Piagets Theory Of Cognitive Development

Piagets Theory Of Cognitive Development Jean Piaget was a Swiss development psychologist who was known for his work on epistemological studies. He is known for his major theory in the area of cognitive development. Cognitive development is a field of studies that emphasised on the neuroscience and psychology aspects of an individual. Development can be seen as process that takes part in every living human starting from bodily level up to cognitive level. The Websters Dictionary defines development as the series of changes which an organism undergoes in passing from an embryonic state to maturity. It is continuous process of expanding or becoming more advance in pursuit of new purposes. Cognitive best can be described as a process involved thinking, acquisition and storage of knowledge at the mental level of a brain. According to Piaget theory, our thinking process changes radically, because we constantly strive to make sense of the world through our senses, perception and experiences in life. (Woolfolk, 2011) According to Khanna (20l0), development in wider context is a progressive change to a greater maturity supported by physiological capacities and psychological capabilities. These changes can be further subcategorised into physical, emotional and intellectual. There are few general principles of development that occurs in all normal individuals. Development occurs at different rates in different individuals. This can be seen quite clearly during the infancy stage. There are cases where some babies start walking later that the expected age of 12 months. This normally can be seen in male babies and I personally can vouch for this statement as my own son; Pratham started walking only when he was 14 months old. Development is a continuous process. Development is continuous process as a child acquired new skills, these skills are added to the pre existence skills in a child and there is no stopping for further acquisition of skills as the child grows. This finding is best describes by the developmental stages theory of Piagets. During sensorimotor stage, a child learns by touching, association and imitation. This phenomenon can be seen clearly when a child repeats patterns in his play such as putting or taking an objects inside or outside a containers. This finding is further supported from a research that was done by Arnold Cath (2003) on a child named Harry. Development occurs in sequence of predictable and orderly stages. It is a known fact that human life is divided into few predicable and orderly stages which is expected of every normal individual in social settings. Robert Havighurst, an American educationalist introduced developmental tasks that characterise six development life stages from infancy and early childhood to later maturity. Another interesting theory of development was coined by Erik Erikson, popularly knows as Psychosocial Development. The main element of his theory emphasis psychosocial process, that development is subject to internal psychological factors and external social factors. This theory looks at eight stages of human life also knows as eight ages of man. According to Sugarman (2004), Erikson theory centre specific issues to resolve by an individual at given stage before moving to the higher stages per below table. Approximate age Issues centre around Important Event in Life 0 1 year Trust Feeding 1 6 years Autonomy Toilet training 6 10 years Purpose Independence 10 14 years Competence School 14 20 years Identity Peer relationship 20 35 years Intimacy Love relationship 35 65 years Generativity Parenting/Mentoring 65 years above Integrity Reflection and acceptance of ones life Development is influenced by heredity Each of us begin life at the moment of conception and hereditary traits are passed from parent to offspring through strings of microscopically small particles knows as genes. Therefore we are different from each other and development of individual is contributed largely by hereditary. According to Blackburn (2000), hereditary traits are transmitted by dominant genes over the weaker ones; an example of a disease that can be transmitted through hereditary is Diabetes. Development is influence by environment There is no denying; environment plays a very big role in human development process. Environment in this context covers social setting, cultural setting and language setting. Vygotskys believed that human activities take place in cultural settings and has a great influence on cognitive development. Vytosky assumed that cultural development appears twice, first on social level (interpsychological) and later on individual level (intrapsychological). For example an Indian child who is born in United States will have different perspective of things compare to an Indian child born in India due to differences in culture and social settings. Indeed, Piagets theory of cognitive development to certain extent has helped teachers to design or tailor made teaching materials to suit learners level of cognitive development but there are others factors too determine effectiveness of learning such as students readiness or motivation level. Piaget proposed theory can be divided into four stages: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational and Formal operational. Piaget emphasised more of the biological maturation of cognitive abilities for each stages. In order for us to understand better, Piaget stage development theory, we need to look closely at changes that happen in various stages proposed by Piaget. Sensorimotor stage The earliest period is called the sensorimotor and begins from birth to two years old. According to Richardson K (2010), infants enter the world with set of simple coordination which we called reflexes. One example of this is the sucking reflex when a child nurses from the mother. Later, when the infant is growing up, his reflex actions will be translated to goal-directed actions through several repetition activities. At this stage, a child develops object permanence, the understanding that objects exist whether they perceive them or not. During this time also, a child learns through imitation from his pre-exist surrounding. Preoperational stage This second stage of the theory is known as the preoperational stage spanning from the period of two to seven years old. According to Axelrod (1999), children are able to manipulate environment symbolically through inner representation by using word, gestures, images and signs. There is drastic development in language and thinking skills. Piaget believed at this stage a child is moving toward mastery but has not fully mastered the mental operations. Another unique characteristics developed during this stage is Egocentrism. The concept of egocentrism means children see the world from their viewpoint and not able to consider other peoples viewpoint. Concrete Operational stage This stage spans from the age of seven to eleven years old. At this age, a child has developed mental operations that allowed them to see and treat the physical world in logical and systematic order. A child at this age is able to provide justification by mastering conservation. According to Mitchell (2004), Piaget had