Jean Piaget: The construction of knowledge

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Jean Piaget The construction of knowledge
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Instructional Objectives

• Students will ...
• Describe the manner in which Piagets background
  influenced his work on cognitive development in
  children
• Define key terms of Piagets theory
• Describe the relationship between structure and
  processes of development

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Theres more

• List the levels of Cognitive Development
  identified by Piaget
• Describe the predominant organization at each
  level of development
• Describe the role of equilibration in cognitive
  development

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More?!! Yep.

• List 4 factors that influence cognitive
  development
• Describe 3 teaching methods that are consistent
  with Piagets theory

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http//www.piaget.org/biography/biog.html
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Piagets Theory of Epigenesis

• Central questions
• How does knowledge grow?
• Scientific background
• Philosophy psychology
• Entropy

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Charles DarwinBritish Naturalist1809 -1882

• I have called this principle, by which each
  slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the
  term Natural Selection.
•  Charles Darwin from "The Origin of Species"

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Piagets Theory of Epigenesis

• Central questions
• What are you doing when you are knowing? and
  How does knowledge grow?
• Scientific background
• Philosophy psychology
• Entropy

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Wilhelm Wundt1832-1920http//www.indiana.edu/in
tell/wundt.shtml

• Psychology was just beginning to emerge as a
  distinct science, and much of Wundt's work
  anticipated the value of physiological
  methodology in dealing with psychological
  problems.
• In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt
  established the first psychology laboratory.
  Here, he concentrated almost exclusively on
  psychological research, particularly on the study
  of human sensory experience

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Piagets Theory of Epigenesis

• Central questions
• What are you doing when you are knowing? and
  How does knowledge grow?
• Scientific background
• Philosophy psychology
• Entropy

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Entropy

• 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - organized systems
  tend to become disorganized b/c of outside
  influences
• To stay organized, living organisms must respond

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Entropy (conti.)

• for anything to become organized in a universe
  that, on the whole, is constantly disorganizing,
  thermodynamic changes (i.e., entropy) must be
  opposed by events producing and maintaining
  order.
• (Brown Thampy, 1985, trans. The equilibration
  of structures)

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Piaget vocabulary

• Schemata / schema
• Entropy
• Equilibration, equilibrium
• Disequilibrium
• Assimilation
• Accommodation
• Levels of cognitive development

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Relating development learning
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Equilibration of structures - how development
occurs
Schema Knowledge structure
Interact with environment Entropy
Able to handle? Consistent with known?
Yes
No! Disequilibrium
Sort of Disequilibrium
Assimilate
Accommodate
Re-equilibration of structures Knowledge grows
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Equilibration of structures

• The process we appeal to is one where the
  transition from disequilibria or imperfect forms
  of equilibrium to better forms of equilibrium
  presupposes new constructions all along the way,
  constructions that are determined by exigencies
  (the need for) of compensation and
  reequilibiration (Piaget, 1975, p. 67).

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Stages of cognitive development
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Factors influencing development

• Heredity
• Rate of maturation
• Individual experiences
• Social experience

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Stages of cognitive development
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Characterizing adolescent thought during formal
operations

• Physical, abstract, verbal, time, multivariate
  problem solving
• Hypothetical (even false premise)
• Inductive Deductive reasoning
• Introspection - self as object of thought -
  personality
• Idealistic reasoning feelings