PIAGET
Piaget rejected the idea that learning was the passive assimilation of given knowledge. Instead, he proposed that learning is a dynamic process comprising successive stages of adaption to reality during which learners actively construct knowledge by creating and testing their own theories of the world.
Although less contemporary & influential, it has inspired several important educational principles such as:
Piaget's Cognitive Development theory (1970)/ Conception of equilibration (1985)
Piaget (1970) proposed that children progress through a sequence of four stages, assumed to reflect qualitative differences in children's cognitive abilities. Limited by the logical structures in the different developmental stages, learners cannot be taught key cognitive tasks if they have not reached a particular stage of development.
He later (1985) expanded this theory to explain how new information is shaped to fit with the learner's existing knowledge, and existing knowledge is itself modified to accommodate the new information. The major concepts in this cognitive process include:
Although less contemporary & influential, it has inspired several important educational principles such as:
- Discovery learning
- Sensitivity to children’s’ readiness
- Acceptance of individual differences
- Learners don’t have knowledge forced on them – they create it for themselves
Piaget's Cognitive Development theory (1970)/ Conception of equilibration (1985)
Piaget (1970) proposed that children progress through a sequence of four stages, assumed to reflect qualitative differences in children's cognitive abilities. Limited by the logical structures in the different developmental stages, learners cannot be taught key cognitive tasks if they have not reached a particular stage of development.
He later (1985) expanded this theory to explain how new information is shaped to fit with the learner's existing knowledge, and existing knowledge is itself modified to accommodate the new information. The major concepts in this cognitive process include:
- Assimilation: it occurs when a learner perceives new objects or events in terms of existing schemes or operations. This information is compared with existing cognitive structures
- Accommodation: it has occurred when existing schemes or operations must be modified to account for a new experience.
- Equilibration: it is the master developmental process, encompassing both assimilation and accommodation. Anomalies of experience create a state of disequilibrium which can be only resolved when a more adaptive, more sophisticated mode of thought is adopted.
References
Piaget, J. (2013). The construction of reality in the child (Vol. 82). Routledge.
Piaget, J. (2013). The construction of reality in the child (Vol. 82). Routledge.