indentified three important operations in conservation process: i) Compensation: Changes in one direction can be compensated by changes in another direction. ii) Identity: If nothing is taken away or added, the material remains the same. iii) Inversion: If the entire process is reversed, the quantity of the materials remains the same. At this point, a child is able making an orderly and sequential arrangement of an object based on size, weight or volume. This process is known as seriation which enable a child to construct logical series such as arranging object from small to large or vice-versa. Formal Operation stage This is the last stage of Piagets developmental theory. This stage ranges from eleven years to adulthood. According to Mitchell (2004) formal as used by Piaget mean well-mannered etiquette. Children at this stage, capable of systematic reasoning about things which take hypothetical form without having to see concrete objects. Students at this level are able to solve science experiments such as the pendulum problems. They are also able to solve algebra problems by using deduction method to derive at certain value. Adolescent at this age, exhibit a phenomena known as adolescent egocentrism. According to Stuart-Hamilton (2006), study conducted by Piaget examined, egocentrism does not refer to selfishness, rather a childs immaturity that whatever he or she can see is the viewpoint of everyone else as well. This is the feeling that they are the centre of attraction and leads to false sense of security, eventually increasing risk taking behaviour like participating in illegal racing, exper imenting with drugs and having unprotected sex. For teachers to fully understand and incorporate Piaget theory into teaching methodology, a teacher need to accept cognition is a process of adaption. According to Meadows (1986) based on Piaget theory, a child actively trying to make sense of the world by adapting to its environment. It proceeds via twin functional invariants of assimilation and accommodation. Before discussing further on assimilation and accommodation, ones need to understand schema first. Schema is a Greek word which means frame. Piagets believes schemas are the basic building blocks of thinking. It is representation of perception and experience of organized systems translates through action. Schemas can be very small or specific, for example cooking pasta. According to Roeckelein (2010), assimilation from Piagets theoretical viewpoint means incorporating new or modified ideas and concepts into a childs existing cognitive structure. Accommodation refer to the childs modification of ideas or concepts of the world in response to new experience that are inconsistent with previous knows idea or concepts. In another word, a person must change existing schema to respond to new situation. Every child in learning process strives to achieve state of equilibration. According to Woolfolk (2010) based on Piaget work, assimilation and accommodation can be viewed as a balancing act. Once the child is able to understand and registered new information in his schema, he achieved the equilibrium stage. Disequilibrium happen when current ways of thinking not working in solving a particular problem, thus the act out of balance occurred. In order for me, to plan an activity that promotes assimilation and accommodation, first I need to do some homework regarding the student Im going to teach. I need to find out their age and prior learning knowledge. For this activity, Im going to device an activity targeted for form one student (13 years old) conducting a lesson on compass direction (geography). It is easier for me to access their prior knowledge, as I have taught them at primary six during Kajian Tempatan period. The students already have basis knowledge of main compass direction (East, West, North and South)- Cardinal direction. Keeping in mind that my students are at formal operational stage which requires plenty usage of visual aids. Therefore in my lesson planning, I will have illustration of slides, diagram and video clipping when presenting new material. I will normally start my lesson by showing a short video clip about a sailor lost at deep sea. This is my normal practice for breaking the ice with students and gauges their interest in the lesson. Randomly I will pick up few students to analyze the video clipping. At this point, many of the students will be able to give the answer Im looking as students at this level are able to think hypothetically. Then I will ask them about their previous learning on this matter, which is compass direction. I will call a student to draw basic direction diagram on the board. In this way Im refreshing their memory to what they have learned during the primary years. Then I will show them a new power point slide on additional compass direction. (North East, South East, South West, North West) Ordinal direction. Compass direction is the schema already exists in student mind. Here, assimilation happen when students fit new information into existing information. Existing information is prior knowledge, which is cardinal direction and new information is ordinal direction (red colour). If you look at the below model, the students did not change their existing schema, rather incorporated new learning to prior learning experiences. Assimilation model NEW KNOWLEDGE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE SCHEMA W S N E NW NE N W Compass Direction E SW SE S ASSIMILATION ORDINAL DIRECTION CARDINAL DIRECTION Teaching the same students, from understanding basic compass direction, the next higher level of learning will be measuring degrees using protractor. Based on their prior learning, protractor was used in their mathematic subjects to find certain angels values. Here the student will faced certain degree of disequilibrium as current way of thinking, using protractor the mathematical ways will not solved problems in geography lesson. This required student to change existing schemas to respond to new situation, thus accommodation is taking place in students learning. In Mathematic, students are required to place the protractor horizontal ways to find value of angel, but in Geography students are required to place protractor the vertical ways to find degrees value. If you look at below model, the students have to change existing schemas to accommodate new learning. Accommodation model EXISTING SCHEMA Mathematical way NEW SCHEMA Geographical way Piagets development theory to certain extent can assist teachers to design teaching in delivering lesson but how effective the learning took parts would be another major concern for teachers. Piaget theory only proposed that learning occurs after development, but in certain cases, children are able to learn at earlier developmental stages. Piaget theory also fails to look at learner motivation which I personally believe is a very big factor in effective learning. Teachers as an educator plays the role of facilitator in imparting information, students on the other hand need to be more accountable of their own learning. There need to be a paradigm shift from teacher centric learning to student learning centric at school level in order to produce world class student.

