IP&T 301: Developmental Cognition Lesson Plan

By incorporating Piagetian constructivist learning principles in my lesson, I believe that I could really improve the quality of my lesson. Some Piagetian concepts I would take into account would be:

1. Stage-based learning: Because my students would mostly still be in the preoperational stage of development, I would make sure I did not expect too much of them. I need to understand that there are certain concepts and ways of thinking that are above their developmental abilities. Many of my students will not have mastered mental operatioins, so they may struggle with some logical thinking. Therefore, I will need to guide their thinking to help them learn about different shapes while not expecting them to have a perfect understanding of the things I teach them.

2. Uniqueness of individual learning: Each of my students will learn differently and will have different schemas that they are working with. Because everyone will come to my classroom with different backgrounds and experiences, I will need to tailor my instruction to best meet the needs of each individual member of the class. I will base my teaching strategies on the individual learning styles and experiences of my students.

3. Experience that involves action: Children mature and become increasingly able to act on their environment and learn from what they experience. As children physically interact with the environment, they are often able to visualize things much more easily. In order to help my students learn more effectively, I will involve them in physically interacting with shapes and other objects in the classroom to help them internalize the lesson on shapes much more easily.

4. Necessity of social interaction: Acording to Piaget, a great deal of what we learn comes through social interaction. Lots of the knowledge we gain is offered by our culture, and without social interaction, we would have to develop a lot of this knowledge on our own. Because I believe that social interaction will help my students understand shapes much better, I will lead class discussions about shapes and give them opportunities to work in small groups to help teach each other.

I will use the following concepts in my lesson:

Adaptation: In order to make sure the new information I teach my students is really internalized and makes sense to them, I will help them to connect the information I teach them to the schemas they already have through assimilation. If adjustments to their existing schemas, I will help them to use accommodation to make sense of any new information that doesn't fit in their existing ideas. As we explore the various characteristics of shapes, I will help them to expand their understanding of what certain shapes can look like by giving them many different examples. (Ex: show them that a square is also a type of rectangle, and rectangles can also be short and wide, thin and tall, etc.) By doing this, the students will not think that there is only one way to make certain shapes.

Disequilibrium: When disequilibrium occurs and the children are having trouble making sense of the lesson, I will ehlp them to use assimilation and accommodation to comprehend the new information. Also, I will recognize that disequilibrium is a very important part of learning, and it is not a bad thing for the children to struggle through concepts a little.

Schemas: My students will come with all different schemas because they all come from different backgrounds and have had very different experiences. Therefore, I will need to use lots of different examples in my teaching as some will be meaningful to certain students while other examples will be more meaningful to different students. If I use a variety of different objects as examples of the various shapes I am teaching about, the students will be more likely to be able to make connections with some of them and have more meaningful learning.

Discovery or Guided Discovery Learning: After talking about the different aspects of shapes, I will give the children the opportunity to learn thrugh guided discovery by finding various shapes around the room and figuring out what they are. I will give them the opportunity to work in small groups so they have social interaction and are able to talk about their findings with their peers. This will help them to develop a deeper understanding of shape names and characteristics. Also, I will take them outside to see all the shapes in the natural environment. I will let them explore outside on their own so that they have the opportunity to really discover for themselves that shapes are all around them.

Classification: Because many of my students will still by in the preoperational stage of development, some of them may struggle a little with the classification of the shapes we learn about. With my knowledge of Piaget's developmental stages of learning, I will recognize that these students may have simply not developed to that point yet. Therefore, I will not be pushy with my students, and I will not expect too much of them. If they are not ready to classify shapes, I will not require them or push them to do so.