it is psychology class and the teacher told me to pick

it is psychology class and the teacher told me to pick

The topic I picked and found out interesting and it will be useful for me in later in my life as I am planning to become a teacher in the future. Is to describe the Piaget’s four stages and in find out that it will be useful for me in later of life as I want to become a teacher in the future.

Jean Piaget was born 1896 and died 1980 in Switzerland. Piaget when he was eleven years old he wrote an albino sparrow and that was the start of his career. When he graduated high school he went to the University of Zurich, he started majoring psychoanalysis.

In 1923 he married and had three children. He studied through his chidren intellectual development from After graduating high school, he attended the University of Zurich, he became interested in psychoanalysis.Piaget studied his children’s intellectual development from infancy.

For the children below 2 years, I will present toys which have strings attached and demonstrate pulling the toys by dragging the string. I will show that the way we can beat  a small toy drum with a match stick.

For children between 2 and 7, I will present pictures of animals, birds, colors and shapes. I will brief about them and then invite the response from children.

For children between 7 and 11, I will show different objects like cotton, small iron ball, scale etc. and brief about length, mass, volume. I will wait for their response.

For children above 11, I will show scenes of winter, summer etc. and ask them to hypothesize and the type of clothing needed to cope with the corresponding season.

Piaget’s theory describes four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage.

The first stage is sensorimotor. In this stage from birth to two years infants start to construct and understand the world around them through sensory experiences, such as seeing, hearing, and touching with physical their environment and surroundings. To demonstrate the children in this stage,  if I present to the child toys which have strings attached and demonstrate puling the toys by dragging the string. I will show that the way we can beat a small toy drum with a match stick.

Preoperational occurs between the ages of two to seven years. According to Feldman (2009), “During the preoperational stage, children’s use of symbolic thinking grows, mental reasoning emerges, and the use of concepts increases” (p. 160). This stage is also noticed by centration and egocentric thought. Centration is the process of focusing only on one aspect of a situation and neglect other. Egocentric thought is when the child views their environment and surroundings from any other viewpoint except their own. To demonstrate children this, I will present to the child pictures of animals, birds, colors and shapes. I will brief about them and then invite the response from children.

 The concrete operational is the third stage. In this stage children between seven to eleven years of age is characterized by the use of logical thinking. They gain a better understanding and thinking logically the world around them, but have difficulty understanding abstract. To demonstrate in this stage I will show different objects like cotton, small iron ball, scale etc. and brief about length, mass, volume. I will wait for their response.

The formal operational stage is the final stage which is characterized by the application of logical thinking to abstract situations (Piaget, 2002). The children at the childcare center were three years old, therefore the focus of this analysis will be on the preoperational stage of cognitive development. To demonstrate I will show scenes of winter, summer etc. and ask them to hypothesize and the type of clothing needed to cope with the corresponding season.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is very important especially for those working with children because it helps them to explain and provide reasoning for certain behaviors of the children.

Understanding this stage makes a person to understand the changes children show as they continue to grow from infants to toddlers to preschoolers. This theory can be applied easily to help us understand the different ways children play outside on a playground, or the way that they interact with each other in a classrooms. These two environments require sharing and turn taking which are situations for observing a child’s current stage of cognitive development. After learning and understanding this theory, my view of the behavior of children changed drastically. Before learning this theory, I did not understand why children would behave without thinking. After understanding Piaget’s theory, I began to understand that this was not the case. It was not the idea that they were not thinking, but their cognitive abilities had not yet developed to the point of completely logical thinking.

Feldman, Robert. (2009). Discovering the Life Span. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Piaget, Jean. (2002). The Language and Thought of the Child. Psychology Press. 66.