Question Description
Im studying and need help with a Psychology question to help me learn.
The topic I picked and found
out interesting and it will be useful for me in later in my life as I am
planning to become a teacher in the future. Is to describe the Piagets four
stages and in find out that it will be useful for me in later of life as I want
to become a teacher in the future.
Jean Piaget was born 1896
and died 1980 in Switzerland. Piaget when he was eleven years old he wrote an
albino sparrow and that was the start of his career. When he graduated high
school he went to the University of Zurich, he started majoring psychoanalysis.
In 1923 he married and
had three children. He studied through his chidren intellectual development
from After graduating high school, he attended the University of Zurich, he
became interested in psychoanalysis.Piaget studied his childrens intellectual
development from infancy.
For the children below 2
years, I will present toys which have strings attached and demonstrate pulling
the toys by dragging the string. I will show that the way we can beat a
small toy drum with a match stick.
For children between 2
and 7, I will present pictures of animals, birds, colors and shapes. I will
brief about them and then invite the response from children.
For children between 7
and 11, I will show different objects like cotton, small iron ball, scale etc.
and brief about length, mass, volume. I will wait for their response.
For children above 11, I
will show scenes of winter, summer etc. and ask them to hypothesize and the
type of clothing needed to cope with the corresponding season.
Piagets theory describes
four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage,
concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage.
The first stage is sensorimotor.
In this stage from birth to two years infants start to construct and understand
the world around them through sensory experiences, such as seeing, hearing, and
touching with physical their environment and surroundings. To demonstrate the
children in this stage, if I present to
the child toys which have strings attached and demonstrate puling the toys by
dragging the string. I will show that the way we can beat a small toy drum
with a match stick.
Preoperational occurs
between the ages of two to seven years. According to Feldman (2009), During
the preoperational stage, childrens use of symbolic thinking grows, mental
reasoning emerges, and the use of concepts increases (p. 160). This stage is also
noticed by centration and egocentric thought. Centration is the process of
focusing only on one aspect of a situation and neglect other. Egocentric
thought is when the child views their environment and surroundings from any
other viewpoint except their own. To demonstrate children this, I will present
to the child pictures of animals, birds, colors and shapes. I will brief about
them and then invite the response from children.
The concrete operational is the third stage. In
this stage children between seven to eleven years of age is characterized by
the use of logical thinking. They gain a better understanding and thinking logically
the world around them, but have difficulty understanding abstract. To demonstrate
in this stage I will show different objects like cotton, small iron ball, scale
etc. and brief about length, mass, volume. I will wait for their response.
The formal operational
stage is the final stage which is characterized by the application of logical
thinking to abstract situations (Piaget, 2002). The children at the childcare
center were three years old, therefore the focus of this analysis will be on
the preoperational stage of cognitive development. To demonstrate I will show
scenes of winter, summer etc. and ask them to hypothesize and the type of
clothing needed to cope with the corresponding season.
Piagets theory of
cognitive development is very important especially for those working with
children because it helps them to explain and provide reasoning for certain
behaviors of the children.
Understanding this stage
makes a person to understand the changes children show as they continue to grow
from infants to toddlers to preschoolers. This theory can be applied easily to
help us understand the different ways children play outside on a playground, or
the way that they interact with each other in a classrooms. These two
environments require sharing and turn taking which are situations for observing
a childs current stage of cognitive development. After learning and
understanding this theory, my view of the behavior of children changed
drastically. Before learning this theory, I did not understand why children
would behave without thinking. After understanding Piagets theory, I began to
understand that this was not the case. It was not the idea that they were not
thinking, but their cognitive abilities had not yet developed to the point of
completely logical thinking.
Feldman, Robert. (2009).
Discovering the Life Span. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education,
Inc.
Piaget, Jean. (2002). The
Language and Thought of the Child. Psychology Press. 66.
