Cognitive Theory of Learning

The cognitive theory of learning lays emphasis on the human conscious mind being the major element in the learning process. It explains the careful structuring of the mind that enables it collect, organize and relate new experiences and knowledge to the already existing ones in the brain. One of the advocates of cognitive learning theory is Piaget.

 

Piaget’s Developmental theory

Piaget is a Swiss psychologist. He started his work just before Second World War. The main research areas of Piaget were how children develop and learn. Piaget's stage theory describes the cognitive development of children. Cognitive development involves changes in cognitive process and abilities.

In his theory, he also explained that there are three dominant factors on children cognitive development.

 

 1. Maturation:

    It is the unfolding of biological changes that are genetically programmed into us at birth.

 

 2. Activity:

   Activity is related with maturation directly. This means that an increase maturations means child will be more cognitively develop and act to the environment and surroundings and learn from those actions.

 

3. Transmission:

   The word transmission is used to describe the act of learning from others. As and when child become an adult and interact more people, a positive influence on child’s learning can be observed because of social interaction with others.

A Piaget stage of development is a blueprint that describes the stages of normal intellectual development, from infancy through adulthood. This includes thought, judgment, and knowledge.

The summary of the Piaget's four stages of intellectual (or cognitive) development are as follows.

 

 

 

 

Key concepts in Piaget’s Developmental theory

Schemas - A schema is a mental structure we use to organize and simplify our knowledge of the world around us. A schema describes both the mental and physical actions involved in understanding and knowing. In Piaget's view, a schema includes both a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge.

For example, a young child may first develop a schema for a horse. She knows that a horse is large, has hair, four legs and a tail. When the little girl encounters a cow for the first time, she might initially call it a horse. After all, it fits in with her schema for the characteristics of a horse. Once she is told that this is a different animal called a cow, she will modify her existing schema for a horse and create a new schema for a cow. She now realizes that an animal which are large, has hair, four legs and tail is not always be a horse. It can be another animals.

Assimilation - The process of taking in new information into our previously existing schemas is known as assimilation. The process is somewhat subjective, because we tend to modify experience or information somewhat to fit in with our pre-existing beliefs. In the example above, seeing a “cow” and labeling it "horse" is an example of assimilating the animal into the child's horse schema.

Accommodation - The process of accommodation involves altering one's existing schemas, or ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences. New schemas may also be developed during this process. In the example above, when the child learns that cows also have four legs, has hair and a tail she will undergo a process of accommodation in which her existing schema for horse will change and she will also develop a new schema for cows.

 

Equilibration - Piaget believed that all children try to belt a balance between assimilation and accommodation, which is achieved through a mechanism Piaget called equilibration. As children progress through the stages of cognitive development, it is important to maintain a balance between applying previous knowledge (assimilation) and changing behavior to account for new knowledge (accommodation). Equilibration helps explain how children are able to move from one stage of thought into the next.

General educational implications of cognitive theories:

1. Cognitive processes influence learning.

2. Learning difficulties often indicate ineffective or inappropriate cognitive processes, especially for children with learning disabilities, who tend to process information less effectively. Therefore, teachers need to be aware that all students are trying to learn something, as well as what they are trying to learn.

3. As children grow, they become capable of increasingly more sophisticated thought.

4. People organize the things they learn. Therefore, teachers can facilitate students' learning by presenting information in an organized manner. This organization should reflect students' previous knowledge and show how one thing relates to the other (i.e., helping students understand and make connections).

5. New information is most easily acquired when people can associate it with things they have already learned. Teachers should then show how new ideas relate to previous learning.

5. People control their own learning. Ultimately students, not their teachers, determine what things will be learned and how they will be learned.

References

McLeod, S. A. (2009). Jean Piaget | Cognitive Theory.Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html