hello and welcome to teachings in education i am your narrator frank avella here we are going to take a look at jean piaget's theory of cognitive development we will explore a number of different topics and specifically take a look at his four stages of cognitive development we'll begin with a little bit of a look at jean piaget himself jean piaget is a swiss psychologist famous for his work with children and his theory on cognitive development piaget is a pioneer in the field of children's education he fundamentally changed the way that educators view how a child learns piaget had a fondness for biology early on in his life and later on he integrated his liking for philosophy before psychology he was trained in natural history and philosophy regarding philosophy his focus became epistemology which is described as a branch of philosophy that is concerned with knowledge and rational belief systems now let's review some of the important ideas used by piaget he spoke of schemas which are different categories of learning that we use to understand the world around us schemers are the building blocks of knowledge assimilation is another important term assimilation is where we change new information to fit into a schema for example when a child learns the word dog they might call all four-legged animals dogs even horses for example next is an accommodation where an adult may tell the child that you know what this is a dog and differentiate between a dog and a horse by showing examples an important idea of piaget is that children are active learners and that they precipitate their own learning process learning is a response to something new now we'll do a brief overview of piaget's cognitive development theory the theory describes that cognitive development in children essentially the theory breaks down cognitive development into four different stages each stage represents a different level of mental development in the child during his time piaget's theory was thought as an important landmark in the field of psychology his work led to the findings and research of many many others who followed in his footsteps interestingly he actually used his own children of which he had three for his own research some so that is a potential problem now let's get to the four stages of cognitive development the first stage is the sensory motor stage this stage lasts from birth age to about two years old here children experience the world through their senses and movement children exhibit a variety of different reflexes rooting is one example also you'll see them gazing into the world an important component is object permanence where children learn that objects continue to exist even when that child leaves the room so at first they're afraid that their teddy is gone forever during this stage children will continually suck on their thumbs also reflective and soothing for the child children also become increasingly mobile crawling and then walking and they learn their actions cause real consequences in the world around them uh right now i'm going to take a quick break and ask that you please subscribe to this channel hit the thumbs up button and give it a like as well and check the description links for our powerpoint to this presentation now let's get back to it the next stage is the pre-operational stage this stage lasts from age two up until about the age seven in this stage children are able to think about things symbolically during this time children will engage in pretend play may be thinking that they're a superhero they may have an imaginary friend children are also able to have object representation for example they might they may draw pictures of their families and assign defining characteristics in the picture to those family members children during this stage are also egocentric meaning that they basically only think about themselves they don't imagine the other person's point of view also children in this stage are very curious about life a kindergarten teacher gets asked more questions than you can think of the third stage is concrete operational stage in this stage children begin to think logically about concrete results children become better at classifying objects for example differentiating between books and magazines consider their characteristics the idea of conservation develops and children learn that you can take sand out of one box and move it into another box and there is still the same amount of sand nothing changed inductive logic is a component children are able to solve concrete hands-on problems in a logical manner they also understand the idea of reversing children become less egocentric and begin to understand someone else's point of view exists [Music] and now on to the last of the four stages which is the formal operational stage this stage lasts from about age 12 and beyond here children understand the abstract and deductive reasoning abstract thinking is the ability to understand concepts that are real such as freedom or being vulnerable but which are not directly tied to physical or concrete objects and experiences children also become more of a scientific thinker they're able to take their logic and apply it to problem-solving situations during this stage children begin to develop their own sense of identity they begin to think who they are what's their place in this world and lastly children begin to take up social issues and social causes of justice they begin to examine their own morals so that about sums up our four stages of cognitive development now we're going to take a look at some criticism on the four stages the first criticism being that there are actually cultural differences whereas some children of one culture may be educated and pushed earlier on other children are held back a second criticism is that his stages are inaccurate some of the landmarks in various stages don't align in real life third psja may have underestimated the children's capability where they're actually able to perform things in a certain stage where piaget thought they would not be able to perform and lastly his theory for cognitive development lacked scientific control something that that is needed for all scientific experiments so right now i just want to say thank you for your time take a look at the big picture here don't forget to subscribe hit the thumbs up and like this video and check the description for links to a powerpoint as well thank you