Parents and Educationists recognize the crucial importance of good quality education in the early years. The experiences and environment the children are exposed to in the first five years, when the seeds for learning are sown in the blossoming brain, have a great impact on the child’s life. We recognise that learning shifts from age to age. A three year old is not a five year old, but a perfect three year old. Children at different age levels have different needs and ways of learning.
Young children love to play and are naturally curious. They are full of love and purity. Games, puzzles and educational activities need to be incorporated in the syllabus, so that the children learn new skills in both a fun and challenging way. We know that children learn best when they are enjoying themselves. One of our main aims should be for children to develop a joy for life-long learning.
School is often the first time the children are away from home, so the classroom becomes a new family. An atmosphere must be created in which each individual is respected, loved and cared for. Children learn to grow and learn together in a cooperative environment. In games they learn to work together as a team. Students need to be provided with opportunities to work in small groups, so that the teacher has more individual time with each child. We should have a daily organised routine with a variety of activities for the children to experience learning in a stimulating environment.
Students need to start the day with a few minutes of meditation. This helps them to relax, develop their inner peace and be more focused. They also ought to have a daily period for Life Skills, in which they learn to take care of themselves and others. They need to learn how to share, become a good human being, learn good manners, and polite social interactions. They also must learn to appreciate multicultural diversity and the common elements of different religions.
We must incorporate kinaesthetic learning – learning through movement, in the learning process. Physical activities are a fun way to learn the alphabet, numbers and many environmental topics. Children love to move, jump and run. Children process new information through their whole body, in kinaesthetic learning. Some children learn best through their sense of touch, they are called tactile learners. Such children flourish when they can paint, and create things with their hands. These art and craft activities need to be linked to topics they are learning. They also love educational aids and manipulative. School is not about sitting still the whole day.
The preschool years are not the time to engage the children in lengthy memorization exercises. Children at this age develop their thinking processes in the context of play and physical activities.
During the year there ought to be special theme days, like an Alphabet Party or a Number Day. On these days the whole day has to be packed with role play, games, music, and craft activities related to the topic.
We need to be aware that children are keen observers. How we speak, listen and interact with others needs to be loving and polite. Children quickly pick up our attitudes and behaviour traits. By modelling how we want our children to behave and the skills we want them to learn, we do the best in creating a congenial atmosphere for learning and growing.
After modelling we also need to give children the opportunity to do things on their own. Learning through doing has to be a key word at all Schools. Mistakes are okay, and part of the learning process. We remember 90 % of what we do, whereas we remember very little of what we read. Our teachers should be committed to providing the best possible learning experience for your children. Encouragement is an important word for children. Words of encouragement work wonders. We need to help our students develop self confidence. All of these efforts make a School a wonderful place for a child to grow.
Friday, January 2, 2009
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT.
Jean Piaget needs no introduction to a trained-teacher. Every teacher receives some exposure to the theories of Piaget during his training. Piaget’s notions of assimilation and accommodation are probably the most commonly known and the most easily interpretive of Piaget‘s theories.
The fact that is intrinsic to Piagetian theory and the one that must be reiterated in regard to these two concepts and indeed to the totality of his theory is that at no point in the child’s intellectual development does Piaget consider the child as the passive recipient in the acquisition of knowledge. His theory rests on the fact that the intellect is active in the development of knowledge
The young child in the process of assimilation continually reaches out, touches, and tastes accessible elements in the environment. Piaget categorizes this earliest of stages as the sensori-motor stage in the development of the child. In the process of assimilating external reality, the child gradually moves towards a system of classification. This process of assimilation, however, remains comparatively uninhibited in the early stages of a child‘s life. Later when the child reaches the age of two or three, the process involve contradictions which result in disequilibration in the knowledge previously attained. The child seeks equilibration and resolves the problem through a process of accommodation. It is this process that contributes substantially to the development of the child’s intellect.
The processes of assimilation, accommodation and equilibration are life–long processes.
At the later stages of intellectual development, more sophisticated processes are developed, yet it is this disequilibration that is at the heart of intellectual development. The interaction of the human intellect and the environment results in increasingly complicated systems of knowing, and assists the individual in attaining advanced stages of knowledge. These stages called SCHEME (Plural schemes) by Piaget develop progressively, and although Piaget suggests ages at which they occur, the limits have been determined empirically from numerous investigations in Geneva and elsewhere.
