Jean Piaget - How can we use his ideas in the future?

Background

It is almost impossible to study to be an educator and not hear Jean Piaget’s name in almost all of your classes.  Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland in 1896.  As a young boy, Piaget took interest in Biology, particularly classifying mollusks and their evolutionary connections.  He even published his work as early as high school.  This started the incredible journey that has led to his research in regards to child development.  He was focused from a young age that the emphasis of his life should be a “biological explanation of knowledge” (Harre, 2006). 

After entering his local university, University of Neuchâtel, he completed a doctorate on mollusks.  Using his biology background, Piaget used the concept of the structuralist doctrine as his main guide for life.  Structuralism is the methodology that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure.  In all life, there are totalities: reasons why things occur and explanations for them.  Although this idea started to be challenged in the 60s and 70s by Noam Chomsky and others, Piaget devoted his life’s works to its core principles.  Piaget continued his efforts to understand the child’s mind by participating in the Simon-Binet IQ test (eventually the Stanford Binet Test) and their psychological testing. 

Being Piaget, he wanted to know why children responded the way they did.  He started conversing with the subjects and following their thoughts in both "natural and contrived situations” (Harre, 2006).  This became known as the “Piagetian method.”  During these experiments, Piaget expressed that it is important to “unite two often incompatible qualities; he must now observe…and… he must constantly be alert for something definitive” (Piaget, p.9).  This is to say that there has to be a perfect balance when observing a child.  As an adult, your instinct is to ask leading questions or give the answers.  The Piagetian method was a very complex and meticulous method. 

It brought him to his ideas and personal thoughts of genetic epistemology.  Genetic epistemology refers to the origins of knowledge and eventually how knowledge grows.  Piaget believed that child cognition was the same in every child.  Before his work, “the common assumption in psychology was that children are merely less competent thinkers than adults” (McLeod, 2015).  Piaget showed that children were not less competent, but different. 

Piaget eventually worked with another cognitive development psychologist that we so often hear in education, Lev Vygotsky.  Piaget hired Vygotsky as a researcher and although they were colleagues, they had conflicting views on different topics.  Piaget believed that children were extremely egocentric and therefore limited to their own perspective of the world while Vygotsky believed that children were shaped by their social interactions.  Piaget believed that biology was the most important aspect while Vygotsky stressed that cultural differences play key roles in a child’s development.

Their different views as well as the ideas they had in common are shown in the figure below; cognitive constructivism associated with Piaget and social constructivism associated with Vygotsky.

Theories and Accomplishments

Throughout his life, Piaget has had many accomplishments.  There are three main principles that he has theorized through out his career that stick out are as follows:

1.     Processes of assimilation and accommodation

2.     Egocentrism

And the one that I will focus on…

3.     Development by Stages

First I will briefly give insight into the first two accomplishments.  In fact, they are all related because of the underlying principles that they share:

• Understanding the way a being evolves is essential to truly understanding it
• Children are actively exploring the environment, much as scientists do

Processes of assimilation and accommodation

• Assimilation – How we take in new information and incorporate that new information into our existing knowledge
• Accommodation – In our internal world, we must change or adapt to the evidence, which we are confronted with

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish between self and other
Inability to assume any other perspective other than your own

Both of these ideas are closely tied into Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. So what is this theory of cognitive development?  There are two main aspects to this theory (Huitt & Hummel, 2003):

1.     Process of coming to know

2.     The stages we move through as we gradually acquire this ability

Using the ideas of assimilation and accommodation, Piaget believed that infants were born with schemes or reflexes and that these reflexes change over time.  Children use these schemas to lead to equilibration, or an inner sense of balance between old and new thoughts.  This is further explained in the stages of cognitive development:

1.     Sensorimotor Stage (Infancy) – Babies to two years old experience the world through movement and their five senses. During this stage, infants are egocentric.  This stage is divided into 6 sub categories itself (Sancock, 1998):

• Simple Reflexes – rooting and sucking
• First habits and primary circular reactions – coordinate sensation/reproduce events that happen by accident
• Secondary circular reactions – become aware of things beyond own body/object-oriented
• Coordination of secondary circular reactions – can do things intentionally/try to reach a goal/object permanence
• Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity – explore new possibilities with object
• Internalization of schema – use of primitive symbols/beginnings of insight and creativity

2. Pre-Operational Stage (Age 2-7) – Children are able to think symbolically.  They can make a word or object stand for something other than itself.

