Jean Piaget's Developmental Theory An Overview

Ed304
Katelyn Hartley

Take notes on the two philosophies, and give opinion of them.

Piaget 1896 – 1980

Two kinds of education

- passive education, relying primarily on memory
o examples of passive education include; times tables, and learning letters and
numbers
- active education, relying on intelligent understanding and discovery
o examples of active education include; dramatic play, and study of literature

What is the goal of education?

“Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or
should we try to develop creative and innovative minds capable of discovery from the
preschool age on, throughout life?”

- first published article at age 10 “The Albino Sparrow”

- at age 16 had spot in museum

How do we know the world? This term is called genetic epistemology.

Our knowledge comes in stages: theory of human intelligence

1. content of thought: what children know

2. process of knowing: how and why of childrens’ knowledge
- not a separation, no knowledge without intelligence and no intelligence without
knowledge
- both work together

Young children are egocentric in their thinking, they usually talk at, not to others.
- I am currently in the preschool lab. I have noticed that the children very much have an
egocentric viewpoint

Semi-clinical interview
- open ended questioning

Hidden side of child’s mind.

6-7 months when objects disappear they are gone for good

Assimilation – play is a pure form of assimilation

- “transformation of reality in the service of self, when a child uses a stone as a turtle or a
potato chip as a butterfly the child is transforming the object to serve as a personal
fantasty.”

Accommodation – transformation of self to meet the demands of the world.

Schema
- permanent object
- conservation – form a schema at a sensory-motor level or a concept at a verbal level,
we are constructing a concept.

Conducted experiments on conception of space, time, number, speed, and mechanism of

perception

4 major stages of development

sensorimotor – concerned of creating a world of permanent objects, that’s why they put
everything in their mouth, dump everything, bang everything, and touch everything
pre operational 2-7 – symbolic level
- This fits well with Erikson’s play stage (initiative vs. guilt)
concrete operational 6 – 11 reconstruct world based on rules, numbers, classes, and
relations
formal operation 11 – construct world of ideals, possibilities, how things might be but are
not, ideal worlds become more influential than the rule one, parents don’t meet
expectations of the ideal stage

1. human intelligence always grows, which is related to age, cannot be hurried

2. human knowledge is always a creation. It is not a copy of external world, nor simply
a projection of our inner world.

I didn’t realize that Jean Piaget’s theory of development was so recent. He died in 1980 – less
than 40 years ago!