Development of Tourism in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean, also often called the â€Å"The Pearl of the Indian Ocean†. Tourism in Sri Lanka has had its ups and downs. Such things like the civil war is now over, but for the past thirty years that the war was ongoing, a lot of people feared to travel to Sri Lanka and the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami . But despite all these events, the tourism in Sri Lanka is still one of the major profit generating industries. Sri Lanka may be a small island, but it has a lot to offer. From its beautiful beaches, to their exotic foods and diverse cultural heritage.The tropical weather in Sri Lanka is all year round except for the monsoon season which usually ranges from mid-year to the end of the year. Foreigners visit often to be in the warm weather. Sri Lanka has so many beautiful beaches that are still untouched and not commercialized. Over half a million tourists came to Sri Lanka in 2006. Other up and coming tourist attractions are precious stone mining in Ratnapura, â€Å"The Gem City† as it is known and also ecotourism. Travelers today like the idea of travelling while also doing their part to help preserve the environment.Buddhism has the biggest influence in molding Sri Lanka’s diverse cultural heritage and also a big factor in drawing in the crowds to Sri Lanka. From temples, relics, religious landmarks and Ayurveda. Sri Lanka has started its campaign on ecotourism and spa-like ayurvedic treatments, banking on the diverse flora and fauna found there. No matter what natural disaster or civil war comes upon Sri Lanka, its beauty and purity have made its mark on the world. There is no doubt that Sri Lankan tourism today is expected to reap the benefits after thirty years of struggle and the tragic tsunami, with hope and bright prospects on the horizon.

Teen Homlessness

Public Speaking Persuasive Speech Outline Imagine If You Didn’t Know Where You Were Going to Sleep Tonight Introduction: â€Å"If you don’t know where you’re putting your slippers at night, you can’t do algebra†. According to the National Coalition for the homeless, one out of every three homeless persons is under the age of 18. Between 1. 6 and 1. 7 million people under the age of 18 will experience homelessness this year alone.A homeless youth is someone who is 21 years of age and younger who is unaccompanied by a parent or guardian and is without shelter where appropriate care and supervision is available, whose parent or guardian are unable or unwilling to provide shelter and care or who lacks a fixed regular and adequate nighttime residence. Thesis: Tonight I want to speak to you about the problem of homeless youth, and what you can do to help these teens. Body: I: The truth about being homeless You don’t always see homeless youth. They aren’t all â€Å"living on the streets† their living in cars, their couch surfing, their sleeping in peoples hallways or stays at friend’s houses. * It’s the youth that can’t get help because their under 18 and you have to be 18 to rent an apartment unless you’re emancipated. Most landlords won’t rent to teens based on the assumptions about age and irresponsibility and few have never rented before and have no previous landlord to list as references. . * The biggest problem for most youth under 18 is they don’t have the finances to afford an apartment.Most 1 bedroom apartments go for about $400 – $800 a month. Why are they Homeless? * Some leave home because of parents fighting * Domestic Violence * Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Mental Abuse, Emotional Abuse * Parents done take care of them There are so many reasons why teens leave home. Sometimes they have no other choice to leave home. II: Statistics * As of January 200 9 there were 132 homeless teens in Lewiston High School, 32 homeless teens in Auburn High School and 52 teen enrolled In the Ace Program. That’s 215 homeless teenagers. Most of the youth that are homeless suffer from severe anxiety and depression, poor health and nutrition and low self- esteem. They also suffer from other mental health problems and most have substance abuse issues, as well as age – appropriate development and behavioral disabilities. Many are survivors of abuse, neglect, and violence. * Homeless youth often lack life and social skills necessary to, for example, take care of themselves well, maintain personal relationships, and hold a job as well as maintain an apartment. Over 60% of the youth that use any of the New Beginnings Programs have a mental health diagnosed. Now that I have explained to you the real reason why teen are homeless let me show you some ways that can help out these teens. III: Places who help youth * Lewiston and Auburn does