacks some important aspect such as environmental factors, consistency in children’s thinking and even their physical development and how it effects in  their learning (Woolfolk, 2012). Some psychologist also debates on the four different stages of children’s thinking thus they also believes to certain extent children goes through the changes that describe in the theory.

Although this theory believes environment factors directly not effect on children development it emphasized on the importance of social interaction with environment. Meanwhile the theory mostly describes the four developmental stages and how development happens in one stage and then moves on to next stage through organized scheme and active construction of knowledge. 

As discussed in the theory developmental changes from one stage to another stage may varies in individuals however every child moves in a sequential order followed by one another. Basically cognitive development theory is a not only enhances on children’s intellectual growth but also develop their social cognition and emphasizes on education which help them to improve themselves.

 

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 REFERENCE

Aggarwal, J. C. (2005). Essentials of Educational Psychology. New Delhi: Vikash Publishing House Pvt Ltd.

Case, R. (1985). Intellectual Development: Birth to Adulthood. New York: Academic Press.

Furth , F. H., & Wachs, H. (1974). Thinking goes to school: Piaget's theory in practice. Vol 12 ( 2 ). N. Y : Oxford, 24.

Ginsburg, H., & Opper, S. (1988). Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development. Cambridge: Prentice-Hall.

John, W. S. (2011). Educational Psychology (5th ed.). NewYork: McGraw - Hill.

Orlendo, L., & Machado, A. (1996). In Defence of Piaget's Theory: A Reply to 10 Common Critisms.Vol,103(1). Amerivan Psychological Association, 143-146.

Seifert , K., & Sutton, R. (2009). Educational Psychology (2nd ed.). Zurich: Global Text Project.

Wadsworth, B. (1996). Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development (5th ed.). New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.

Woolfolk, A. (2012). Educational Psychology (12th ed.). NewYork: Allyn & Bacon.

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STAGES OF CHILD’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Piaget categorizes the stages of cognitive development of the child into four development stage such as sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. As shown in the Table 1, every stage is associated with certain age. Hence, the development progressing ages are just a basic guidelines which labels the development of a child in general but it is not fixed for all human beings as it might vary for some.

However, Piaget believes every human being goes through those four stages exactly in the same sequential pattern and the developmental changes move on one stage after the other depending on the child’s situation and the mental capability. Thus, scholars like Ginsburg & Opper (1988) and Orlando & Machado (1996) discussed that child’s age does not relate or affect his/ her way of thinking. 

Table 1: Jean Piaget’s (1896 – 1980) Development Stages

1. Sensorimotor Stage: Infancy (0–2 years)	2. Preoperational: Early childhood to the Early elementary (2-7 years)
3. Concrete-Operational: Elementary to the Middle School Years: (7–11 years)	4.Formal Operational: Junior and Senior High School Years (11- adulthood)

Source: From Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development (5^th ed.) by B.J Wadsworth, 1996.

Figure 01: Stages of  Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive

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Human Development: Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development: an INTRODUCTION

Over the past centuries Educators and Psychologist have observed these developmental changes occurred throughout human life and they came up with various theoretical perspectives as such Psychoanalytic, Social-learning, Cognitive learning, Biological / Ethological and Ecological. Although there are contradiction on the development and the way it take place in these theories, some underlined principle of these theories include the continuous development rate, orderly and sequential development and inter- relation of these development.

Basically, development is an orderly adaptive series of changes that occurs in human beings and animal’s life through the conception to death as the matter of maturation and experience. According to Woolfolk (2012) human development occurs in four main aspects such as Physical development, Personal development, Social development and Cognitive development. Hence, these changes of developments occurs naturally and through learning as the result of how the person interact and adapt in their surroundings.

Intellectual or Mental development of human being is a continuous process which goes on from birth to death. Twentieth century’s one of the most influential theory is the theories of Cognition and it mainly describes how human being learn or process information. Among various theories of cognition Piaget’s theory of Cognitive development is most highly recognized theory in the area of learning. As this theory provides an overall explanation of human development, this article primarily discuss the detail aspect of the theory, different developmental stages and also highlights on how it affect learning. Then it focuses on the importance of this theory to the teachers and how it can be applied in the field of teaching and learning.

                                            

 PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

In psychology, the term cognition refers to thinking and mental process whereas cognitive development is a long term process which bring developmental changes in it. In the area of developmental psychology, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) was among the most influential researcher who formed a model which describes the child’s development from infancy to adulthood.

According to Woolfol (2012), Piaget’s (1954, 1963, 1970) stated  learning is a constructive process where human construct their understanding of the world by gathering and organizing information through active participation and interaction rather than a passive assimilation or just memorizing it through rote learning.   

The various aspects of these development includes formation of concept, perception, development of language and memory, creativity, thinking skills and also problem solving. According to Woolfolk (2012) a major assumption of this theory is that individual are capable of learning by their own even if they are thought constructively or not. 

Piaget’s believes children are active learners and they construct knowledge by organizing it into schemes either by the process of assimilation or accommodation (Woolfolk, 2012). Which means by doing this they adjust ideas to make sense of reality. Equilibrium and disequilibrium are two major states which stressed on the theory as it enhances on the childs development.

According to Wadsworth (1996)  disequilibrium is especially important in this regard as it is driven or motivated the children to learn and understand things which is important for their development and intellectual growth.

Over time children’s schemes changes and their capabilities of understanding certain things are depend on the developmental stages. Cognition never happens gradually thus it moves on stage by stage which is crucial to understand those changes occurs in each stage and how it enhance in their development.

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