Piaget the Biologist

• Piaget was trained as a biologist.  He believed that human intelligence and biological
  organisms operated in the same manner.

• Both are organized, and constantly adapting based on their interaction with the environment.

• Cognitive structures are constructed as needed- not predetermined



According to Piaget, Knowledge  . . .

• is a process that is created by the acts of the learner

• is constructed by the individual attempting to make sense of the world

• does not exist independent of the individual

• is not some entity that exists in the world

    *These ideas are generally associated today with the constructivist philosophers and educators of the 1980's and 1990's.  However, they are clearly rooted in the work of Piaget and others from the early 1900's.



Piaget’s Basic Assumption

• Cognitive development is a process fueled by the individual’s ongoing attempts to make sense of the world.

• Development is influenced by maturation, social transmission, equilibration



Basic Tendencies in Thinking

• Organization: Humans have a tendency to organize thinking processes into psychological structures/schemes

• Adaptation: Humans hasve a tendency to adapt to the environment through complementary processes of assimilation and accommodation- a process known as equilibration.

    • Equilibration: a balance among organization, assimilation, accommodation

    • Disequilibration: failure of a scheme to produce a satisfying result, so the search continues
       through assimilation and accommodation.



 

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