ch 10.7, 10.8, 10.9- Preoperational Stage + Comcrete & Formal Operational Stages + Evaluating Piaget

Preoperational Stage

Children become more sophisticated in cognitive abilities (2-7 years)

stage marked by: centration (focus on one stimulus only, ignore all others) during conservation tasks (give child two beakers with same liquid, they will say same, pour one container into a long beaker and re ask child, they will say more in tall narrow container)

scale errors: not understand relationship between size of body and objects around them (trying to fit into toy car, only realizing from hands on attempt)

difficulty perspective taking: only consider things from themselves

Concrete Operational Stage

children develop skills in using and manipulating numbers, as well as logical thinking about ‘concrete’ properties (framed in real world way: john taller than bob, bob taller than carl. we know john is taller than carl as well without making relation/comparison)

Transtivity: if A > B, and B > C, then A also > C

however, still struggle with more abstract thinking (trouble understanding hypothetical terms, inhibiting reality)

Formal Operational Stage

last stage

development of advanced cognitive processes such as abstract reasoning and hypothetical thinking

• scientific thinking: imagine a hypothesis that could potentially prove you wrong,not concrete

• shift from learning by trial-and-error to deductive reasoning and stimulating potential outcomes before acting

• metacognition: ability to think about your thinking, awareness of own thoughts

Core Knowledge Hypothesis

infants have unborn abilities for understanding some key aspects of their environment

• evidence from violation of expectation paradigm: evaluate whether children have basic mathematical skills, children pay more attention to what doesn’t satisfy their expectations

Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development

Development is ideal when a child attempts skills that are just beyond what they can do alone, but with guidance from an adult

Scaffolding: the approach to teaching in which the teacher matches guidance to the learners needs

Screen Time

screens are poor substitutes for face-to-face learning (lack of scaffolding)

increased screen time in early development with worse cognitive and social development

when used, should be in combination with adult presence who can reinforce the learning during and after the screen learning