Week 3

EDS 220

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Evrim Baran

What do you think?

How would you explain the concept of symbol
to a 6 year old and to a 14 year old. Would
you use words? Would you use symbols?
Specific examples? What kind? What do you
know about how younger and older children
develop?

Development
Orderly adaptive changes we go through from
conception to death (Woolfolk, 1993, p. 26)
Physical
Social
Moral
Cognitive

Principles of Development
People develop at different rates
Development is relatively ordely
Development takes place gradually

What does influence development?

Biological maturation
Activity
Social experiences
Equibilibration

Nature or Nurture?
Heredity vs.Environment

Jean Piagett
Born: August 9, 1896
Died: Sept. 16, 1980
Birth Place:
Neuchatel, Switzerland
Education:
Received PhD from
University of Neuchatel
Married in 1923 to
Valentine Chatenay and
bore 3 children

Piaget Background
Young Piaget was incredibly precocious
Published first paper at 10
Wrote on mollusks, based on these writings was
asked to be curator of mollusks at a museum in
Geneva (he declined in order to finish secondary
school)
Earned his doctorate in natural sciences at 21
Began to study psychology, applying intelligence
tests to school

Old idea: Childrens minds were

just like adult minds with less
knowledge
New idea: Children think
differently qualitatively than an
adult.

Child is not a tabula rasa with the

real world out there waiting to be
discovered.
Mind is constructed through
interaction with the environment;
Brain develops through a series of
stages.

Child as scientist
Children are naturally curious and create
theories about how the world works
Mental structures intrinsically active
constantly being applied to experience
Leads to curiosity and desire to know
Development proceeds as the child
actively refines his/her knowledge of the
world through many small experiments.

How does Piaget describe

developmental change?
Children will not be ready to learn if they are
not developed mentally and if their mind has
not progressed to the next stage.
If children are developed mentally ready to
learn they will be interested in the topic if it is
developed mentally appropriate.

Basic tendencies in thinking

Organization: Combining,
arranging, re-combining,
rearranging behaviors and
thoughts into coherent systems.

Adaptation: Adjusting to the

environment

So, what is a scheme?

Organized systems of action or
thought that allow us to
represent mentally or think
about the objects and events
in our world.
Basic building blocks of
thinking.

So, what is a scheme?

Sucking through a straw

Recognizing a rose
Drinking
Categorizing plans

How do cognitive structures develop?

Processes of adaptation: Assimilation and
accommodation
Assimilation: The incorporation of new
experience into existing structures. (FITTING)
Accommodation: The changing of old
structures so that new experiences can be
processed.
Assimilation is conservative
Accommodation is progressive

Assimilation

Accomodation

Accomodation

Accomodation

Assimilation

What is this?

Beringer-type sundial

What is this?

Equilibration
Searching for a mental balance between
cognitive schemes and information from the
environment.

Disequilibrium
Out of balance state that occurs when a person
realizes that his or her current ways of
thinking are not working to solve a problem or
understand a situation.

Cognitive Growth
Equilibrium

Harmony between ones schemes and experience

Assimilation

Tries to adapt to new experience by interpreting it

in terms of existing schemes

Accommodation

Modifies existing schemes to better account for

puzzling new experience

Organization

Rearranges existing schemes into new and more

complex structures

Stages of cognitive development

Children periodically reach a point where
their theories are wrong most of the time
and so they must reorganize thinking
about the social and physical worlds
Three reorganizations of theories lead to
four stages of cognitive development
Piaget believed all children pass

through stages in same order

Piagets Stages of Cognitive

Development

1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 24

months)
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
3. Concrete Operational Stage (711 years)
4. Formal Operational Stage (11-15
years)

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)

Sensori (senses)
Motor (actions,
body movements)

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)
Sensing information and performing
actions accordingly.
Unconscious, self-unaware, and nonsymbolic cognition.
Basic motor reflexes: grasping,
sucking, eye movements, orientation
to sound etc.

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)
Object permanence: Realizing that
objects in the environment exist
whether the baby perceives them or
not. 8 -12 months
OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)
Object permanence

Peekaboo
Ce-eeee

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)
Goal directed actions: Deliberate
actions towards a goal

Stage 1:
Sensorimotor-Infancy (Birth to Age 2)
Education at this stage?

