Jean Piaget's Stages Of Cognitive Development

By Jean Piaget and Vygotsky, they suggested important theories that how the child is developed. Since last summer, I have started tutoring two children who are ordinary primary two and primary three kids. In this journal, I would like to discuss how the learning and thinking the children develop by the psychological perspective.

Piaget proposed four distinct stages of cognitive development, which are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations and formal operations. (Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N., 2014) From Piaget, I’m teaching a Primary 3 kid and a Primary 2 kid for English and Mathematics, so that they are two different stage of development that I have to deal with during my tutoring. The primary 3 one is at the stage of concrete operations while the primary 2 kid is at the preoperational stage. I have been figuring out that they are having two different cognitive ways which can be reflected by their performances.

For the Primary 3 kid, he is my neighborhood and he is called Sam. Every time I teach him in class, he is not able to deal with abstract operations and concepts. Since then, I know that he has cognitive inability to deal with abstract
Piaget’s description also emphasized the self-directed character of cognitive growth. (Shaffer David R. & Katherine Kipp., 2013) That means the children were assumed to be an isolated scientist and mainly explore learning materials on their own. The other contradiction is that Piaget believed the intellectual development of children is maintained in structures (Shaffer David R. & Katherine Kipp., 2013), meaning that the mode of child cognitive learning and performances are based on different ability given by different stage of cognitive development. However, I have doubts on his theories, in the sense that the ways of childhood learning are not suitable to apply to nowadays’