Piaget and Cognitive Development
According to Bhattacharya and Han, Piaget two major principles guide intellectual growth and biological development adaptation and organization. Assimilation and accommodation are both part of the adaptation process. Piaget believed that human beings possess mental structures that assimilate external events and accommodate them to fit their mental structures. According to Bhattacharya and Han, cognitive development is a complex process comprising three principal concepts affecting the development process: assimilation, accommodation and equilibration.
According to Piaget, assimilation occurs when a child perceives new objects or events in terms of existing schemas or operations. Piaget emphasized the functional quality of assimilation, where children and adults tend to apply any mental structure that is available to assimilate a new event, and actively use this newly acquired mental structure.
According to Piaget, accommodation refers to the process of changing internal mental structures to provide consistency with external reality. Piaget believed that cognitive development in children is contingent on four factors: biological maturation, experience with the physical environment, and experience with the social environment equilibration. According to Wood, Smith, and Grossniklaus, Piaget stages of cognitive development derived from his observation of children. Piaget understood that children were creating ideas. They were limited to receiving knowledge from parents or teachers. Piaget’s works provides the foundation on which constructionist theories are based. Piaget identified four major stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Piaget believed that all children pass through these phases to advance to the next level of cognitive development. In each stage children pass through these phases to advance to the next level of cognitive development.
During each stage, children demonstrate new intellectual abilities and increasingly complex understanding of the world. Piaget first stage, sensorimotor, begins at birth and lasts until 18 months-2 years of age. This stage involves the use of motor activity without the use of symbols. Knowledge is limited in this stage, because it is based on physical interactions and experiences. Infants cannot predict reaction therefore must constantly experiment and learn through trial and error. Piaget’s second stage, preoperational usually occurs during the period between toddlerhood and early childhood (7 years). During this stage children begin to use language; memory and imagination also develop. In the preoperational stage, children engage in make believe and can understand and express relationships between the past and the future. Piaget’s third stage, concrete operational develops between the ages of 7 to eleven years.
In education, an important implication of Piaget’s theory is adaptation of
instruction to the learner’s development level of learning. The teacher’s role is to facilitate learning by providing a variety of experiences. I agree that teachers must implement learning in a variety of ways. We as educators must be aware that all students learn differently. Therefore to accommodate all students, and not leave any child behind, we must implement different ways to learning certain materials. As educators we must evaluate our students, making sure that the materiel that we introduce is not too advanced or not advanced enough for students to learn.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Behaviorism
Behaviorism
I found the article by Melissa Standridge on behaviorism to be interesting and enlightening. According to Standridge, Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. I agree, “Behavior can be unlearned and replaced by another.” I feel that behavior is learned. We learn from our surrounding. I feel our behavior derives from what is accepted by society. There is good and bad behavior in all of us. How we choose to act on that behavior is up to society and us. For example, if a society accepts a person that assault another person without punishment, then that person will continue to do the same thing. If society punishes that person, they will likely stop.
According to Standridge, in assuming that human behavior is learned, behaviorists also hole that all behaviors can also be unlearned, and replaced by new behaviors. The desired response must be rewarded in order for learning to take place. I agree that for a behavior to change, the person must be aware of that behavior that needs to be changed. For example, if a child is continuing to misbehave in class, if the teacher does not address it, the behavior may stop or get worse. According to Standridge, in education, advocates of behaviorism have effectively adopted this system of rewards and punishments in their classrooms by rewarding desired behaviors and punishing inappropriate ones. For example, if a teacher wishes to teach the behavior of remaining seated during the class period, the successful student’s reward might be checking the teacher’s mailbox, and running an errand. John B. Watson and B. F Skinner are the two principal originators of behaviorist approaches to learning. Watson believed that human behavior resulted from specific stimuli that elicited certain responses. Pavlov study was on the digestive process and salivation that occurred in dogs. Pavlov discovered conditioned stimulus and conditioned response.
Skinner developed operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is the rewarding of part of a desired behavior or a random act that approaches it. Skinner did his research using animals. According to Standridge, behaviorist’s techniques have long been employed in education to promote behavior that is desirable and discourage that, which is not. Among the methods derived from behaviorist theory for practical classroom application are contracts, consequences, reinforcement, extinction, and behavior modification. Consequences occur immediately after a behavior whether they are positive or negative. Positive reinforcement is presentation of a stimulus that increases the probability of a response. Teachers may provide positive reinforcement by, smiling at students after a correct response, commending students for their work, selecting them for a special project, and praising students’ ability to parents. I feel that every teacher should live by this positive reinforcement. It is important that we constantly reward our students.
We as educators must be able to reinforce positive behavior in all of our students in order for them to succeed. When a behavior develops, if negative, we must know how to handle the situation and turn it around to a positive.
I found the article by Melissa Standridge on behaviorism to be interesting and enlightening. According to Standridge, Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. I agree, “Behavior can be unlearned and replaced by another.” I feel that behavior is learned. We learn from our surrounding. I feel our behavior derives from what is accepted by society. There is good and bad behavior in all of us. How we choose to act on that behavior is up to society and us. For example, if a society accepts a person that assault another person without punishment, then that person will continue to do the same thing. If society punishes that person, they will likely stop.
According to Standridge, in assuming that human behavior is learned, behaviorists also hole that all behaviors can also be unlearned, and replaced by new behaviors. The desired response must be rewarded in order for learning to take place. I agree that for a behavior to change, the person must be aware of that behavior that needs to be changed. For example, if a child is continuing to misbehave in class, if the teacher does not address it, the behavior may stop or get worse. According to Standridge, in education, advocates of behaviorism have effectively adopted this system of rewards and punishments in their classrooms by rewarding desired behaviors and punishing inappropriate ones. For example, if a teacher wishes to teach the behavior of remaining seated during the class period, the successful student’s reward might be checking the teacher’s mailbox, and running an errand. John B. Watson and B. F Skinner are the two principal originators of behaviorist approaches to learning. Watson believed that human behavior resulted from specific stimuli that elicited certain responses. Pavlov study was on the digestive process and salivation that occurred in dogs. Pavlov discovered conditioned stimulus and conditioned response.
Skinner developed operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is the rewarding of part of a desired behavior or a random act that approaches it. Skinner did his research using animals. According to Standridge, behaviorist’s techniques have long been employed in education to promote behavior that is desirable and discourage that, which is not. Among the methods derived from behaviorist theory for practical classroom application are contracts, consequences, reinforcement, extinction, and behavior modification. Consequences occur immediately after a behavior whether they are positive or negative. Positive reinforcement is presentation of a stimulus that increases the probability of a response. Teachers may provide positive reinforcement by, smiling at students after a correct response, commending students for their work, selecting them for a special project, and praising students’ ability to parents. I feel that every teacher should live by this positive reinforcement. It is important that we constantly reward our students.
We as educators must be able to reinforce positive behavior in all of our students in order for them to succeed. When a behavior develops, if negative, we must know how to handle the situation and turn it around to a positive.
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