Cognitive Development

WHAT

Chapter 2 is all about cognitive development. Cognitive development is defined as the physical development of the structures of the brain. It is impacted by life experience. It involves the pruning of neuronetworks, and encompasses brain plasticity. We reviewed structure and function of the brain as it relates to learning and memory. For most of class we discussed Piaget and Vygotsky. They were two theorists who had different views on cognitive development.

Piaget had four major factors in cognitive development. They include:

• biological maturation,


• active exploration of physical environment,


• social experiences, and


• equilibration.

The factor that we discussed the most in class was the process of equilibration which basically says that when we learn we take new information, (disequilibrium) and either group it with existing knowledge (assimilation), or deal with it as new information (accommodation) so that we feel comfortable with the information. Piaget believed that disequilibrium moved development along.

Piaget also broke cognitive development into four stages.

• Stage 1: Sensorimotor stage- birth- 2yrs- behaviors and perception


• Stage 2: Preoperational stage- 2 yrs-7 yrs-think beyond here and now, but not logical


• Stage 3: Concrete operations stage- 7yrs-11yrs- limited adult like logic appears


• Stage 4: Formal operations stage- 11yrs-adulthood-logical reasoning

Vygotsky looked more at the role of society in cognitive development and also self-talk and inner speech. His main factors include:

• socio-cultural learning


• guided participation


• apprenticeship


• peer interaction and


• power of play

Vygotsky's main idea was the Zone of Proximal Development. This is defined as the range of tasks that a learner can do with help from someone else, but that cannot be done alone. Teaching kids in this range keeps them continually progressing.

SO WHAT

Cognitive development is very important in teaching. Knowing what stage students are in can help me to know how to best teach them. It will be interesting looking for the different stages and trying to find how accurate Piaget was in his age ranges for the different stages. Seeing the different theories will be a great experience. This is all important in knowing why a student is a certain way, maybe they aren't lazy, they just aren't to the stage of development that the other students are.

NOW WHAT

The thing that I would most like to learn more about is how to teach in a way that all of the students are in the Zone of Proximal Development. Because they are all different and are a different levels of development, it will be hard to come up with lesson plans that will challenge all of the students without making it impossible for some to do the work.