Piaget’s Theories
The contributions of Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, on learning theories is unmatched, especially the work presented in his cognitive development. In this theory, Piaget pointed out that individuals go through a constant sequence via a series of uniform phases of cognitive development; an activity that constitute learning. According to Piaget, the quality of information increases both with each stage that an individual goes through and the quality of information and levels of understanding. In fact knowledge gets enhanced as a person goes from one stage of the sequence to another. According to the theory, Piaget’s points out that human or individuals thinking is arranged in series of schemes, well organized mental patterns and transforms to certain behavioral pattern and actions (Feldman, 2008:3, Santrock, 2007:2).
Jean compares the schemes and behavioral patterns that results from the person’s cognitive development with intellectual computer software programs, which determines and control how data keyed into the computers are acted upon and processed to obtain information or for decision making. As individual become old, according to the holder of this theory, the scheme and patterns becomes more sophisticated, diverse as well as more abstract. In growing children, their understanding of what happened around them or rather in the world that they live in is determined by both assimilation and accommodation of knowledge (Feldman, 2008).
According to this theory, assimilation involves understanding an experience in terms of the present phase of the cognitive development and an individual reasoning capacity and manner. The latter takes place when individuals utilize their brains and their conceptualization of the world or environment to perceive and comprehend new experience; which culminates to learning. Accommodation on the other hand, is the variation of an individuals’ current way of thinking in response to the encounter with new experience so as to accommodate new information or rather to learn new things. Piaget uses this theory to demonstrate or explain how learning progresses from the time an individual is born through out his or her childhood until he or she grows. However, the applicability and accuracy of the theory in explaining the process of an individual intellectual growth has been questioned with the critics arguing that some cognitive skills and behaviors in an individual emerges earlier that Piaget suggested thus faulting the sequence of cognitive development as presented in the Piaget cognitive development theory (Feldman, 2008).
The four stages of development as suggested by Piaget’s cognitive development theory include sensorimotor stage where infants learn of their environments through sensation and movement, the Preoperational stage in which toddlers and young children develop language and the use of symbols to represent ideas and objects.
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