Activity 3.2 - Cognitive Development

Activity 3.2 - Cognitive Development 

Piaget’s stage theory claims that biological development is the driving force of intellectual development. “From birth through adulthood, knowledge is constructed by the individual, the schemata of adulthood being built (constructed) from the schemata of childhood. In assimilation, the organism fits stimuli into the schemata that exist; in accommodation, the organism changes schemata to fit the stimulus” (Wadsworth, 1996:11, 20).

James (1899) said in Talks to Teachers, “In this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instructive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age” (p. 72).  He advices teachers that their goal is that of “building up useful systems of association” (p. 42), and they must be aware of the native and artificial interests of each of their pupils, whom he refers to as “little pieces of associating machinery” (p. 41).