PIAGET- a lowdown

• Piaget is the pioneer of the "constructivist theory" of learning.
• piaget is best known for reorganising the Cognitive theory onto a series of stages.
• there four developmental stages of cognitive development are:

1. sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
2. preoperational stage: 2 to 7 years
3. concrete operational: 7 to 11
4. formal operational: after 11 years.

• the theory posits that within the domain of knowledge, the stages usually occur in the same chronological order.
• however on re thinking Piaget it is important to note that it is the stage not the age that is important in your students certaintily by the time a student reaches High school they should be working in the formal operational stage ( according to Piaget) but experiences of trauma (non-normative experiences) may have effected the cognitive development in your students.
• this is not to say that your year 8 students will be thinking like infants but rather something has effected them when they were in these stages and therefore hinderd their further cognitive development.
• a quote from Piaget:

"During the earliest stages of thought, accommodation remains on the surface of physical as well as social experience. " Jean Piaget.

Piaget's view of the child's mind
Piaget saw children as little people creating and building their own world and adding to their knowledge.

people used Piaget's theory to find out what children did not know however Piaget used this to discover children's cognitive development

The developmental process
there was no certain "process" Piaget however described it as a "cycle"
The child performs an action which has an effect on or organizes objects, and the child is able to note the characteristics of the action and its effects.

once children develop new kinds of knowledge, they start to create more complex ideas and complex actions. this enables them to recognise complexities in patterns and constructions.

Piaget feels that this process is not "wholly gradual". when new effective levels of organisation, knowledge begins it will start ti be generalised into other areas. therefore transitions through stages becomes rapid, and much more time is spent refining the new cognitive level.

a "Gesalt" is a term used to define the moment when knowledge that has been gained at one stage of experience leads rapidly to a higher level of insight.