- Organization – ongoing process of arranging information and experience into mental systems or categories
- Schemes – mental systems of categories and experiences
- Adaptation – adjustment to the environment
- Assimilation – fitting new information into existing schemes
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Accommodation – altering existing schemes or creating new ones
in response to new information
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Cognitive Development: Applications
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- Equilibration – search for mental balance between cognitive schemes and information from the environment
- Operations – actions a person carries out by thinking them through instead of literally performing the actions
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Four stages of cognitive development
- Sensorimotor – 0-2 years – involves the senses and motor activity
- Preoperational – 2-7 years – stage before a child masters logical mental operations
- Concrete operational – 7-11 years – mental tasks tied to concrete objects and situations
- Formal operational – 11-adult – mental tasks involving abstract thinking and coordination of a number of variables
Focus
- Goal of education should be to help children learn how to learn
- Importance of developmentally appropriate education
- Individuals construct their own understandings
- Value of play
