Jean Piaget
By: Ciara Gil
Background Info.
- Piaget was born in Switzerland in 1896 and was the eldest child.
- His early interests were in zoology
- At age 11, Piaget wrote a short paper on an albino sparrow which is generally considered the start of his scientific career
- Studied Natural science after high school where he obtained a Ph.D
- He had one question that he always asked in his research and it was, how does knowledge grow?
- He wrote over sixty books and several hundred articles
- He was the first to make a systematic study of the acquisition of understanding children
- Influential people consist of: Lea Vygotsky, Immanuel Kant, and Konrad Lorenz etc..
"Teaching means creating situations where structures can be discovered"
His Theory...
Piaget was a Cognitive Theorists who believed children progressed through a series of four critical stages, each stage is marked by shifts in how children understand the world.
Stage 1: The Sensorimotor Stage ages birth - 2
Stage 2: The Preoperational Stage ages 2-7
Stage 3: The Concrete Operational Stage ages 7-11
Stage 4: The Formal Operational Stage ages adolescence - adulthood
Sensorimotor Stage
Infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. A child's intelligence consists of basic motor and sensory explorations of the world. Piaget believed by learning that objects are separate distinct entities children have an existence of their own outside world of individual perception
Preoperational stage
In this stage children learn through pretend play but struggle with logic and understanding the point of view of others. Children understand through language and images
Concrete Operational Stage
In this stage children begin to think more logically but struggle with abstract and hypothetical concepts. Children become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might feel and think. Lastly children begin to understand that their thoughts are unique to them and not everyone will have the same thoughts and opinions.
Formal Operational Stage
In this final stage there is an increase in logic and they are now capable of using reasoning and understanding pertaining to abstract thinking. People are now capable of seeing multiple solutions to problems.
Piaget suggested that there is an Qualitative Change as how children think as they go through these 4 stages
Example
In the sensorimotor stage the child begins to interact with the environment by placing objects in there mouth and using their five senses.