have N ew Beginnings Shelter (491 Main Street) that can help teens from the ages 11 – 19. They have 12 beds and you can stay there for a maximum of 3 weeks depending on your circumstances. It is considered a â€Å"dry shelter† which means you are not a loud to use drugs or alcohol during your stay.They operate 24 hours a day and offers programs and supervision during the day. * New Beginnings Transitional Living Program (597 Main Street) provides housing and supportive services to help youth ages 16 – 19. They help youth learn and develop skills to live independently. These apartments have 24 hour on site staff supervision. * New Beginnings Community Living Program (436 Main Street) helps teens 18-22 provides then with an apartment which they may have a roommate living with them. Also provides case management and helps develop living skills.Youth have to be in school or working towards their GED or be working to stay at the CLP. New Beginnings also has Community Living Program in the Farmington and Augusta area. * Volunteers of America’s Lewiston – Auburn Homeless Youth Program is an outreach program that provides case management services to connect youth with safe housing and resources. As with the CLP you have to be in school or working toward their GED. VOA recently received a TLP grant and plans to provide scattered site apartment transitional living in he future. * New Beginnings Outreach Program (245 Lisbon Street) is a drop in center for youth ages 14-21 who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. The drop in center, open Monday through Friday in the afternoon, provides meals, laundry facilities, and supplies and clothing. For youth on a tight budget, these services can help them save money to put towards rent and bills. Other services they include are group activities, case management, help finding housing, referrals to other community resources.This morning I have giving you why the teens in Lewiston Auburn need your help. I have talked about the possible reasons why they are homeless; I have given you some statistics about the homeless in Lewiston and Auburn High School and told you about the places that help the youth here in Lewiston and Auburn. I am passing out a list of things that you can donate and the place that you can donate then to. I hope when you do your spring cleaning here in a few weeks that you remember those teens that are out there in the towns that you live in and think say I can help them.

Company Profile Bigmak - 2066 Words

L.C. BIGMAK BURGER, INC. Company Profile Lucena City, Quezon Philippines, 4301 CORPORATE HEAD OFFICE : SPC Compound, Diversion Road, Domoit, Lucena City 4301 CONTACT NUMBERS : Telephone Numbers Fax Number : (042) 373-5664 / 660-3655 / 373-0592 : (042) 373-7457 EMAIL ADDRESS : lcbmi01@yahoo.com WEBSITE : http://www.lcbigmak.com FOUNDING DATE : November 8, 1984 OWNERSHIP : Founded and operated - 100% Filipino INDUSTRY : Retail and Food Service NETWORK : Over 800 outlets with 12 branches nationwide BRANCH LOCATIONS NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES : ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · ï‚ · AGOO VIGAN ISABELA/CAGAYAN TARLAC BICOL CALABARZON MINDORO CEBU PANAY ISLANDS NEGROS SAMAR/LEYTE - Agoo, La Union Bantay, Ilocos Sur San Fermin, Cauayan, Isabela San†¦show more content†¦This building became the new office and production area. At this time, the LC Big Mak Burger, Inc. had thirty (30) outlets that served the public from Lucena City to San Pablo and other various towns of Quezon, Batangas, Laguna and and eventually had gone up to more than 100 outlets in Calabarzon areas. Starting the year 1988 and for the succeeding next five (5) years, LC Big Mak Burger, Inc. ventured into more branches in Metro Manila and nearby towns of Cavite, Rizal and Bulacan. Neopolitan areas covered more than 50 outlets. Going to the North up to Tarlac, La Union and Ilocos. Expansion has widespread that it covered sideways of the eastern part of Luzon to Isabela and Cagayan. Total outlets established were more than 200 outlets. Within these five (5) years of operation, LC Big Mak Burger, Inc. has covered the entire Luzon. These expansion programs were brought rapidly by the profitable venture and increased sales. The company acquired properties in Tarlac, Isabela and in Quezon City, which housed the branch offices, bakeries and depots. Several food centers were also opened on these periods. During the same period, due to the continuing expansion coverage of area of operation, the demands for additional delivery and transport service was needed. The management created a trucking and motor pool service to support its operation, thus the MDL Trucking Services (which was named after their 3 children, Mark, Dave