Jennifer Lynch
Blog Post 1 (Deep Reading of Module 7 on Piaget)
Describe the big picture. Did this make sense? How does this reading connect your experience?
· This chapter showed the differences and similarities of two people (Piaget and Vygotsky) and also of development and learning. I mainly agree with Piaget. This chapter made sense, but I am still a little overwhelmed by the chapter and can’t wait to have this discussion. I think I would be even more lost with this lesson if I hadn’t color coordinated what I was looking at to learn. The reading connects to what I observed throughout school, when I’m with my friends, and I also get to see it when I get to see my nieces and “nephew.”
Discuss at least one of your unanswered questions or confusions for the class. What else do you want to know?
· How can you really know where a child is at as far as stages and where they fall within a stage? Some people are afraid of tests or are shy. Sometimes people only have problems with certain areas. I would like to see stages for where they are in what they are learning.
According to Piaget, which comes first: learning or development? Why? How are they related? What is development, what is learning and how does each happen? How does a child move from one stage to another? When is development happening, and when is it learning?
I like your concept of development being a pre-learning process. That is an interesting way of looking at it that I had not thought of before. That makes sense because your development, according to Piaget, determines what and when you are ready to learn. What I don't agree with though is that learning is a straight thing. I believe learning is a process. I could be misinterpreting your blog but I think repetition is a part of the learning process and is not a separate thing. You are learning something the more you repeat it until finally you have learned it and you no longer need to repeat it.
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ReplyDeleteYour explanation of learning and development is great. Your detail and view of the topic is quite interesting. First, to address your question about determining which stage a child is in... From reading Module 7, my understanding is that determining a stage for a child depends on continuous evaluation to see where they stand on learning. Piaget explains that shifting to the next stage is when a child exhibits cognitive abilities that were not evident in previous stages. Also, the child shows cognitive limitations that keep them from progressing to the next stage. As far as using specific evaluation methods for each stage, I do not think there are "set" ones for each stage. Using different hands-on, learning techniques that exhibit specific achievements and abilities at each stage of development, helps to show the child can move forward to the next stage. If the child has shown limitations to an evaluation method, they are not ready to move forward to the next stage. I feel overall that his model is not explicit and can be easily misinterpreted.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Kristofer Rosario-Hoover’s blog comment, I have to agree with what he is saying about learning. Learning is a continuous process that requires much attention and repetition to master the concept. As explained in Module 6, being shown something and then not being exposed to it for 10 years, you lose that synaptic connection. Seeing something many, many times through repetition helps to learn the concept; creating a strong connection where the information can easily be remembered.
Your question brings up one big criticism of Piaget and criticism of testing in general. How can you know a student's ability by seeing their performance (on one particular kind of task) at one snapshot in time? This is a HUGE thing that you will have to address in your future teaching. Standardized tests are required, but how can you best assess your students (get to know them) during class or through activities or tests? I don't have the perfect answer for you! Many people choose to do more formative types of assessment, or performance assessment (coming later in the semester) so that they get a view of what their students can ACTUALLY do, or what they can do in general, most of the time. I think that it's true that 5 year olds, in general, will display different kinds of capabilities (be in a differen stage) than 10 year olds, most of the time. The stages might be different for different kinds of tasks (even multiple choice vs. short answer questions) or on different days if the child is having a very bad day (or is feeling ill).
ReplyDeleteI don't think Piaget believes children develop a SPACE TO STORE information, but rather they develop a capacity to think in new kinds of ways. Children can store LOTS of concrete information when they just aren't capable of thinking abstractly.
I also like your term of pre-learning, but I feel like you're talking about development and learning as if they are nearly the same thing (or too close). Piaget would say that development is simply the capacity to think in particular ways, and this is something that teachers CANNOT change. It happens biologically with age. Teachers much give tasks that a child can think about, according to their stage. Learning, according to Piaget, is the process of disequilibrium and then accomodation/assimilation of schemas. This needs to occur within a stage appropriate task.
Remember, we're not discussing what WE think learning or development is, but what Piaget would say.