Cognitivism ( Piaget and Vigotsky)

1. COGNITIVISM
(Stages & Process)
Presented and delivered by:
• M’hamed Jamili
• Youssef Idrissi
• Sanae Lafif
Presented and delivered by:

2. THE OUTLINE
 Who is Piaget?
 Theory of Cognitive Development
 Cognitive development stages
 Piaget’s main principles
 Lev Vygotsky’s Theory

3. Who is Piaget ?
 Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and died
in 1980 in Geneva, Switzerland.
 At age 11, he wrote a paper on an albino sparrow, which was published and
was the start of his famous career.
 After graduating high school, he attended the University of Zurich, where he
became interested in psychoanalysis.
 He married in 1923 and had three children, Jacqueline, Lucienne and Laurent.
 Piaget studied his children’s intellectual development from infancy.

4. THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
 While studying his children, Piaget developed
theories concerning how children learn.
 His theory of Cognitive Development consists
of four stages of intellectual development.

5. 1- Sensorimotor stage
From birth to age 2
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
 Reflexes (inborn, automatic responses to stimuli)
 Habits
 Hand-eye coordination
 The development of the grasp of Object Permanence (knowing
something exists, even though it can’t be seen)
 Trial and error experiments
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THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (Stage 1)

6. 2- Preoperational stage
Age 2 to 7
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
 Ability to represent objects with images and words
 Language skills
 Imagination
 The luck of understanding of the principle of conservation
 Egocentric
 The luck of understanding
THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (Stage 2)

7. Concrete operational stage
Age 7 to 11
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
 The fundamentals of logic
 Children also become less egocentric
 Ability to sort objects
 Ability to classify objects
 Understanding of conservation (physical quantities do not change
based on the arrangement and/or appearance of the object)
THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (Stage 3)

8. Formal operational stage
From age 11 to Adulthood
During this stage, the child begins to develop:
 Ability to hypothesize, test and reevaluate hypotheses
 Reason about abstract concepts
 Children begin thinking logically and in a formal systematic way
THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT (Stage 4)

9. PIAGET’S MAIN PRINCIPLES
 SCHEMAS
 ASSIMILATION
 ACCOMMODATION
 EQUILIBRIUM / EQUILIBRATION

10. SCHEMAS
 Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive
models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the
world. Piaget (1952) defined a schema as:
 A cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing
component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed
by a core meaning'.

11.  In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the
basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way
of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think
of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to
one aspect of the world, including objects, actions
and abstract (i.e. theoretical) concepts.

12. Jean piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process
of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through:
 Assimilation: Which is using an existing schema to
deal with a new object or situation.
 Accommodation: This happens when the existing
schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to
be changed to deal with a new object or situation
ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMMODATION

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14. EQUILIBRIUM / EQUILIBRATION
 This is the force which moves development along. Piaget
believed that cognitive development did not progress at a
steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.
 Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most
new information through assimilation. However, an
unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new
information cannot be fitted into existing schemas
(assimilation).

15.  Equilibration is the force which drives the learning
process as we do not like to be frustrated and will
seek to restore balance by mastering the new
challenge (accommodation). Once the new
information is acquired the process of assimilation
with the new schema will continue until the next
time we need to make an adjustment to it.

17. Lev Semonovich Vygotsky Background
 Vygotsky was called "The Mozart of
Psychology“.
 He was born in 1896- same year as Piaget
 In 1913 entered Moscow University through
lottery.
 In December of 1917, he graduated from
Moscow University with a degree in law.
 Vygotsky completed 270 scientific articles,
numerous lectures, and ten books based on a
wide range of Marxist-based psychological and
teaching theories.

18. KEY CONEPTS
» Vygotsky’s theory is one of the foundations of
constructivism. It asserts three major themes
regarding social interaction, the more
knowledgeable other, and the zone of proximal
development.

19. SOCIAL INTERACTION

20. SOCIAL INTERACTION
 Cognitive development occurs as child's thinking is molded
by society in the form of parents, teachers, and peers. This
leads to peer tutoring as a strategy in classrooms.
 Different than Piaget’s image of the individual constructing
understanding alone
 Everything is social
 Vygotsky saw cognitive development as depending more on
interactions with people & tools in the child’s world.
 Tools are real: pens, paper, computers; or Tools are symbols:
language, math systems, signs

21. ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD)
 The difference between what a child can do independently
and what the child can do with the assistance of a more
knowledgeable person.

22. SCAFFOLDING

23. SCAFFOLDING
 Scaffolding is an instructional structure whereby the
teacher models the desired learning strategy or
task then gradually shifts responsibility to the
students.
 Scaffolding:
 Provides support
 Extends the range of what a learner can do.
 Allows the learner to accomplish tasks otherwise impossible
 Used only when needed

24. VYGOTSKY’S WORDS
» “It is through others that we become ourselves”
 All learning is social
» “What a child can do in co-operation today he can
do alone tomorrow”
 Guided participation, ZPD, scaffolding

25. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
 Vygotsky stressed active learning.
 Assessing what they already know.
 Establish what they are capable of learning.
 Allowing teachers to teach within the zone.
 Allowing teachers to provide sufficient scaffolding for
fostering growth and development.

26. “
Thanks !