Overview
Piaget’s Theory of
Implications for teachers
Cognitive Development
Cognitive Processes
Stages
•The Sensorimotor Stage •Schema
•The Preoperational Stage •Assimilation
•The Concrete Operational Stage •Accommodation
•The Formal Operational Stage •Equilibration
Overview
• Processes that children use to construct
their knowledge of the world.
Cognitive Processes
1. Schema
2. Assimilation
3. Accommodation
4. Organization
5. Equilibration
Cognitive Processes
1. Schema – As child seeks to construct an
understanding of the world the developing
brain creates schemas (actions or mental
representations that organize knowledge)
E.g.: Classifying object by size, shape and
color, how to drive a car and how to
balance a budget.
Cognitive Processes
2. Assimilation - Process of integrating new
perceptual, conceptual materials or experiences
into an existing schemata
3. Accommodation - When existing schemas is not
possible, new schemas will have to be
developed in order to adapt to new and unique
experiences
Both processes are used simultaneously
and alternately throughout life.
Cognitive Processes
4. Organization – The grouping of isolated
behaviors and thoughts into a higher order
system; children organizing their
experiences.
5. Equilibration
– State of balance between accommodation
and assimilation
– State of cognitive conflict (child trying to
understand the world) being resolved and
reaching an balance/equilibrium of thought
Piaget’s 4 stages of Cognitive
Development
1. The Sensorimotor stage(Birth-2yrs)
2. The Preoperational Stage(2-7yrs)
3. The Concrete Operational Stage(7-11yrs)
4. The Formal Operational Stage(>11yrs)
1.The Sensorimotor stage
1. Infants construct an understanding of the world
by coordinating sensory experiences (seeing,
hearing) with motor actions (reaching, touching)
2. Develop object permanence (memory) - Realize
that objects exist even if they are out of sight
3. Infants progress from reflexive, instinctual action
at birth to the beginning of problem solving
(intellectual) & symbolic abilities (language)
towards the end of the stage.
2.The Preoperational Stage
• Development of Symbolic function - Ability to represent
objects and events using words and images
• Development of Intuitive thought - Children begin to
use primitive reasoning and want to know the answer
to all sorts if questions
• Egocentrism – Inability to distinguish between one’s
own perspective and some one else’s perspective
• Centration - Focusing attention on one characteristic in
exclusion of others. Lack of conservation. E.g. volume
of liquid in different shapes of containers
• Animism – Belief that inanimate objects have ‘lifelike’
qualities
3.The Concrete Operational
Stage
1. Children’s ability to think logically but only
about concrete problems and objects, able to
reverse thinking
2. Seriation - Ability to reason relationships
between classes; to arrange objects in
sequential order according to one aspect, such
as size, weight or volume.
3. Transitivity - Ability to reason and logically
combine relationships.
4.The Formal Operational Stage
1. Thought is more abstract, idealistic and logical in this
stage – Ability to solve abstract problems.
2. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning - Ability to formulate
many alternate hypotheses in dealing with a problem
deductive. Deduce by drawing conclusions through
applying rules or principles
3. Possess reflective abilities to systematically generate
all possible solutions to problems
4. Use of analogical reasoning in which one limits the
search for solutions to solutions that are similar to the
one on hand
Implications for teachers
• Depending on the abilities of children, provide
opportunities for students to engage in state of
cognitive disequilibrium to motivate students to
learn
• Provide a learning environment that is
customized to the abilities of children to facilitate
them to move through the stages of cognitive
development
• Teaching strategies should be built on students’
own experiences due to the fact that formal
operational thinking is developed gradually and
is task dependent
