Development In Education Flashcards
Piaget’s application to education
Readiness
Learning by discovery
Teachers role
Individual learning
Readiness in education
the child needs to be at the right age and biologically “ready” for the activity being set.
for example, you cannot teach a preoperational child abstract maths concepts
Learning by discovery in education
Children need to discover things for themselves and play an active role in their education rather than passively receiving information
for example, they will not learn very well by memorising a lot of information.
Teachers role in education
To provide an environment for the discovery to happen, providing challenge so schema adapt to assimilate and accommodate new info
for example, the teacher should plan activities to challenge current schemas causing assimilation and accommodation to occur.
Individual learning in education
Although all children go through the same stages, in the same order ,some children develop faster than others, so teacher’s must plan for individual students and not the class as a whole.
for example, small group activities would be more appropriate.
Ideal task for sensorimotor to learn with
Application to learning - provide opportunities to
experiment
Example of an activity – allow to play with toys that make noises
Ideal task for pre-operational to learn with
Application to learning – focus on doing things
Example of an activity – role play and dress up to reduce egocentrism.
Ideal task for concrete operational to learn with
Application to learning children need concrete
materials to aid learning.
Example of an activity abacus to improve numerical skills
Ideal task for formal operational to learn with
Application to learning – scientific activity will help develop an understanding of logic.
Example of an activity – discussions of an ideal world.
State one strength of Piaget’s cognitive stages of development for application in education
One strength of Piaget’s theory is the enormous effect it has had on primary education in the UK.
The Plowden Report was published in 1967 to review primary education in the UK and make recommendations on changes that were needed. The report drew heavily on Piaget’s theory and recommended new child-centred, active approaches to primary school education in the UK.
This child-centred approach was very different to traditional
teacher-centred, rote learning educational practices of the time.
This demonstrates the value of Piaget’s theory for education.
State 2 weaknesses of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development in the application into education
One weakness is that Piaget’s stage-based approach suggests that practice should not improve performance if a child is not ‘ready’ – but not all research supports this.
If ‘readiness’ is so important, practice shouldn’t matter. However, Bryant and Trabasso (1971) showed that pre-operational children could do some logical tasks if they were given practice. The
researchers argued that memory skills were needed for some tasks and it was a lack of these skills that prevented young children from
carrying out logical thinking.
However, when children practiced solving simple comparisons and slowly built up to more complex tasks, they could manage, showing practice was more important than ‘readiness’.
One weakness is that Piaget’s emphasis on discovery learning may not always be the best approach.
Bennett (1976) compared traditional teaching methods with Piaget’s discovery learning and found children taught using more formal methods did better at subjects such as reading, maths and
English.
This suggests some aspects of learning are best taught through direct instruction rather than active learning.
State the three learning styles
Verbalisers
Visualisers
Kinaesthetic
Describe Verbalisers
A preference of processing information through words and sounds. Involves listening to, reading,
repeating and writing information Tend towards auditory processing
Revision and learning
strategies, Listen to a podcast, Discuss the topic, Write a song/rap, Read the material out loud over and over
Describe visualisers
A preference of processing information in terms of image, pictures, diagrams Tend towards visual processing.
Revision and learning strategies, Mindmaps, Graphs and charts for information, Watching videos, Turning information into a story that can be visualised (memory palace)
Describe kinaesthetic learners
Kinaesthetic means ‘touch’. A preference of processing information through completing the task themselves, ‘hands on’ learning
Making a model or carrying out an experiment
