Development: orderly adaptive changes we go through from conception to death.

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Development orderly adaptive changes we go
through from conception to death.

• Human Development
• 1. Physical physiological changes over time.
• 2. Personal changes in personality that take
  place as one grows.
• 3. Social changes over time in the way we
  relate to others (social transmission).
• 4. Cognitive gradual orderly changes by which
  our mental processes become more complex and
  sophisticated.

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Nature vs. Nurture
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General Principles of Development
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Jean Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development

• Several key concepts relating to Piagets theory
• 1. Organization arranging information and
  experiences into mental systems or categories.
• 2. Adaptation adjusting to the environment.
• 3. Schemes mental systems or categories of
  perception and experience.
• 4. Assimilation fitting new information into
  existing schemes.

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• 5. Accommodation altering existing schemes or
  creating new ones in response to new information.
• 6. Equilibration search for mental balance
  between cognitive schemes and information from
  the environment.
• 7. Disequilibration the out-of-state balance
  that occurs when a person realizes that his or
  her current ways of thinking are not working to
  solve a problem or to understand a situation.

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Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development

• 1. Sensorimotor (0-2)

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2. Preoperational (2-7)
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3. Concrete Operational (7-11)
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4. Formal Operational (11-???)
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• Piaget referred to the American question when
  he spoke to groups. What do you think was the
  most common development question Piaget received
  from Americans in his audiences?

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Application Principles from Piagets Work

• 1. Capitalize of students natural curiosity.
• 2. Help students discover relationships among
  concepts and ideas through the experiences you
  provide.
• 3. Provide hands-on experiences with physical
  objects (allow students to explore and manipulate
  such objects).
• 4. Provide opportunities for children to discuss
  and exchange ideas and perspectives.
• 5. Provide information and experiences that
  contradict students existing beliefs.

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• 6. Remember that some students (especially lt12)
  may not be capable of understanding certain
  ideas.
• 7. Ask students to explain their reasoning.
  Challenge illogical explanations.
• 8. K-6 focus on concrete objects and events. At
  the secondary level, increase discussion of
  abstract concepts and hypothetical ideas.
• 9. Give students practice in formulating and
  testing hypotheses and in separating and
  controlling variables.
• 10. Keep unnecessary distractions to a minimum,
  especially for young children.

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Alternative to Piaget Vygotskys Dialectical
Theory (new ways of thinking emerge from
dialogues).

• In the 1920s both observed childrens private
  speech, yet arrived at different conclusions.

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• Vygotsky saw learning taking place within a zone
  of proximal development.
• ZPD tasks too difficult to be done alone, but
  can be accomplished through cooperative dialogues
  with adults and more skilled peers.
• It is ideal to provide tasks just beyond the
  current ability of the student.

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• Teachers can provide scaffolding for support.
• Scaffolding external support from
  teachers/parents/peers to help children with
  problems just beyond their reach.

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Similarities in Piagetian and Vygotskian
Classrooms
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Differences
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Piaget Activity

• Considering Piagets theory of cognitive
  development, please get together with a classmate
  or two and write down some activities you would
  do with children to discover at which stage they
  are operating. Try to come up with tasks or
  activities that would identify each of the four
  Piagetian stages of cognitive development.

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• A group of vocal parents want you to introduce
  workbooks to teach basic arithmetic in your class
  of five year-olds. They seem to think that
  play with blocks, water, sand, clay, and so on,
  is wasted time. How would you respond? Remember
  to take their point of view into consideration in
  your response.