Assimilation and Accommodation
Assimilation and Accommodation
Jean Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through: * Assimilation, which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation. * Accommodation – this happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation. * Equilibration – occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, a state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation) . Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge. (accommodation). Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.
Example
A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. The child will assimilate the man as a clown. This is assimilation. And when the father explain to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing funny costume and wasn’t doing thing to make people laugh. This is accommodation. And with this new knowledge, the boy is able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown.”
According to Piaget, teaching can support these development processes by stages of Development.
A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a mental model of the world. Jean Piaget was interested both in how children learnt and in how they thought.
Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence, and carried out many of his own investigations using his three children. He used the following research methods:
Naturalistic observation: Piaget made detailed
Jean Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through: * Assimilation, which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation. * Accommodation – this happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation. * Equilibration – occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, a state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation) . Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge. (accommodation). Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.
Example
A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. The child will assimilate the man as a clown. This is assimilation. And when the father explain to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing funny costume and wasn’t doing thing to make people laugh. This is accommodation. And with this new knowledge, the boy is able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown.”
According to Piaget, teaching can support these development processes by stages of Development.
A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a mental model of the world. Jean Piaget was interested both in how children learnt and in how they thought.
Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence, and carried out many of his own investigations using his three children. He used the following research methods:
Naturalistic observation: Piaget made detailed