Week 2 has gone by very fast. This chapter has a lot of information in it. There are 2 very important theories that are very popular in education as well as in psychology - Piaget and Vygotsky. Since we have not learned about Vygotsky yet, let us focus on Piaget first. For each theory there are very important concepts that we need to pay careful attention to. In most of the literature written about Piaget's work, 3 very important concepts are named and described. They are:
1. Assimilation
2. Accomodation
3. Equilibration
Pick a child you know - your relative, a cousin, etc. and try to remember the behaviors you have seen. For each concept, explain it in your own words and provide an example.
I know this requires some thinking but my aim is to get you guys to be good writers. Think and then write Ok! Have fun!
Dr. I
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ReplyDeleteAssimilation is actually a process of absorbing new information into existing scheme. As for example, infants usually begin their early life style by sucking the mother’s nipple. Infants use their sucking scheme not only to suck the nipple instead for other purposes. I still remember about nephew. As he was 1 year old, he always grabs my fingers to suck. If I take him for a walk, I used to hold his hand carefully. At that time, he tends to suck my fingers. Besides that, he also uses his sucking scheme to suck the all the toys and things.
ReplyDeleteAccommodation is a process of adjusting the existed schemas to develop new ones, so that it could fit better in new environment or can adapt to the new information. As for example, a child will consume milk as the food for few months after born. Later, a child will start to eat liquid form of other food such as porridge . In later stages, the child enabled his/her self to consume solid food like rice with chicken and rice. It shows that how a child could accommodate him/her self into different type of food from their infancy and toddler hood level to early childhood stage. This is one of the examples of accommodation.
Equilibration means, the ability to interpret and respond to new things using existing schemas. As for example, I bought 5 sweets to my nephew. 3 red sweets and two yellow sweets. As showing one yellow coloured sweet to him, I asked him to give me 2 sweets from him. My nephew was actually returned the 2 yellow. He was unable to categorize it actually. He could have given one red and one yellow but he didn’t.
-kana-
Assimilation, Accommodation and Equilibration deals with the simple and natural nature of the human being to learn as life goes along. The difference between assimilation and accommodation is the fact that a person combines new input to pre-existing templates in assimilation while a person adjust and creates new templates to better fit a new environment in the process of accommodation. Equilibration, on the other hand, suggest that a person needs a balance between assimilating and accommodating.
ReplyDeleteIn the concept of assimilation, I have a cousin who is just around the age of 2. As a child, his first words were bizarrely out of the norm. His first words were "ball". His little mind and database, if you would call it, has already defined and built fields for a ball. Anything new information that he obtains from the environment and fits this field is undoubtedly a ball to him.
In accommodation, concepts and information that do not fit the pre-existing templates we already have creates the need to produce or adjust new templates and schemes to accommodate the new found information. Like any other child, it did not occur to me that riding a bicycle on two wheels would be more difficult than riding with training wheels because everyone could do it. It was not until i fell down that i realised my pre-existing templates of riding a bicycle differed from the reality and that i would have to accommodate and adjust my schemes of riding a bicycle in order to be able to ride on two wheels.
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteParents/care-givers like to surround the baby/child's environment with bright colours; the clothes the baby wears, the colour of the wallpaper/paint on the wall of the nursery, and the objects in his/her surroundings especially the colourful toys that often make sounds too! All these help to stimulate the child's mind.
All babies/ young children have simple skills that help them manipulate the objects in their surroundings. These sensorimotor skills are important in helping the child explore his/her environment that leads to better knowledge of the world. These skills are called schemas/ schemes.
The rattle is a popular toy with babies. A baby knows how to grab his/her favorite rattle from someone's hand and thrust it into his/her mouth. Thus the baby has learned this scheme well. So, when a baby's crying and his/her daddy shakes a bunch of keys (as the rattle is no where to be found)the baby easily transfers his/her “grab and thrust” scheme to the new object. This is called assimilation, assimilating a new object into a previously established scheme.
Next, when the baby is 'introduced' to another object such as a soft colourful ball with a bell inside, he/she will once again try to use his/her established scheme of "grab and thrust" with the ball. Adults are usually amused when watching a child trying to do this and failing. Many babies will try to squeeze the ball and drool all over it in the process of trying to fit the ball into its small mouth. Therefore, a new scheme "squeeze and drool" is adapted to the new object. This is called accommodation; accomodating an new scheme to a new object.
All babies learn to adapt new objects, concepts and ways of thinking through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. Thus, their understanding of the world increases gradually.
Equilibration is another process that a child goes through whereby he/she learns to adjust his/her schemes when encountering complex and different ways of thinking. Here the child needs to respond to complex thought that helps him/her futher gain a better understanding of the world and become an active participant in it. For example, a child may have learnt that humans can't fly but winged-insects and birds can because they have wings. So, when the child watches a penguin waddle its way to the sea instead of fly, he/she has to adjust this new concept that not all birds with wings fly because some have very heavy bones, making them unable to fly.
According to Piaget, he suggested two processes which are assimilation and accommodation to explain how children use and adapt their schemes. Assimilation takes place when a child deals with new information by adding the information into existing schemes. For example, my two-years-old cousin learned to call her father as “Daddy”. She added new information into her schemes for father that every man should call as “Daddy”. When she went to visit her grandparents, she called her grandfather as “Daddy”. Hence, assimilation takes place when she called other males (grandfather) as “Daddy” because her new scheme for father was referring to other males, not her father only. Although her father quickly corrected her that she should call him as “Grandpa” because her grandfather is her father’s father, but she could not understand the complicated relationship and why she should call that man as grandfather since she was in preoperational stage.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, accommodation takes place when a child changes his or her thinking by altering his or her current schemes in order to fit into the new information. For instance, my little cousin went to primary school when she was seven-years-old. According to Piaget, she was capable to make deductive reasoning. Her scheme for father modified that not all man should call as “Daddy”. She understood that she should call the only man who was her father as “Daddy”. She could draw logical inferences by joining some information together. Her scheme for father was a man who married her mother and stayed together with her. As a result, accommodation changed when her scheme for grandfather was modified. She did not simply call other man as “Daddy” anymore.
Piaget also explained equilibration is the process that encourages more complex thought and further understanding. Equilibration helps a child to adjust his or her schemes into a more balanced way. For example, my cousin might face disequilibrium when she was confused that why not all man should be called as “Daddy” based on the situation above when her father told her that she should not call her grandfather as “Daddy”. Therefore, she tried to make sense the new information by using transductive reasoning or illogical thinking when she was two-years old. She added information that any man with grey or white hair and do not stay with her should call as grandfather, while the only man who lives together with her is father. In other words, she is no longer confused between “father” and “grandfather”. When she was around seven years old, she tried to accommodate her schemes by modify the illogical thought and replaced with logical inferences to diminish the differences between the word “father” and “grandfather”.
In a nutshell, equilibration helps children to restore balance in mental process if there is disequilibrium between existing schemes and new schemes. In other words, it helps children to construct new schemes by adding new information into existing schemes (assimilation) or accommodate existing schemes into new schemes (accommodation).
adapt new knowledge.