Chap 3: Cognitive Changes

Question 1

what is cognitive development?

Answer 1

-examines the way individuals come to understand and perceive the world

Question 2

what are Piaget’s schema’s? (2)

Answer 2

1. Assimilation: using pre-existing knowledge to understand new ideas
2. Accommodation: changing existing knowledge to new ideas

Question 3

what are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

Answer 3

1. Sensorimotor (0-2): building schemas through sensory and motor exploration. They achieve object permanence before moving to next stage
2. Pre-operational (2-6): New physical language skills that allow them to explore the world and make cognitive gains. Egocentrisim happens here. Conservation also occurs here meaning they don’t understand that something that looks different can be the same thing (beaker and water)
3. Concrete Operations (6-12): logical operations applied to concrete problems. Conservation problems, reversibility, time and speed, decentering
4. Formal Operations 12+: Develop the capacity for abstract, systematic, or scientific thinking

Question 4

what is metacognition?

Answer 4

the capacity for “thinking about thinking” enables adolescents to learn and solve problems efficiently

Question 5

what are Vygotsky’s most influential ideas? (2)

Answer 5

1. Zone of proximal development: the gap b/w what adolescents can accomplish alone and what they are capable of doing if guided by an adult
2. Scaffolding: the degree of assistance provided to the adolescent in that zone of proximal development