0.3 Theories/approaches to learning

Overview

HOW TO BE AN ACTIVE READER:

In Learning Section 2 you will be doing a lot of reading and discussing about theories and approaches to learning. Please take amoment now to review Assignment 3 by clicking on "Outline." Looking at Assignment 3 ahead of time may help you to become an active reader takingnotes in a journal while you read about the theories and approaches to learning presented in this section. As you talk with colleagues in the TWB Learning Cafe , you may also wish to take notes. For example, you might spend some time writing in your journal about one ortwo things you heard someone else say in conversation that has sparked your thinking.

Piaget

Swiss biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is renowned for constructing a highly influential model ofchild development and learning. Piaget's theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds cognitive structures - in other words, mental"maps," schemes, or networked concepts for understanding and responding to physical experiences within his or her environment. Piaget furtherattested that a child's cognitive structure increases in sophistication with development, moving from a few innate reflexes such as crying andsucking to highly complex mental activities.

Discussion

Piaget's theory identifies four developmental stages and the processes by which children progress through them. The fourstages are:

• Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years old) - The child, through physical interaction with his or her environment,builds a set of concepts about reality and how it works. This is the stage where a child does not know that physical objects remain in existenceeven when out of sight (object permanance).
• Preoperational stage (ages 2-7) - The child is not yet able to conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physicalsituations.
• Concrete operations (ages 7-11) - As physical experience accumulates, the child starts to conceptualize, creatinglogical structures that explain his or her physical experiences. Abstract problem solving is also possible at this stage. For example,arithmetic equations can be solved with numbers, not just with objects.
• Formal operations (beginning at ages 11-15) - By this point, the child's cognitive structures are like those of anadult and include conceptual reasoning.

Piaget outlined several principles for building cognitive structures. During all development stages, the childexperiences his or her environment using whatever mental maps he or she has constructed so far. If the experience is a repeated one, it fits easily - or isassimilated - into the child's cognitive structure so that he or she maintains mental "equilibrium." If the experience is different or new, thechild loses equilibrium, and alters his or her cognitive structure to accommodate the new conditions. This way, the child erects more and moreadequate cognitive structures.