Application Flashcards
What was Piaget’s theory applied to ?
The 1967 Plowden report on primary education, which explained educators how his invariant stages of development work and how all children go through the same stages. His ideas are used in a practical sense within the classroom for many years since the report.
Teaching should be based on stages which link to development stages.
Readiness - What is it ?
Idea children are not ready to learn in certain way until they have reached the relevant development stage. For example: if you ask a child in concrete operational stage to work out a maths question in their head , they are unable to do so as they have not reached the stage where they can abstract think . So teachers ensure children questions mirror development stage.
Sensori motor stage 0-2
Should be given simple toys to explore such as a rattle = grasp, shake it to learn it makes noise
Pre operational stage 2-7
Should be given dressing up clothes for role play to help them develop their symbolic play
Concrete operational stage 7-11
- Start to learn to conserve
- learning to cook could help them develop their skills, using measurements and pouring ingredients into different containers for mixing and baking
Formal operational stage 11+
Should be given hypothetical situations to debate to help them to develop their hypothetical thinking
What does Piaget suggest about active learning ?
Children need to be ‘ little scientists’. This idea is used in the classroom and is known as discovery learning. Play is important part of active learning and children progress should not be assessed by what’s measurable .
Example : make ‘cake’ from mud, best made and how much water needed to make best texture
Learning how to solve problems and thinking creatively is important
How Piaget viewed the concept of intelligence and how it changed
- believes intelligence is innate and developed naturally as children interacted with their environment and accommodated and assimilated new info into their schema.
Intelligence matures as they pass through 4 stages of cognitive development .
Therefore , important teachers understand stage of cognitive development a child is in and base their lessons on the child’s abilities at that stage.
Growth mindset and its application to education
- making assumptions about students ability through IQ score does not support children to reach their potential.
- Teachers can focus on setting small but do able tasks so students feel they are making progress. Feel like they are achieving -> encourage growth mindset
Students should be encouraged to work hard but also provide strategies’ and tool to succeed. Otherwise, asking them to work hard w/o tools -> not encouraging GM
teachers should praise students for their effort and not their intelligence -> help to grow GM
Meaning not learning styles
Many years, schools focus on learning style.
Current evidence suggest learning styles don’t work.
Key educators make sure teachers are no longer differentiating lessons to suit different learning styles but pick methods that are more effective in students progress.
Willingham suggests teachers should focus on supporting students to think about meaning of information, rather than teaching them in a way that fits their learning style. For example : Teachers trying to get students to understand research methods rather than giving list of words to memorise , the teacher can give students different research methods to look at which investigate same things and how effective they are to explain behaviour that’s being studied
