Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development Stages of Piaget's Theory Educational Implications

1. PIAGET’s THEORY OF COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Prepared by
Dr. Kanchan Khatreja
Assistant Professor
K.R. Mangalam University

3.  Piaget was a student of biology, and also
had keen interest in psychology. During this work, he
interacted with many children’s thinking.
 He realized that older children were able to answer more questions
of the same test. Also, there were qualitative differences between
the answer and the logic that the older children applied.
 From his experience he understood that in controlled and structured
environment, children are unable to express themselves. Therefore,
he followed a different method of interacting with children. He
interacted with children in settings in which they were comfortable-
natural settings of children. He observed them and conversed with
them while they worked on activities he set.
 Piaget’s theory proposes that Cognitive Development universally
follows a pattern of four stages. As a person progresses to higher
stage, his/her thinking becomes more refined.

5.  The infant learns about the world through their senses and through
actions (moving around and exploring its environment).
 During this stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These
include: object permanence, self- recognition, deferred imitation,
and representational play.
 At about 8months, the infant will understand the performance of
objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them and
the infant will search for them when they disappear.
 The main achievement during this stage is object permanence-
knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the
ability to form a mental representation of the object.
 Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins
to appear where children show in their play that they can use one
object to stand for another. Language starts to appear because they
realize that words can be used to represent objects and feelings.

6. For Example:
 Children at the sensorimotor stage have some understanding of
the concepts of numbers and counting. Educators of children in
this stage of development can use solid mathematical
foundation by providing activities that incorporate counting and
thus enhance children’s conceptual development of number.
They can explain the concept of counting by telling one dog, two
cats, five pigeons, etc.
 Teachers and parents can play games with the child “Who has
more”? Or “Are they enough”? with the help of fingers or they
can take the help of pictorial illustrations from seeing the
pictures of the object. In future, this can develop the reading
skills and the concept of comprehension among the students.

7.  During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is
the ability to make one thing, such as word or an objects, stand for something
other than itself.
 A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It
is not yet capable of logical (problem solving) type of thought.
 Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the
child to think that non-living (like toys) have life and feelings like a person.
 By 2years, children have made some progress towards detaching their thought
from physical world. However, have not developed logical (or operational)
thought characteristic of later stages.
 Thinking is still initiatives (based on subjective judgements about the
situations) and egocentric (centered on the child’s own view of the world).

8. For Example:
When students learn the concept of geometrical
shapes, a teacher can ask the students to group the
shapes according to similar characteristics. The teacher
can ask the following questions from them like: “How
did you decide where each object belonged? Are there
other ways to group these together?” Engaging in
discussion or interactions with the children may
engage the children’s discovery of the variety of ways
to group objects.

9.  During this stage, children begin to thinking logically about
concrete events. Children begin to understand the concept of
conservation, understanding that, although things may
change in the appearance, certain properties remain the
same.
 During this stage, children become less energetic and begin to
think about how the other people might think and feel.
 Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in
the child’s cognitive development because it marks the
beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the
child can work things out internally on their head (rather than
physically try things out in real world).
 Children at this stage, will tend to make mistakes or be
overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract problem.

10. For Example:
 It may be difficult for children to conceptualize how a four by
six-inch rectangle built with wooden tiles relates to four
multiplied by six, or four groups of six. Teachers can help the
students make connections by showing how the rectangles
can be separated into four rows of six tiles each and by
demonstrating how the rectangle is another representation
of four groups of six.
 Encouraging opportunities for students to present
mathematical solutions in multiple ways (with the help
of: symbols, graphs, tables, and words) is one tool for
cognitive development in this stage.

11.  During this stage, adolescent's can deal with abstract
ideas (egs. no longer needing to think about slicing up
cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and
fractions).
 Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with
many possible solutions. Egs. if asked ‘What would
happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time?
They could speculate about many possible
consequences.
 From 12years, children can follow the form of a logical
argument without reference to its content. During this
time, people develop the ability to think about abstract
concepts, and logically test hypothesis.

12. For Example:
The formal operational learner can
solve x + 2x = 9 without having to
refer to a concrete situation
presented by the teacher, such as,
“Rohan ate a certain number of
candies. His sister ate twice as many.
Together they ate nine. How many
did Rohan eat?”

13. There are four major educational implications drawn from
the Piaget’s theory:
1) A focus on the process of children’s thinking, not just its
product: Instead of simply checking for a correct answer,
teacher should emphasize the students understanding
and the process they used to get the answer.
2) Recognition of crucial role of children’s self- initiated,
active involvement in learning activities: In a Piagetian
classroom, children are engaged to discover themselves
through spontaneous interaction with the environment,
rather than the presentation of ready-made knowledge.

14. 3) A deemphasize on practices aimed at making children adult like in
their thinking: His belief is that trying to speed up and accelerate children’s
process through the stage could be worse tan no teaching at all.
4) Acceptance of Individual differences in developmental progress:
Piaget’s theory asserts that children go through all the same developmental
stages, however they do so at different rates. Because of this, teachers
must make special effort to arrange classroom activities for individual and
groups of children rather than for the whole class group.
The teachers main role is the facilitation of learning by providing various
experiences for the students. “Discovering Learning” allows opportunities
for students to explore while encouraging new understandings.
Opportunities that allow learners different cognitive levels to work together
often help encourage less mature student to advance to a higher
understanding of the material.

15. • www.google.com
• www.beled.in
• educationaltechnology.net
• www.simplypsychology.org