Today’s classrooms are gradually becoming more Piagetian in practice as new research on his learning and developmental theories proves to be effective in creating knowledge and understanding in children.
Piaget’s educational philosophy emphasizes a curriculum that is learner-centered where children learn in classroom environments designed for active discovery learning. Piaget saw teachers as facilitators of knowledge and are intended to guide and stimulate children with learning experiences that provide children with opportunities to explore, to manipulate, to experiment, to question, and to search out answers for themselves. The teacher’s role in this process becomes key in the processes of acquiring intelligence through assimilation and accommodation. Learning becomes more meaningful to children if they are provided with materials, situations, and occasions that allow them to discover new learning. The teacher then takes on the task of planning and preparing the learning environment to encourage active discovery in the direction of the intended learning outcomes.
Today’s teachers are becoming more confident with putting Piaget-based research into practice in their classrooms. Trends such as “Project-Based Learning”, “Discovery Learning”,Kindergarten “Exploration Centres”, and “Outdoor Education”, are becoming more popular as they prove to fit the process of building knowledge in meaningful ways for individual students.
Piaget’s educational philosophy emphasizes a curriculum that is learner-centered where children learn in classroom environments designed for active discovery learning. Piaget saw teachers as facilitators of knowledge and are intended to guide and stimulate children with learning experiences that provide children with opportunities to explore, to manipulate, to experiment, to question, and to search out answers for themselves. The teacher’s role in this process becomes key in the processes of acquiring intelligence through assimilation and accommodation. Learning becomes more meaningful to children if they are provided with materials, situations, and occasions that allow them to discover new learning. The teacher then takes on the task of planning and preparing the learning environment to encourage active discovery in the direction of the intended learning outcomes.
Today’s teachers are becoming more confident with putting Piaget-based research into practice in their classrooms. Trends such as “Project-Based Learning”, “Discovery Learning”,Kindergarten “Exploration Centres”, and “Outdoor Education”, are becoming more popular as they prove to fit the process of building knowledge in meaningful ways for individual students.
~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~
Piaget Application by Ages
I Kindergarten to Grade 2 -- Preoperational Stage
* Teachers preparing appropriate and intentional exploration centres which encourage learning in specified curricular areas, e.g. math manipulatives which encourage weight and measurement discovery.
* Teachers providing props which encourage social interaction. E.g. new items in a Centre or items which provide challenges for sharing and discussion between peers. · * Examples of natural stages help children develop ordering ability. E.g. planting seeds and observing their growth stages, caterpillars to observe the butterfly life cycle. * Developing perspective of their world. E.g. directed drawing activities, drawing simple scenes which show perspective and line. * Teachers ask questions which assess and provide opportunities to scaffold learning. E.g. “Why do you think so?” “How would you prove that to another student?” |
II Grade 3 to 7 -- Concrete Operational Stage
* Children are encouraged to discover concepts and principles, e.g. the teacher formulates questions relevant to what is being studied in order to help children focus on some aspect of their learning –without “telling” them outright.
* Children are involved in operational tasks such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, ordering, seriating and reversing, preferably in concrete ways where they utilize and manipulate objects. * Activities are planned where students must grasp the idea of an ascending and descending classification hierarchy. * Several activities are designed which having children practice order and reverse order. * Activities which require conservation of mass of volume, understanding of continuous quantity, weight and volume. * Children are encouraged to define and state problems. * Students are involved in testing all possibilities towards resolving problems and encouraged to express what strategies they use to solve problems. * Students are asked to justify their answers to logical mathematical problems and situations encountered in conservation tasks. Students are encouraged to check the validity and accuracy of their conclusions. |
III. Grade 7 onwards -- Formal Operational Stage
* Students are encouraged to engage in problems requiring hypothetical deductive reasoning, propositional thinking, theoretical reasoning, reflexive thinking, separation and control of variables, combinatorial logic and other forms of abstract thinking.
