Early final exam.docx

What is cognition? - The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Piaget - Most widely known theory of cognitive development. - He called children 'scientists': they test and explore hypotheses about the world by...

What is cognition? - The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Piaget - Most widely known theory of cognitive development. - He called children 'scientists': they test and explore hypotheses about the world by reflecting on their experiences. - 1\. Schemas: how knowledge is organized and represented The basic building blocks of cognitive models enable us to form a mental representation. - 2\. Adaptation processes: Processes that enable learning and the transition from one stage to another 7 - 3\. Stages of development Adaptation processes enable the transition from one stage to another o Equilibrium vs disequilibrium **Equilibrium**: existing schemas can explain what has been perceived **Disequilibrium:** happens when there's an inconsistency between a learner's cognitive structure & the thing being learned **Assimilation** (when Equilibrium): Process of adding new experience or information to an existing cognitive structure. **Accommodation** (when disequilibrium): Process of reorganizing thoughts when new information does not fit the schema \(1) Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to about 2 years) - Explore the world through senses & motor activity - Early on, babies can't tell the difference between themselves & the environment. - If they cannot see something, then they think it does not exist - Begin to understand cause & effect - Can later follow something with their eyes \(2) Preoperational Stage (2 to about 7 years old) The word \"**operational**\" can be loosely translated as possessing **logical thought**. Thus, preoperational children are pre-logical. - Rapidly developing language & communication - Can imagine the future & reflect on the past - Develop basic numerical abilities - Has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality - (ex: cartoon characters are real people) \(3) Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years old) - Abstract reasoning ability & ability to generalize from the concrete increases - Understand conservation of matter - Understand hierarchic categories - Ability in seriation Children who have concrete operational thought can see more than one aspect of a problem at a time, see things as **reversible and changeable**, see and **describe transformations**, and based on that can make **inferences about reality** \(4) Formal Operations (12 to about 15 ) - Adult thinking - Able to think about hypothetical situations - Form & test hypotheses - Organize information - Reason scientifically Criticisms of Piaget - Tasks were methodologically flawed. - Underestimated the impact of CULTURE Lev Vygotsky The social constructivist theory of cognitive development highlights the role of social and cultural interactions Importance of language - Language: Learning happens through **interactions** with others. - Allows us to **represent reality** and to distance the individual in relation to here and now - Allows users to **communicate** with each other; Language is the ultimate social tool. ZPD - Zone of Proximal Development **lower limit** - child working **independently** (also referred to as the child's actual developmental level). **Upper limit**- the level of potential skill that the child can reach with the **assistance** **Scaffolding**: an instructional technique in which a teacher provides individualized support by gradually improving a learner's ability to the next level based on prior knowledge. Introduced by **Jerome Bruner**.