• Symbolic Function – use symbols to represent the world around them
• Intuitive Thought – primitive reasoning/asking questions

3.     Concrete Operational Stage (Age 7-11) – Children begin having logical thought processes.  Children can work things out in their heads.

4.     Formal Operational Stage (Age 11 and over) – Children develop abstract thought and logically test hypotheses (McLeod, 2015). 

Here are the stages in action:

Criticism

There was much criticism of Piaget’s stages of development, most notably by his colleague Vygotsky.  Vygotsky questioned if there were stages at all or if it wasn’t a continuous process.  Piaget was also criticized for his avoidance of the social and culture effects on development.  Again, Vygotsky argued that social interaction is a crucial part development.  In fact, most of Vygotsky’s research and theories were based on this idea.  Piaget developed his theory based on his subjective views and his research methods.

Research

How did he complete his research? His main goal was to understand and analyze the thought processes of children.  Piaget used three research methods: observation, the clinical interview, and informal tests (Jorum).  Observation was mainly used with infants.  He would observe babies and write down pertinent information that was significant to him.  Today, we heavily rely on observations and this method of research to create individualized environments. The clinical interview method was used with children who were able to respond to questions and instructions.  This method provides opportunities to understand a child’s insight, therefore the interviews questions will change from child to child.  Within the clinical interview, Piaget used the informal testing method. There was a set of tasks designated, but the idea behind it was to be as informal and nonchalant as possible, watching and understanding how children react and create.  Since he conducted his observations and experiments alone, his results may be biased towards his school of thought. He may have also underestimated the abilities of children and has only used a small sample (McLeod, 2015). With the clinical interview, Piaget again leaves out the fact of the natural, social, and cultural elements that affect a child’s learning process.

With new development, it is thought that “cognitive development does not proceed as uniformly stage-like” as it once had before (Schaffer, 2006). Regardless, Piaget’s theory is still used as scaffolding in the school of education. Although Piaget was not completing his research for an educational purpose, most of the preschools and primary grades that are in place today share Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. 

Stages of Development

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is mainly overshadowed by one concept in the actual theory itself: the four stages of development.  This is especially true in preschool and primary grades.  These stages were isolated from the overall theory and taken out of their original meaningful context (Gallagher, p.75).  As stated earlier, Piaget was not particularly interested in educational uses of his research.  He was, however, concerned with language used among children and adults.  “Language seemed…to depend on cognitive development” (Bryant, 1984).  Piaget believed that language is formed through the four stages and knowledge cannot be formed unless a child hits each stage’s benchmarks.  The ideas of the stages were applied in the classroom; students needed to hit each stage, in order.  This is simply not the case.  It is generally believed that the stages are fluid and a child hits different benchmarks at different times.  

We can say, however, that Piaget’s work and life works have had a powerful impact on the education system as a whole.  Before Piaget’s new ideas of what learning should be, teaching was solely “do as I say” and “teach children to be adults.” The concept of learning through experimentation and discovery was not in existence.  His ideas have brought about a more “child-centered approach to teaching” (Big Ideas Simply Explained).  Piaget’s theory has provided us with four main teaching implications (Slavin, 2005):

• Focus on the process of children’s thinking, not just its products
• Recognition of the crucial role of child’s self-initiated, active involvement in learning activities
• De-emphasis on practices aimed at making children adult like in their thinking
• Acceptance of individual differences in developmental progress

Piaget believed in natural and self-learning, while educators were there to provide inspirational tools so that children are able to use background knowledge, previous experiences, and their own processes to figure out a task.  This type of learning is called discovery learning.  

Discovery Learning:

Student Centered Learning:

This is most notable in such learning facilities such as the one opened by the Italian educator, Dr. Maria Montessori.  The main focus in Montessori education is to promote independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development.

See what parents say about Montessori Education:

What can we do as educators?

In order to be able to establish a Piagetian philosophy and discovery learning in the classroom, educators are tasked with:

• Using concrete props and visual aids, such as models and/or time lines
• Facilitating learning by using familiar examples to explain complex ideas, such as a story problem in math
• Giving students the opportunities to classify & group information, using outlines & hierarchies to facilitate assimilation of new information with previously learned knowledge. 
• Presenting problems that require logical analytical thinking; "brain teasers" are a great way to incorporate this

When we think about the ways that Piaget has impacted learning and education in general, we must also look towards the future.  How can we connect Piaget’s self-discovery learning processes to what is the current status quo?  How can we use them in the not so distant future?