According to Piaget, although the age limits are not rigidly delimited, each stage must nevertheless be attained in the proposed sequential order: - sensori-motor stage, Pre-operational stage, Concrete operational stage and Formal operational stage.
FOUR PERIODS OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
PERIODS APPROXIMATE AGE RANGESensori-motor Birth-1 ½ - 2 years
Pre-operational 1- ½ - 2 – 6-7 years
Concrete Operational 6-7 – 11 – 12 years
Formal Operational 11-12- through adulthood.
The ages at which these stages are attained has much to do with the development of the individual child and environmental factors.
Another important characteristic of learning is the process of reversibility. The question of reversibility has significance for the development of knowledge, especially in mathematics and the sciences. The ability of the pupil to grasp the process of reversibility contributes significantly to more comprehensive learning. The application by teachers of this process in teaching; for example, addition with its converse subtraction and multiplication with division, provides the pupil with the opportunity to improve learning.
“I recall one evening of profound revelation. The identification of God with life itself was an idea that stirred me almost to ecstasy because if enabled me to see in biology the explanation of all things and mind itself…… The problem of knowing (properly called the epistemological problem) suddenly appeared to me in an entirely new perspective and as an absorbing topic of study. It made me decide to consecrate my life to the biological explanation of knowledge.” ………..PIAGET
The fact that is intrinsic to Piagetian theory and the one that must be reiterated in regard to these two concepts and indeed to the totality of his theory is that at no point in the child’s intellectual development does Piaget consider the child as the passive recipient in the acquisition of knowledge. His theory rests on the fact that the intellect is active in the development of knowledge
The young child in the process of assimilation continually reaches out, touches, and tastes accessible elements in the environment. Piaget categorizes this earliest of stages as the sensori-motor stage in the development of the child. In the process of assimilating external reality, the child gradually moves towards a system of classification. This process of assimilation, however, remains comparatively uninhibited in the early stages of a child‘s life. Later when the child reaches the age of two or three, the process involve contradictions which result in disequilibration in the knowledge previously attained. The child seeks equilibration and resolves the problem through a process of accommodation. It is this process that contributes substantially to the development of the child’s intellect.
The processes of assimilation, accommodation and equilibration are life–long processes.
At the later stages of intellectual development, more sophisticated processes are developed, yet it is this disequilibration that is at the heart of intellectual development. The interaction of the human intellect and the environment results in increasingly complicated systems of knowing, and assists the individual in attaining advanced stages of knowledge. These stages called SCHEME (Plural schemes) by Piaget develop progressively, and although Piaget suggests ages at which they occur, the limits have been determined empirically from numerous investigations in Geneva and elsewhere.
According to Piaget, although the age limits are not rigidly delimited, each stage must nevertheless be attained in the proposed sequential order: - sensori-motor stage, Pre-operational stage, Concrete operational stage and Formal operational stage.
FOUR PERIODS OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
PERIODS APPROXIMATE AGE RANGESensori-motor Birth-1 ½ - 2 years
Pre-operational 1- ½ - 2 – 6-7 years
Concrete Operational 6-7 – 11 – 12 years
Formal Operational 11-12- through adulthood.
The ages at which these stages are attained has much to do with the development of the individual child and environmental factors.
Another important characteristic of learning is the process of reversibility. The question of reversibility has significance for the development of knowledge, especially in mathematics and the sciences. The ability of the pupil to grasp the process of reversibility contributes significantly to more comprehensive learning. The application by teachers of this process in teaching; for example, addition with its converse subtraction and multiplication with division, provides the pupil with the opportunity to improve learning.
“I recall one evening of profound revelation. The identification of God with life itself was an idea that stirred me almost to ecstasy because if enabled me to see in biology the explanation of all things and mind itself…… The problem of knowing (properly called the epistemological problem) suddenly appeared to me in an entirely new perspective and as an absorbing topic of study. It made me decide to consecrate my life to the biological explanation of knowledge.” ………..PIAGET
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