piagets theory of cog dvelopment

• what did piaget say about childrens knowledge ?

  • children know less than adults and they think in a different way to adults
• whats the schema theory ?

  • schemas are packages of information to various concepts to do with the way the world works e.g how to behave in a classroom
  • develop through experience starting basic in infacy and getting more complex as the brain develops and more knowledge is gained
  • schemas are mental structures to help humans make sense of the world more easily as they allow us to make sense of ambiguous situations by filling in the gaps on our knowledge
  • schemas enable us to act comfortably even when our infomation is incomplete
• schemas in children

  • children are born with a small number of schema, just enough to intercat with the world and people around them e.g 'me schema'
  • children construct progressively more complex schema
• do children have the motivation to learn ?

  • piaget says we are pushed to learn where our existing schema doesnt allow us to make sense of something new
  • unpleasant sensation = disequilibrium
  • children must adapt to the new situation by exploring and developing our understanding
  • therefore, disequilibrium changes from disequilibrium to equilibrium
• how learning takes place : assimilation

  where we understand a new experience and equilibrate by adding new information to our existing schemas
• how learning takes place : accommodation

  • in response to dramatically new experiences
  • child has to adjust to these by either radically chnaging current schema or forming new ones
• whats one strength of piaget ?

  • has real life application in education and changed learning for the better because before children only learnt silently and copying from the board but now schools use more interactive tasks so children can construct their own learning. An example is at a-levels using flipped learning. This allows children to develop their schema by interactive learning
• whats one critism of piagets theory ?

  overemphasises the importance of equilibrium because piaget states that childrn are motivated to reach equilibrium because disequilibrium is so umpleasant.However piaget mainly studied children from the nursery attached to his uni which may make his sample biased being only middle class children with intelligent parents.Some children may vary with their motivation.
• why is piaget underplaying the role of language and learning a limitation ?

  piaget believed learning was based on the individuals mind and ignored the roles of others. Vgotsky suggested that adults or experts have huge role in supporting children's learning . Piaget believed learning was just another cognitive ability while other psychologists have placed more importance on language development which matters because it neglects the role of other people in learning therefore may be an incomplete explanation