Monday, February 21, 2011

Stages of Cognitive Development

1. Sensori-motor (Birth-2 yrs) Differentiates self from objects; Recognizes self as agent of action and begins to act intentionally: e.g. pulls a string to set mobile in motion or shakes a rattle to make a noise; Achieves object permanence: realises that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the sense (pace Bishop Berkeley)

2. Pre-operational (2-7 years) Learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words ; Thinking is still egocentric: has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others ; Classifies objects by a single feature: e.g. groups together all the red blocks regardless of shape or all the square blocks regardless of colour

3. Concrete operational (7-11 years) Can think logically about objects and events; Achieves conservation of number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9); Classifies objects according to several features and can order them in series along a single dimension such as size.

4. Formal operational (11 years and up) Can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically; Becomes concerned with the hypothetical, the future, and ideological problems

Piaget's approach is central to the school of cognitive theory known as "cognitive constructivism": other scholars, known as "social constructivists", such as Vygotsky and Bruner, have laid more emphasis on the part played by language and other people in enabling children to learn.

Read more: Piaget's developmental theory http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm#ixzz1EbEQSwem
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Jean Piaget's Key Ideas

Adaptation - What it says: adapting to the world through assimilation and accommodation

Assimilation - The process by which a person takes material into their mind from the environment, which may mean changing the evidence of their senses to make it fit.

Accommodation - The difference made to one's mind or concepts by the process of assimilation. Note that assimilation and accommodation go together: you can't have one without the other.

Classification - The ability to group objects together on the basis of common features.

Class Inclusion - The understanding, more advanced than simple classification, that some classes or sets of objects are also sub-sets of a larger class. (E.g. there is a class of objects called dogs. There is also a class called animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals includes that of dogs)

Conservation - The realisation that objects or sets of objects stay the same even when they are changed about or made to look different.

Decentration - The ability to move away from one system of classification to another one as appropriate.

Egocentrism - The belief that you are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around you: the corresponding inability to see the world as someone else does and adapt to it. Not moral "selfishness", just an early stage of psychological development.

Operation - The process of working something out in your head. Young children (in the sensorimotor and pre-operational stages) have to act, and try things out in the real world, to work things out (like count on fingers): older children and adults can do more in their heads.

Schema (or scheme) - The representation in the mind of a set of perceptions, ideas, and/or actions, which go together.

Stage - A period in a child's development in which he or she is capable of understanding some things but not others

Read more: Piaget's developmental theory http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm#ixzz1EbD2LzjB
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Piaget's developmental theory

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who originally studied molluscs (publishing twenty scientific papers on them by the time he was 21) but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.

His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. His research has spawned a great deal more, much of which has undermined the detail of his own, but like many other original investigators, his importance comes from his overall vision.

He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. Whether or not should be the case is a different matter.

Read more: Piaget's developmental theory http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm#ixzz1EbCNgJ4q
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Some ideas about "Metacognition"

Metacognition, which was first coined by John Flavell, consist of metacognitive knowledge and experiences or regulation. It simply means “thinking about thinking.” Others considered it as "learning how to learn"

Thinking which involves active awareness and control over cognitive processes engaged in learning also meant metacognition. This consist of Metacognitive knowledge, which refers to acquired knowledge about cognitive processes, and knowledge that can be used to control processes.

There are 3 categories of metacognitive knowledge:
1. Person variable – knowledge about how human beings learn and process information and individual’s knowledge of one’s own learning process

2. Task variables – knowledge about nature of tasks and type pf processing demands that it will place upon the individual

3. Strategy variables – awareness of the strategy one is using to learn a topic and evaluating whether this strategy is effective

1. Meta-attention – awareness of specific strategies so that you can keep your attention focused on the topic or task at hand
2. Meta-memory – awareness of memory strategies that work best for you

To develop metacognition, teachers need to employ some teaching strategies. Students can also be guided to make predictions about information to be presented next based on what they have read, relate ideas to existing knowledge structure, develop and ask questions of themselves, about what’s going on around them.

Based o metacogniiton, learners can be classified. The novice learners have limited knowledge in different subject areas, are satisfied at just scratching the surface; hurriedly gives solution to the problem, employ rigid strategies that may not be appropriate to the task at hand, attempt to process all information they receive, they do not examine the quality of their work, nor stop to make revisions

Expert Learners have deeper knowledge in different subject areas. Teachers should first try to understand the problem, look for boundaries, and create a mental picture of the problem. They should also design new strategies that would be appropriate to the task at hand, select important information to process, able to breakdown information to manageable tasks, and check their errors and redirect their efforts to maintain quality output