Psychology of Teaching and Learning

Brian G. Smith, Ph.D.

Lesson 2 - Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

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The assessments in this course are patterned after the Praxis II, Principles of Learning and Teaching tests required for licensure

Case Study - Lesson 2 Case studies are a very important part of this course of study. You may run through these scenarios an unlimited number of times. If you make errors, you will be referred to the appropriate area of the book, or an appropriate website. The questions will be narrative, constructed responses to the issues in the study. Upon submission of your answers, each of the narrative responses will have professionally written feedback of an ideal answer. Carefully compare this to your answer to determine correctness There is a score associated with each case study but that score will not be recorded. You will be given credit for participation.		Quiz - Lesson 2 You will have to take a quiz for each of the lessons. You have two opportunities to take each quiz. The highest score will be recorded in the grade book. Each of the quizzes will be multiple choice & true/false, open-book, open-notes. Upon submitting each quiz, your quiz score as well as any items answered incorrectly will be available.

Homework and Quizzes are on Desire 2 Learn. Click on the Desire 2 Learn link, log in, select the Homework/Quizzes icon and choose the appropriate homework or quiz.

Grand Round Application - Lesson 2 Each lesson of this course will also require you to continue to work on the Grand Round project in this course. Click on the assignment link below to go to the document that outlines the assignment for this lesson. As you complete each lesson's Grand Round assignment, you will be completing that portion of the final project. Each lesson will provide specific directions for how to turn in that portion of the Grand Round project. Lesson 1 Assignment2		Learning Profile Topic - Lesson 2 Each lesson in this course will have a Special Education topic associated with it. Click on the link below to go to the content of the topic. Each of the Special Education topics was specifically chosen to complement the psychology topic. There will be Special Education items on each lesson's quiz. Lesson 1 Cognitive Disability

Presentation of Theoretical Construct

Readings: Chapter 2

Lecture Outline:

Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage	Age Range	Major Characteristics
Sensorimotor	0-2 years	Begins to make use of imitation, memory, and thought Experiences the world through the five senses Manipulates the experiences with gross motor movements Permanence of objects Develops from reflex movements to Goal-direction
Preoperational	2-7 years	Develops the use of language and other symbols Toddler egocentrism One directional serial logic One dimensional thought
Concrete Operational	7-11 years	Conservation Reasoning Processing the Real World Manipulatives
Formal Operational	11 years to adulthood	Abstractions Idealism Adolescent Egocentrism

Further Ideas

Piaget goes a long way to addressing the concept of readiness on the part of the student. Depending on where the student is in their cognitive development, different tasks are going to be challenging enough for them or too challenging to them. If a student is challenged, they get busy working. If a student is frustrated, they surrender. Piaget's stages of cognitive development helps teachers choose material that is developmentally appropriate.

There are limitations to Piaget's theories. Generally speaking, it is fairly widely accepted that Piaget underestimates children's abilities. They are capable of more than just conservation reasoning. Also, the stages are fairly inconsistent. There can be as much as 18 months leeway on either side of the age ranges. Just because a child has a 7th birthday does not mean that they can now reason with reversibility. There is always room for individual variability.