University Assignment: ELCC 220 - Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development

This report delves into the life and work of Jean Piaget, a prominent Swiss psychologist known for his pioneering research in child development. It begins with a biographical overview, detailing Piaget's background, family, education, and career, highlighting the influences that shaped his interest in cognitive processes. The core of the report focuses on Piaget's theory of cognitive development, including the four stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational, explaining how children's thinking evolves through these stages. The report also explores the impact of Piaget's theories on education, particularly in early learning settings, with a case study of Little Wonders Preschool illustrating how Piaget's principles are applied in curriculum design and teaching strategies. The references included provide further reading on Piaget's work and its implications.

Assignment 3 – the Who
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980)
Jean Piaget was a Swiss Psychologist who worked
primarily in the field of child development.
Children’s Cognitive development is the key field
where he worked in. he is also best known for his
theory of cognitive development.
His work has been a key source of information and
inspiration for people studying the cognitive
functions in different beings, both human and
primate.

Jean Piaget was the eldest son of Arthur
Piaget and Rebecca Jackson. He had two
younger sisters.
Arthur Piaget was a writer of medieval
literature and also focussed in the history of
Neuchatel, a small rural French speaking
community in Western Switzerland.
Neuchatel is also the place where Jean Piaget
was born.
Although his mother was smart, active and
quite kind in nature, she had recurring issues
with her mental health, displaying occasional
neurotic behaviour. Jean Piaget’s study of
psychology and psychoanalysis is heavily
influenced from his mother’s condition.
Family

From left: Jean’s two sisters, Jean himself, Mother Rebecca Jackson and father
Arthur Piaget

Family (contd)
While working in the Jean-Jacques
Rousseau Institute in Geneva, Piaget met a
student named Valentine Chatenav. The duo
got married in 1923, thereby Valentine also
becoming his co-worker.
Together, Jean and Valentine had three
children named Jacqueline, Lucienne and
Laurent.

The birth of his children allowed him
and his wife the opportunity to
observe their growth and reaction to
certain experimental setups.
Observation of their children
became one of their primary focus
of study. Piaget looked at various
concepts like the genesis of
intelligent conduct, ideas of
objective constancy as well as
causality and symbolic attributes like
imitative behaviour.

Education and career
Jean Piaget received his education in the fields of natural sciences and philosophy
prior to his venture into psychology. After his doctorate from the University of
Neuchatel in 1918, he took the position of
a post doctoral trainer at the University of
Zurich till 1919.
Post studies, Piaget moved to France and
was employed at the Grange-Aux-Belles
Street School for Boys, run by Alfred Binet,
the developer of Binet’s intelligence tests.

Looking at the different responses to questions provided by children according to age,
Piaget concluded that the child’s cognitive processes are different from adults as well
as older children.
In the 1920’s Piaget proposed that the children moved from an egocentric position to a
sociocentric position.

Sensorimotor (Birth – 2 years)
Pre-operational (2 – 7 years)
Concrete operational (7– 11 years)
Formal operational (11 and up)
Understands the world through senses and
actions
Understands the world through
language and mental images
Understands the world through primary
logic and rationale
Understands the world through thinking and
logical reasoning
Stages of development

Piaget’s work with children and their cognitive development
has provided significant insights into the amendment of
existing theories and understanding of education. This has
been influential in shifting the attention from the existing
and traditional understanding of education to a more
developmentally approach to education.
A multitude of educational institutions are following Jean
Piaget’s theories and understandings of child development
in order to provide a form of education that is appropriate
according to the educational requirements as well as the
physical, emotional, social and cognitive development of the
children.

Little Wonders Preschool
Little Wonders Playschool provides the
children with a brilliant learning
experience for the children in the age
group of 3-5. the teachers come from
multidisciplinary backgrounds covering
a wide array of domains, including
educational, psychological as well as
sociological.
The preschool programme is highly
reliant on Piaget’s theories to support
the development of the children.

Influence of Piaget’s theory on the school activities
Little Wonders Preschool puts
emphasis on how the development
of the children can be supported
through play. They engage the
children in a wide range of play
based activities that range from
interaction with objects to
interaction with the environment.

From the development of the
curriculum to the instructional
strategies, all are based upon the
underpinning that the children’s
developmental needs be taken
care of, appropriately.
Children in the preschool are
identified in the Pre-Operational
stage, according to Piaget’s stages
of development. It means that
most of the activities and
curriculum links of the preschool
will focus on language and mental
construction of concepts in the
children.

References
Gould, M., & Howson, A. (2011). Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. TE o. S.
Press (Ed.), Sociology reference guide: The process of socialization, 29-38.
Gruber, H. E. (1996). The life space of a scientist: The visionary function and other
aspects of Jean Piaget's thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 9(2-3), 251-265.
little Wonders. Retrieved 25 February 2020, from
https://www.little-wonders-preschool.com/
Munari, A. (1994). Jean Piaget. Prospects, 24(1-2), 311-327.