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We know how crucial good education is for children, the question is: How can we make education effective? Based on Piaget's theory, a one-size-fits-all approach and relying on rewards and punishments are not always effective. These traditional approaches to education don't account for how children learn and develop cognitive abilities. So… What's the Piagetian solution for making education better? Piaget's Theory in Education has been applied to understand this.
Piaget argued that education should take into account the stages of cognitive development, freepik.com/macrovector
We're not born with cognitive abilities like acknowledging others' perspectives, thinking logically or symbolically representing objects in our mind. These abilities are developed as we grow up and learn about and experience the world. Piaget outlined four stages of cognitive development, the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage and the formal operational stage. At each stage, children have to overcome certain cognitive errors and achieve particular developmental outcomes to move to the next stage.
During the pre-operational stage, which lasts until the age of 7, according to Piaget children develop cognitive skills that cause a shift from egocentric to centric thinking.
Egocentrism is the tendency to consider reality only from one's own perspective, and centration is the tendency to only focus on one feature associated with an object at a time.
Children commit the conservation error due to centration. The conservation error occurs when a child fails to recognise the same object once one of its features changes.
For example, a child might not recognise their parent when they change their hairstyle.
Piaget tested the ability of children at different ages to conserve numbers. He put two rows with an equal amount and an equally-spaced number of counters in front of the children. The participants were asked to identify if the two rows had an equal number of counters. Next, the experimenter spread out the coins in one of the rows to make it appear that one row had more coins. The study's results showed that children below the age of seven could not recognise that the number of coins remained equal.
This study suggests that children make conservation errors until they reach the operational stage of cognitive development.
However, Piaget's findings have been challenged. The study was later adapted by McGarrigle and Donaldson in 1974. They found that if the counters were spread out on accident by a 'naughty teddy bear' and not intentionally by an adult, 63% of children in the pre-operational stage passed the test.
The results from the study suggest that children may stop egocentric thinking at a younger age than Piaget assumed.
Piaget proposed that children in the pre-operational stage also have difficulty seeing the perspective of others. This was later disputed by the Hughes' 'policeman doll' study, which suggests that Piaget underestimated children's abilities.
Hughes (1978) investigated whether children in the pre-operational stage can conceptualise the point of view of others. A sample of 30 children was shown a model with two intersecting walls blocking the view of policemen dolls. Children were asked to place another doll on the model in a location to hide the doll from the policemen dolls. Contrary to what Piaget predicted, 90% of children passed the test and were able to put the doll outside of the policemen's sight.
Piaget argued that children construct their understanding of the world based on their experiences. By interacting with the environment, they create frameworks about how the world works. These frameworks are called schemas.
A child can learn through experience that if they pet a cat, it purrs, but if they play with a cat, they might get scratched. Now when they see a different cat, they have a framework of how to interact with it and expectations of what might happen.
Piaget described three processes that together create a model of how children learn.
A child might develop a schema that fruits are sweet after tasting bananas and grapes, when the child tastes a lemon, which is not sweet they have to change their schema about fruit.
Piaget's theory has important educational implications. To make learning opportunities effective, they need to encourage accommodation by challenging children's pre-existing schemas, as well as considering children's readiness to make sure they understand new information.
Assuming that children actively construct new knowledge in the process of interacting with the environment, education should facilitate curiosity, discovery and learning through experience.
To develop an understanding of new concepts, children should learn through experience instead of being presented with facts to memorise. New experiences allow for making mistakes and learning from them.
Discussions with peers are also effective for learning. They can reveal new, conflicting information, which children can then use to develop their knowledge.
Piaget argued that learning via experiences helps with better cognitive development, freepik.com/pch.vector
Children gradually develop cognitive abilities. Moreover, different children can progress at a different paces.
The difficulty level of activities and challenges should be matched to children's current ability to understand the world.
Educators should prepare a range of challenges for children at different levels of development instead of employing a one-size-fits-all approach.
It's more beneficial for children if educators equip them with tools to learn and develop inside as well as outside the classroom instead of presenting them with facts.
Children shouldn't be expected to memorise information they can't yet understand because they haven't developed a cognitive ability to do so.
Children in the pre-operational stage often don't understand that if an object changes in appearance, it remains the same object. If they see a plasticine ball being flattened, they conclude the ball is now made of less plasticine. Using punishment and reward to force the correct answer on children, that the ball remains the same, when they cannot understand this concept yet might make them confused about which objects are the same.
Based on Piaget's theory, formative testing can be a useful tool for assessing a child's baseline understanding and readiness for learning new information.
However, standardised testing is not an effective method of assessing knowledge. Standardised tests only focus on whether the child knows the correct answer, but don't assess whether children actually understand the concepts or whether they just memorised facts.
Piaget's theory has changed how we think of and design education. In many countries, educational standards are now considering the educational implications of Piaget's theory. However, a child-centred, experience-focused approach is not yet a reality in numerous educational settings.
Başkale et al. 2009 Described how preschool nutrition education should look based on Piaget's theory of development. The article outlined nutrition teaching strategies informed by Piaget's model of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.
This can be identified by educators starting learning with a formative assessment - assessing children's current knowledge about fruits and vegetables. A question asked could be to identify fruits or ask them to draw different fruits and vegetables.
Concepts like the food pyramid should be explained in words that are familiar to children, and activities should be appropriate and easy to comprehend based on their cognitive abilities.
Piaget's theory has been applied in preschools to help children understand nutrition better, freepik.com/freepik
To encourage learning :
Piaget's theory stresses the need for prioritising learning through experience instead of memorising information. Educators should challenge children's knowledge by exposing them to new experiences and information while also keeping in mind that these challenges should be matched to children's individual abilities.
Piaget's models of learning and development can help design effective teaching strategies. According to Piaget's theory, effective education needs to be child-centred, experience-focused, and match children's cognitive abilities and cultural context.
Piaget's theory has informed educational policies and current approaches to teaching. Piaget's theory resulted in the Plowden Report in the UK, which stressed the importance of learning through experience for preschool children. For example, Piaget's theory also impacted educational guidance in teaching nutrition in preschool.
According to Piaget's theory, teaching needs to be child-centred, experience-focused, challenge children's existing knowledge, and match children's cognitive abilities and cultural context.
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