Outline and evaluate Piaget’s constructivist theory of cognitive development In order to put Piaget's model into context it is useful to consider what intellect is, and some of the factors that influence cognitive development of the child. Additionally I will briefly discuss the term ‘constructivist’. Child development is generally concerned with how the child learns and expresses themselves at various ages. Typically studies are carried out on children from birth to adolescence. Specifically, most psychologists are interested in the processes that occur at particular ages, and what the child's capabilities are at each stage of their childhood.
“Kiddy Thinks” In “Kiddy Thinks”, Alison Gopnik discusses the stages of thinking abilities of babies and young children. Using examples from her personal experiences as a parent and her experiments as a developmental psychologist, she defines these stages and explains the learning processes that take place during them. Through process analysis, Gopnik develops her thesis that babies and young children use the same learning strategies as scientists. Gopnik explains the stages of cognitive development for children from birth to the age of 4 years old. At birth, babies already know they are similar to other people.
This assignment will describe and evaluate two theories in developmental psychology. Developmental psychology is the scientific study of changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Firstly looking at Piaget’s Theory, and then followed by Kohlberg, there will be an evaluation of the similarities and differences between the two. It will provide evidence of how Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s theories both suffer from the same criticisms as they both use dilemmas with a particular criteria of a child and culture. The theory only considers a child’s beliefs not its actual behaviour.
In her essay “Kiddy Thinks,” Alison Gopnik discusses the importance of the cognitive development of children in the first few years of their life. She also attempts to break the traditional view that children, in their early stages, think quite differently than adults. Gopnik uses a logical standard of evaluation to provide information on the different stages children go through when developing important cognitive skills. She supports her information with a variety of experiments as a researcher, and personal experiences as a parent. Unfortunately, she concludes her essay with political and social issues, which weakens her argument as it drifts away from her purpose.
Piaget’s theory of learning is sometimes referred to as a constructivist approach because he suggested that children constructed or built their thoughts according to their experiences of the world around them. Piaget used the term ‘schema’ to refer to a child’s conclusions or thoughts. He felt that learning was an ongoing process, with children needing to adapt. Piaget’s belief that children develop schemas based on their direct experiences can help us to understand why young children’s thinking is sometimes different from ours. Piaget also suggested that, as children develop so does their thinking.
TECA 1354 QTA Discussion: Metacognition Development How Can Teachers assist children in the development of their Metacognitive skills? Answer: Teachers at every developmental stage provide learning activities that focus on study strategies, problem-solving, and critical thinking/decision-making skills. Chapter 7 5th Edition 1. How well does the author define Metacognition and Cognitive Strategies? (Describe these concepts in your own words to earn 1 grade point) Author defines metacognition an cognitive strategies as strategies that are important and needed in order for a child to understand how their mind works and also how they can take control of it 2.
Jean Piaget focused his research on studying children and observing their thought processes. With the use of observations, dialogues and small-scale experiments, Piaget argued that to achieve reason and logic children experienced stages of ‘intellectual development’ (Smith, Cowie & Blades, 2003, p.514). According to Passer, M., Smith, R., Holt, N., Bremner, A., Sutherland, E., & Vliek, M. (2009) the four stages of cognitive growth that Piaget founded were the sensorimotor stage (from birth to two years of age), the pre-operational stage (ages 2 to 7), the concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 12) and finally the formal operational stage (ages 12 onwards). In the first stage infants “understand the world through sensory and motor experiences” and learn of object permanence. Object permanence is
In an attempt to explore a fairly under researched subject, researchers Bigelow and La Gaipa looked at the differences in children’s understanding of friendship at various stages of development. They created a unique means of investigating the gradual changes in the understanding of friendship as children grow older. In doing so they helped to shed new light on the important role that friends play in children’s lives. In addition another researcher was also interested in this subject: William Corsaro. However, Corsaro was interested in how children talk to each other and believed that research on children’s friendships should focus on children’s individual understanding of the word ‘friend’.
To further understand a how a crime can be committed by a young child, Albert Bandura’s theory that humans can learn without reinforcement called “modeling” is a good explanation. Bandura defines modeling as “people copying what they see others do” (p.42). The results we see in a young child’s behavior are resulted from biological development, as well. First, let’s explore two critical parts of a 6 year old child’s brain; the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is the part of the brain divided in three major areas controlling expression and regulation of emotion.
Group 1- bullies, group 2- bully-victims, group 3- victims, and group 4- pro-social children. Reliable measures used to identify these groups were done by peer reports and teachers ratings. Both teachers and peer reports used due process when measuring each child’s propensity for the group they were nominated for. The ‘peer reports’ method consisted of explaining samples of behaviors for each group of children then conducting one on one interviews with them asking specific questions related to their opinions of who would fall into each group of bullying and why. The ‘teachers reports’ method consisted of a questionnaire with a four point and five point scale to rate behaviors demonstrated by the children in the sample group.