* Student engage in questions and problems such as the following: “What was your hypothesis?” “How could you demonstrate that idea?” “What other problems can be investigated?” “How do you solve the problem?” * Teachers provide time for maturation and activities with physical experience and allow for social interaction when teaching concepts and modeling formal patterns of reasoning. * Students establish classification systems through discovery and exploration. * Students are given some freedom within limits, so they have time and opportunity for creating, inquiring and problem solving. * Adolescents are given opportunities for discussions requiring synthesis, evaluation and criticism of ideas, theories and personal positions. * Adolescent’s are challenge to express their position by pointing out counter examples, discrepant facts and unanswered questions in their positions. |
~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~
Piaget in X-based Learning
Inquiry-based LearningThe philosophy of inquiry based learning finds its antecedents in the work of Piaget among others. Knowledge is built from experience and process. In IBL curriculums students engage in approaches like field-work, case studies and investigations, creating questions of their own, obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s), explaining the evidence collected, and connecting the explanation to the knowledge. IBL includes problem-based learning, in which students take on an active problem-solving role when they are confronted with a problem or challenge in real-world. By reasoning through the problem and applying what they already know, students are able to become responsible for their own learning. > More info
|
Project-based Learning“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.” This philosophy is part of the foundation of project-based learning that emphasizes learning by doing. People learn from experience and described learning as following a cycle of stages: concrete experience, observation and reflection, abstract conceptualization and testing concepts in new situations. Project-based instruction differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students' collaborative or individual artifact construction to represent what is being learned. PBL tends to be more open-ended than IBL, structure students' activities by relying on students to come up with their own problems in the course of completing a project. > More info
|
Game-based learningGame based learning (GBL) is generally are designed for the ability of the player to retain and apply said subject matter to the real world. The task of GBL is staged with ascending difficulty. The Learning pace tailored to individual student. When engaged with a game, our minds are experiencing the pleasure of grappling with (and coming to understand) a new system. Within an effective game-based learning environment, students work toward a goal, choosing actions and experiencing the consequences of those actions along the way. We also learn from mistaken experiences in a risk-free setting. The success of game-based learning owes to active participation and interaction being at the center of the xperience. > More info
|
Web-based LearningWeb-based learning environment and activities rely heavily on theories of cognitive development, including Piaget. One of the values of using the web to access course materials is that web pages may contain hyperlinks to other parts of the web that students can explore in their own choices. Web records and augments real experiences. According to Piaget, children think and acquire knowledge through their actions; the successful action precedes the conceptual understanding in their learning. Piaget believed that peer interactions are essential in helping children move beyond egocentric thought. An individual learner brings important value to the group that enhances the quality of learning and level of understanding. > More info
|
~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~
Limitation for Application
Underestimates Children's Abilities
Most researchers agree that children possess many of the abilities at an earlier age than Piaget suspected. Recent theory of mind research has found that 4- and 5-year-old children have a rather sophisticated understanding of their own mental processes as well as those of other people. For example, children of this age have some ability to take the perspective of another person, meaning they are far less egocentric than Piaget believed. Continuous?
Are the stages of development of knowledge discontinuous or continuous? The theory maintains that as a child progresses there is a qualitative change and a leap to the next stage. Is this really how knowledge is developed? I seem to think that there is a transition time where children move back and forth between stages. Eventually, it might be a leap, but not immediately. This poses problems for teachers as they attempt to determine at exactly what stage their students are functioning during this transition period. |
Problems With Formal Operations
Research has disputed Piaget's argument that all children will automatically move to the next stage of development as they mature. Some data suggests that environmental factors may play a role in the development of formal operations. Knowledge outside the "stage"
Sometimes children demonstrate unsuspected cognitive strengths or characteristics at lower stages of knowledge development. A possible explanation for this is described by some researchers who believe that the nature of the task rather than the stage of development is the critical factor in analyzing student characteristics. With this confounding factor in mind, educators will have a very difficult time determining the real stages of knowledge development for their students. |
~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~ + ~~
It is observed in application that children sometimes demonstrate unsuspected cognitive strengths or characteristics at lower stages of knowledge development.
|