Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Louis receives a new soccer ball and begins to dribble it in the same way he dribbles his basketball. His dribbling of the new ball reflects Piaget’s notion of:

• accommodation

• cognitive structure

• assimilation

• concrete operations

Piaget has described four stages of cognitive development. Which one of the following is an accurate statement about Piaget’s view of these stages?

• Children have difficulty solving problems until they reach formal operations.

• With each successive stage, schemata become more simplified.

• Each stage involves forms of thought qualitatively different from those of other stages.

• It is possible for children to skip from preoperations to formal operations, but only a small minority of children actually do so.

Mr. Jones teaches a class of twenty 8-year-old third graders. His goal for the upcoming school year is to help at least 50% of his students reach formal operations. Judging from Piaget’s theory, we would expect that Mr. Jones’s goal is:

• An easy one to attain

• Attainable only if he emphasizes abstract reasoning throughout the school year

• Attainable only if his students have had enriching educational experiences most of their lives

• Almost impossible to attain

From Piaget’s perspective, why is language critical for children’s cognitive development?

• It enhances their self-efficacy, because they are now aware that they can communicate effectively with other human beings.

• It takes up much of their mental energy and so helps to keep them from being easily distracted.

• It helps them get things they want.

• It gives them a means for symbolically thinking about objects and events.

Roger is shown two piles of sand and says that each pile has the same amount. However, when one pile is flattened with a shovel, he now claims emphatically, “The flat pile has less sand.” Based on this information, Roger is probably in Piaget’s _______ stage of development.

• preoperational

• sensorimotor

• concrete operations

• formal operations

In Piaget's theory, a scheme can best be described as:

• A set of motor skills that preschoolers develop

• A general lifestyle or cultural pattern

• An organized group of similar thoughts or actions

• A mental picture of oneself

Which one of the following teachers is definitely keeping in mind Piaget's idea that assimilation and accommodation are both necessary for learning and cognitive development to occur?

• Mr. Ames presents brand new topics every day, expecting the continual novelty to keep students interested and motivated.

• Ms. Chang makes sure that students have learned one topic very, very well before moving on to another.

• Ms. Doherty uses a lot of drill and practice exercises, encouraging students to work faster every time.

• Mr. Baretta shows students how a new topic is similar to the things they already know, but also different in certain ways.

Which one of the following strategies is most likely to help students learn from a discovery learning activity?

• Making sure students always remain in equilibrium

• Encouraging students to interpret their observations in ways that confirm their initial expectations

• Providing an abstract overview of the discovery session ahead of time

• Providing some structure to guide students’ explorations

From Piaget's perspective, why might it be wise to postpone the teaching of complex fractions until middle school or high school?

• Younger students haven't acquired proportional reasoning.

• Younger students haven't attained conservation.

• Younger students don't know their math facts well enough.

• Younger students can't learn complex equations.

Three of the following statements are true about inquiry learning as an instructional strategy. Which statement is false?

• Students benefit from inquiry learning activities only when they're given total control over the topic to study and how to study it.

• Inquiry learning activities can create a heavy cognitive load, which exceeds children's working memory capacities.

• Inquiry learning activities require students to use various reasoning processes to examine the phenomena under investigation.

• Inquiry learning activities can be effective even when they involve 'experimentation' with virtual 'objects' in a computer program.