We can continue to use his stages of development to understand a child’s thought process, although they may be observed in different, more interactive settings.  These settings may include many different forms of technology that were not present during Piaget’s clinical observations.  We must account for the growing use of technology as early as children in the sensorimotor stage.

There is an abundance of new technologies that I’m sure none of the famous psychologists of the past could have ever imagined.  BUT, we need to understand the underlying concepts of these theories so that we can embed them into the learning of the future.  It is my belief that Piaget’s ideas are way ahead of his time, whether we think so or not.  What do I mean by this?  As we creep towards the world of tomorrow, we notice a phenomenon called ubiquitous learning (Burbules, 2009).  This is when learning occurs anywhere and anytime.  It is all around us.  Although Piaget used controlled experimentations to further his research of child development, his concept of self-learning is setting the stage for the future classroom. 

What does this future classroom look like?

The future classroom will be filled with self-discovery and self-learning. Technology is already taking the place of textbooks and pens and pencils. Things like augmented reality and the cloud are going to be very important factors in the classroom. Homework will be more centered around real-world scenarios and ubiquitous learning will play a crucial role. Teachers will be there as a faciliator and designer rather than a lecturer. Piaget has stated that understanding is to discover and we need to reconstruct our learning through rediscovery.  As teachers and educators, we must have confidence in our students' willingness, desire, and their ability to learn.  We can do this through ubiquitous learning.

This idea of ubiquitous learning is already upon us.  We are continually gaining knowledge everywhere we go through our smart devices while “learning is being integrated into the flow of ordinary hum activity” (Burbules, 2014).  Using what Piaget has proposed, we as educators must change with the times, use the tools we have been given, and create an atmosphere that promotes natural processes and new learning.

If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society. - Jean Piaget

References

Baily, R. & Kohler, R. (2014). Jean Piaget. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Bryant, P.E. (1984).  Oxford Review of Education: Piaget, teachers and psychologists. Retrieved at http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy2.library.illinois.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/0305498840100302#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20ucHJveHkyLmxpYnJhcnkuaWxsaW5vaXMuZWR1L2RvaS9wZGYvMTAuMTA4MC8wMzA1NDk4ODQwMTAwMzAyQEBAMA==

Jorum. Child Development Theories: Research Methods Used by Piaget. Retrieved from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XTfPc8HDDaUJ:find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/bitstream/439338+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Compare and Contrast Chart. (JPEG image).  Retrieved from http://ged578.pbworks.com/w/page/39338437/Constructivism%20as%20a%20Pedagogical%20Philosophy

Developmental stages. (2006). In R. Schaffer, Key concepts in developmental psychology. London, United Kingdom: Sage UK. Retrieved from                                                  http://proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sageukdp/developmental_stages/0

Gallagher, Jeanette McCarthy.Easley, J. A. (1978) Knowledge and Development Volume 2: Piaget and Education. Boston, MA : Springer US.

Huitt, W. & Hummel. J. (2003). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Retrieved from http://www.newriver.edu/images/stories/library/Stennett_Psychology_Articles/Piagets%20Theory%20of%20Cognitive%20Development.pdf

Jean Piaget (1896-1980). (2006). In R. Harré, Key thinkers in psychology. London, United Kingdom: Sage UK. Retrieved from http://proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sageuktp/jean_piaget_1896_1980/0  

Nicholas C. Burbules, “Meanings of ubiquitous learning.” Ubiquitous Learning, Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, eds. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 15-20.

Nicholas C. Burbules, “Ubiquitous learning and the future of teaching.” Teacher Education in a Transnational World, eds. Rosa Bruno-Jofre and Scott Johnston (University of Toronto Press, 2014): pp. 177-187.

Piaget, Jean (1929). The Child’s Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd.

Piaget, Teachers and Psychologists. (1983). Oxford Review of Education, 10(3), 251–259. http://doi.org/10.1080/0305498840100302

The goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things : Jean Piaget(1896--1980). (2012). In Big ideas simply explained: The psychology book. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.. Retrieved from http://proxy2.library.illinois.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/dkpsycbook/the_goal_of_education_is_to_create_men_and_women_who_are_capable_of_doing_new_things_jean_piaget_1896_1980/0

http://study.com/academy/lesson/differences-between-piaget-vygotskys-cognitive-development-theories.html

S. McLeod (2015).  Simple Psychology: Jean Piaget. [Web log comment.] Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

Santrock, John W. (1998). Children. 9. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Santrock, J.W. (2008). A Topical Approach To Life-Span Development (pp.211-216). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Slavin, R.E. (2005). Educational psychology: theory and practice. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.