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Cognitive Development

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Cognitive Development
Abstract

This report looks at cognitive development of an adolescent through the use of Piaget’s pendulum task, and aims to assess the level of cognitive development with comparison to literature in the field and furthermore provide suggestions of how a teacher could enhance the subjects learning in one key learning area.

Pieget’s studies have been based around cognitive development. The development has 4 major stages. Each stage enables the person to develop ways of knowing. This report concentrates on the fourth stage, the formal operational stage. Critics of Piaget’s work are looked at and ideas such as learning, mentors and structures are looked at.

It was found that while the results of previous Piaget’s tests were replicated, the observations suggest that the results can not be assessed through Piaget’s work alone. Furthermore, to enhance the learning of the subject it was found that the NSW geography curriculum has the potential with appropriate teacher stimulus to adequately provide for the student, although literacy could be focused upon.

Introduction
This report looks at cognitive development through the use of Piaget’s pendulum task. The pendulum task asks a person to figure out the variable that makes the pendulum swing faster, that is, increase the frequency. The way in which someone goes about the task is supposed to give an insight into the person’s level of cognitive development.

Fundamental to Piaget’s work is that the brain and the environment interact in producing cognitive development, and that this development can be broken up into four major stages (Gleitman, 1995). Berger (1998) in review of Pieget (1952, 1970) states that these stages are age related, in that children generally reach each stage within a particular age range in sequence. As a child enters into each stage they develop new ways of knowing and understanding (new ways of gathering intelligence) as defined by the boundaries of that stage.

In respect to the age



References: Adey, P. Robertson, A & Venville, G. (2002). Effects of a cognitive acceleration program on Year 1 pupils. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 72, pp.1-25. Adey, P. (1997). It All Depends on the context, Doesn’t It? Searching for General Educable Dragons. Studies in Science Education. (29), pp.45-92. Adey, P. Shayer, M. (1993). An Exploration of Long-Term Far-Transfer Effects Following an Extended Intervention Program in High School Science Curriculum. Cognition and Instruction. 11(1), pp.1-29. Berger, K. S. (1998). The Developing Person Through the Life Span. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. Gleitman, H. (1995). Psychology. 4th ed. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company. Hallam, R. N. (1967). Logical thinking in history. Educational Review, 119, pp.182-202. Inhelder , B. & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolenscence: An essay on the construction of formal operational structures. New York: Basic books. Siegler, R. Liebert, D. & Liebert, R (1973). Inhelder and Piaget’s Pendulum Problem: Teaching Preadolescents to Act as Scientists. Developmental Pschology. 9(1), pp.97-101.

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