Piaget Research Paper

M3A1: Piaget Essay
Piaget believes play to be related to cognitive development and that it helps children build knowledge and make sense of their world. Piaget promoted inquiry based learning that focused on children as being active learners in their environment, and included activities that are child directed, and child centered. Piaget’s theory of three educational principles discovery learning, sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn, and acceptance of individual differences continue to have a major influence on teacher training and classroom practices, especially in early childhood.
Discovery learning in a Piagetian classroom is where children are encouraged to discover for themselves through spontaneous interaction with the environment. Discovery learning is the primary theory used in a highly motivating method of personalizing the learning experiences, allowing individuals the opportunity to experiment and discover for themselves. It fosters curiosity and supports the active engagement of the learner throughout the learning process, and it is the design of exhibits and activities. Discovery learning is built upon the use of a learner’s prior knowledge, experiences, and understandings. This style of learning makes the learner responsible for their own
outcomes, while developing a sense of independence and autonomy as well as skills in problem solving and critical thinking.
Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn would include teachers introducing activities that build on children’s current thinking, but do not try to speed development by imposing new skills before children indicate readiness or interest.
Learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable. Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and stages the notion of readiness important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught. According to Piaget children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage cognitive
development.
Acceptance of individual differences are where activities provide for individual children and small groups, not just the whole class. Teachers evaluate educational progress in relation to the child’s previous development, rather than on the basis of normative standards, or average performance of same-aged peers. The biggest problem with Piaget’s theory is that he believes learning mainly occurs through acting on the environment of language based routes to knowledge and assumes that all children go through the same developmental sequence but that they do so at different rates and teachers must make a special effort to arrange classroom activities for individuals and small groups of children rather than for the total class group. In conclusion, individual differences are expected, assessment of children’s educational progress should be made in terms of each child’s own previous course of development, not in terms of normal standards provided by the performances of same age peers.
Piaget believed that through pretending, young children will practice and strengthen newly acquired representational schemes, and that sensorimotor activity leads to internal images of experience, which children then label with words. He also believed that when children first mentally represent the world, they tend to focus on their own viewpoint and simply assume that others perceive, think, and feel the same way they do.
Development Through the Lifespan, Fifth Edition Laura E. Berk