Cognition and Development

Cognition and Development

Applying Piaget to Education

‘Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered for himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.’

 

Think of old black and white films that you’ve seen in which children sat in rows at desks, with ink wells, would learn by rote, all chanting in unison in response to questions set by an authoritarian old biddy like Matilda!  Children who were unable to keep up were seen as slacking and would be punished by variations on the theme of corporal punishment.  Yes, it really did happen and in some parts of the world still does today.  Piaget is partly responsible for the change that occurred in the 1960s and for your relatively pleasurable and pain free school days!

In the 1960s the Plowden Committee investigated the deficiencies in education and decided to incorporate many of Piaget’s ideas in to its final report published in 1967, even though Piaget’s work was not really designed for education.   The report makes three Piaget-associated recommendations:

·      Children should be given individual attention and it should be realised that they need to be treated differently.

·     Children should only be taught things that they are capable of learning

·     Children mature at different rates and the teacher needs to be aware of the stage of development of each child so teaching can be tailored to their individual needs.

Piaget and Education (simplified).

 

When to teach

Only when the child is ready.  I.e. has the child reached the appropriate stage?

How to teach

Child-centred approach.  Learning must be active (discovery learning.

The order of teaching has to be determined by development of stages, so curricula are needed.  E.g. teach conservation of number before conservation of weight.

Rate of learning

Stages of development are biologically determined so the rate of learning cannot be speeded up. (Bruner believed that increasing language ability would speed up rate of learning, but this appears not to be true).

 Role of teacher (intellectual midwife)

·     adapt lessons to suit the needs of the individual child.

·     be aware of the child’s stage of development (testing).

·     provide stimulation through a variety of tasks.

·     produce/provide resources,

·     produce disequilibrium, i.e. a scenario that is outside the child’s current understanding.  E.g. density.

·     use concrete examples when describing abstract concepts, e.g. ships floating for density, pumping water around    houses for flow of current in a circuit.

Examples of use in Education

Nuffield Maths Project is based on Piaget’s stages and assumes that formal operations have been reached by the age of 12. As a result concrete examples are longer required. For example algebra can be taught.

Evaluation

Child (1997) points out that Piaget’s view is ‘pessimistic’ if the teacher is expected to ‘sit back and wait’ for the child to develop.  Teachers should, by the right techniques, be able to encourage children to progress through the stages.

Curriculum development

Curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child.  For example there is no point in teaching abstract concepts such as algebra or atomic structure to children in primary school.  Curricula also need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for variations in ability of different students of the same age.  In Britain the National Curriculum and Key Stages broadly reflect the stages that Piaget laid down.

 

Above: peer tutoring to solve a CASE problem  (Vygotsky) Below: National curriculum… designed for learning in stages (Piaget)

                                                                      

Practical examples:

Egocentricism dominates a child’s thinking in the sensori-motor and preoperational stages.  Piaget would therefore predict that using group activities would not be appropriate since children are not capable of understanding the views of others.

However, Smith et al (1998), point out that some children develop earlier than Piaget predicted and that by using group work children can learn to appreciate the views of others in preparation for the concrete operational stage.

The national curriculum emphasises the need for using concrete examples in the primary classroom.  Shayer (1997), reported that abstract thought was necessary for success in secondary school (and co-developed the CASE system of teaching science).  Recently the National curriculum has been updated to encourage the teaching of some abstract concepts towards the end of primary education, in preparation for secondary courses. (DfEE 1999).

A few concluding comments useful for essays.

Child-centred teaching is regarded by some as a child of the ‘liberal sixties.’  In the 1980s the Thatcher government introduced the National Curriculum in an attempt to move away from this and bring more central government control into the teaching of children.  So, although the National Curriculum in some ways supports the work of Piaget, (in that it dictates the order of teaching), it can also be seen as prescriptive to the point where it counters Piaget’s child-oriented approach.  However, it does still allow for flexibility in teaching methods, allowing teachers to tailor lessons to the needs of their students.