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Early childhood to early elementary years

Operation: An action carried out

through logic.
Preoperation: Before logical
thinking processes

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Internalization of actions: Performing an
action mentally rather than physically.

The ability to form symbols: Words,

gestures, signs, images

Mental actions do not follow a pattern of

logic

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)

Perceptual centration
Irreversibility
Egocentrism

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Perceptual centration:
Tendency to focus only on
one dimension of an
action or issue and ignore
other dimensions

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Irreversibility: Lack of ability thinking
backwards or making use of actions or
knowledge from the past.

Conservation: The amount or number of

something remains the same of the
arrangement or appearance is changed, as long
as nothing is taken away.

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Egocentrism: Assuming that others
experience the world the way you do.

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)

Collective monologue: Form of speech in

which children in a group talk but do not really
interact or communicate.

Stage 2
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
Use concrete props and visual aids whenever possible
(pizza to demonstrate whole, one half, add and substract with sticks, rocks, colored chips)

Make instructions relatively short (Demonstrating of entering the class

quietly, explain a game by acting out the parts, show examples of finished products)

Dont expect them to see the world from someone elses

point of view (social problems)

Students may have different meanings for the same

word (Ask children to explain the meaning of invented words.)
Give them a great deal of hands on experience (cut out
letters to build words)

Provide wide range of experiences (taking field trips,

invite story tellers to class)

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)
Concrete operations: Mental tasks tied to
concrete objects and situations.

Hands-on thinking
Logical and systematic manipulation of
symbols related to concrete objects.
Egocentric thought diminishes, operational
thinking develops.

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)
If/then thinking (if x happens then y
happens)

Solving conservation problems (identity,

compensation, reversibility)

Classification (put things in correct group

based on a number of attributes)

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)
Classifying objects by using
size, shape, color, and other
characteristics.
Seriation: Arranging objects
in sequential order according
to one aspect, such as size,
shape, weight, or volume.

A<B<C

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)
Not able to reason hypothetical, abstract
problems that involve the coordination of
many factors at once.

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)
Use concrete props and visual aids when dealing
with sophisticated problems (e.g. time lines in history,
diagrams of hierarchical relationships)

Give them a chance to manipulate and test

objects (scientific experiments
Make presentations and readings brief and well
organized (stories, short books)

Use familiar examples

Give opportunities to classify and group
objects

Stage 3
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11
years)

How would you teach a child at this

stage about human body?

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)
Formal operations: Mental systems for
controlling sets of variables and working through
a set of possibilities.
Logical use of symbols related to abstract
concepts.
What is to what might be.
How life would be different if people did not sleep?

Hypothetico-deductive reasonings. Inductive

reasoning

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)
Adolescent egocentrism:
Assumption that
everyone else shares
ones thoughts, feelings,
and concerns.
Imaginary audience: The
feeling that everyone is
watching.

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)
Everyone noticed that I wore this
shirt twice this week
The whole class thought my answer
was dump
No one else in this world can
possibly understand how I feel

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)
What is the difference
between egocentrism in
young children and
egocentrism in adolescents?

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)

Do we all reach the fourth stage?

Stage 4:
Formal Operational Stage (11-15 years
old)
Helping students to build formal operations

Continue to use concrete-operational teaching

strategy and materials (charts, illustrations)
Give students the opportunity to explore many
hypothetical questions (position papers on social issues,

economy, personal vision an utopia, describe earth after humans are

extinct)

Give students opportunities to solve problems

and reason scientifically (design experiments, debates)

Teach broad concepts ideas relevant to

students lives (world history)

Piagets Stages of Cognitive

Development

1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 24

months)
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
3. Concrete Operational Stage (711 years)
4. Formal Operational Stage (11-15
years)

Applications of Piagets Theory for

Teachers

Examples?

Limitations of Piagets Theory for

Teachers

Examples?
1. Underestimating young childrens
cognitive abilities, overestimating
older childrens cognitive abilities
2. Overemphasizing the biological
influence on cognitive
development
3. Not taking into account of the
effect of the culture and social
group on children.

 ACTIVITY

Assignment for next week

For each stage, bring an example on how you
would teach a child a topic in your field (e.g.
an example of teaching numbers at
preoperational stage, teaching algebra at
concrete operational stage)

Assignment
Concept
Conservation
Adaptation
Assimilation
Equilibrium

Accommodation
Formal operation
Pre-operation
Sensori-motor
Concrete operation

Example