3 Mountains Task Analysis

What does the "Three Mountains Task" reveal about the thought of a young child, between the ages of 2-7, according to Jean Piaget? Define egocentricity, according to Piaget.

According to Jean Piaget, “Egocentricity (I.e. Egocentrism) means the “ability to distinguish one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective” (Chapter 9, pg. 247).

In regards to the “Three Mountains Task”, the textbook mentions how “the child walks around the mountain model of the mountains and becomes familiar with what the mountains looks like from a different perspective, therefor can see different objects that are on the mountain. Then, the child is seated on side of the table where the mountains are placed and the experimenter moves a doll to different locations around the table. The child is then asked to pick from a list of photos the one that most accurately reflects the view of the doll.
Piaget then states how, children that are in the preoperational stage often choose their own view rather than the dolls view” (Chapter 9, pg. 247-248).

In addition, the “preoperational stage means that roughly between ages 2 to 7, the child begins to represent the world with drawings, words and images along with the ability to form stable reasoning and concepts, however; at the same time the children’s cognitive world dominates egocentrism (i.e.
egocentricity) which is show in the “Three Mountain Task” by Jean Piaget.

How Would You...?
If you were a parent of a preschooler, how could you apply Lev Vygotsky's concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding to facilitate your child in completing a puzzle?

According to the textbook, it mentions how “the zone of proximal develop is Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master along but can be learned with guidance and assistance of adults or more-skilled children, thus helping children learn the skill to work independently and also help the children learn ask for assistance of an able instructor if needed” (Chapter 9, pg. 250-251). Whereas, the textbook mentions how “Scaffolding means to change the level of support” (Chapter 9, pg.
251).

As this section mentions, these two ideas are very similar. In my opinion, if I was helping my child complete a puzzle, I would use several different types of puzzles ranging from easy, moderate too difficult to help my child learn how to do the puzzles. At the same time, help my child learn how to work independently along with helping my child to ask for my help if needed to help learn the puzzle. I would start off with an easy puzzle and have my child ask me for help if needed, if my child needs my help I would guide them to do the puzzle and when my child masters the puzzle, I would choose another easy puzzle for my child to do on his or her own. I would slowly go up the difficultly level of puzzles using this same technique until my child learns how to master all the puzzles independently and also masters how to ask for my help if needed. I may also have my child do each puzzle or similar puzzle ranging from easy to difficult to make sure that my child is gaining the knowledge to how to solve the puzzle on his or her own along with little to more guidance from my end to help if my child needs help learning the puzzle.