Piaget Stages of Cognitive Development, Piagetian Lesson Plan

 

Piaget vs Vygotsky

If it were asked who are the two main geniuses in the field of developmental psychology, many, if not all, developmentalists would certainly point to Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) in either order. 

Vygotsky: Sociocultural theory (social cognitivism) and Socio-cultural constructivism. 

Piaget: Stages of Cognitive Development and Autonomous Constructivism. 

Piaget: Key Theories and Ideas

• Stages of development: brain needs to develop (maturation) before cognition can happen
• Gradual process
• "universal"
• Consistent and ordered
• Cognitive Constructivism: learning happens as people make sense of new experiences; sharp distinction from behaviorism
• Peer interaction and active exploration
• Schema theory
• Disequilibrium
• Adaptation 
• Concrete to formal (connected to physical reality)
• Connections to brain development (back to front)

Piaget Stages of Development 

Schema organization and categorization

Schemes, schema, operations

Schemes: Processes of assimilation and adaptation (Concrete to Formal)

Schema: The “categories” of understanding

Cognitive Operations: The processes involved in using, adapting, and creating schemas (“Scheming?” Learning?)

Disequilibrium and Cognitive Dissonance

Disequilibrium

New information

• Mismatch
• State of imbalance (search for a schema)

Cognitive Dissonance

New information extremely different than what you know or believe

• Change
• Justify 
• Ignore/deny

Organization through Adaptations

Assimilations: Add information to existing schema (blowing up a balloon)

Accommodations: Alter an existing schema or create a 

new one (making a balloon into a balloon poodle)

Leads to…equilibrium

Adaptations through Information Processing Instruction

Teaching "Focus"

Sensory Learning (visual, auditory kinesthetic)

Rehearsal

Adaptations through Constructivism Instruction

Project-based learning, service learning (look outside themselves), structured academic controversy, discovery learning, inquiry-based learning, the importance of play and physical learning. 

Concrete to Formal Operations: Bloom's Taxoomy

Create a Piagetian Lesson Plan

Working alone or with others in your content area group, outline a lesson in your content area that implements the principles you have learned in this lesson. You can use a lesson plan that you have written for another class and add comments about how you have implemented the principles (highlight the part you want to comment on and choose Insert > Comment), or you can simply describe a lesson you would teach and how you would implement each of those principles.  Include each of the following in your analysis/description: How you will cause some disequilibrium How you will help students assimilate the new topic with what they already know How you will help students accommodate the new ideas or skills through: the use of the information process model (sensory input, focusing attention, active engagement and rehearsal in working memory, encoding for long-term memory) OR the use of complex learning environments from constructivism (e.g., discovery learning, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, service-learning, structured academic controversy, etc.) How you will help students accommodate the new ideas or skills AND work on transitioning from concrete to formal operations through the implementation of: Bloom's taxonomy OR Fischer's 3 tiers OR Bruner's modes of processing OR Kolb's experiential learning cycle For each concept above, be sure to (1) use the vocabulary and (2) clearly explain how you are implementing it in the lesson. You can use the video analysis on the previous page as an example. If you would prefer, you can submit a video response describing the lesson you would enact. Just be sure to meet all of the requirements.

Additional resources

Video Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Short Article: Support and Criticism of Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development