Chapter 2

Educational Psychology
Fourteenth Edition
Cluster 2
Cognitive Development
Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives
2.1 Provide a definition of development that takes into account
three agreed-upon principles and describe three continuing
debates about development, along with current consensus on
these questions.
2.2 Summarize research on the physical development of the brain
and possible implications for teaching.
2.3 Explain the principles and stages presented in Piaget’s theory
of cognitive development, including criticisms of his theory.
2.4 Explain the principles presented in Vygotsky’s theory of
development, including criticisms of his theory.
2.5 Discuss implications of Piaget’s and Vygotsky ‘s theories for
teaching.

Outline
• A Definition of Development
• The Brain and Cognitive Development
• Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
• Implications of Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories for
Teachers

A Definition of Development
• Orderly, adaptive changes in humans over time
– Occurring between conception and death
– Not temporary change caused by brief illness, accident
• Physical: Changes in body structure and function
• Personal: Changes in personality as one grows
• Social: Changes in ways of relating to others
• Cognitive: Gradual orderly changes by which mental
processes become more complex, sophisticated
• Maturation: Genetically programmed, naturally occurring
changes over time

Three Questions Across the Theories
1. Source of development? Nature versus Nurture
– Heredity/biology versus environment/culture
– Coaction: Joint actions of both
2. Shape of development? Continuity versus Discontinuity
– Continuous, quantitative change, steady progress; like
walking gradually up a ramp
– Discontinuous, qualitative change, stages of progress; like
walking up stairs (Piaget’s theory, for example)
3. Timing: Is it too late? Critical versus Sensitive Periods
– Critical time when specific abilities must develop (Freud)
– Sensitive periods of readiness for certain experiences

General Principles of Development
General principles supported by almost all theorists:
• People develop at different rates
– Students of same age vary in size, maturity
• Development is relatively orderly
– Abilities develop in logical order: Babble before talking
• Development takes place gradually
– Not overnight, but over time

The Brain and Cognitive
Development
Regions and developmental processes
• Brain stem – basic functions
• Cerebellum – balance, skilled movements
• Hippocampus – recall of new information, recent events
• Amygdala – emotions and aggression
• Thalamus – ability to learn, especially verbal information
• Corpus callosum – connects 2 hemispheres
• Frontal lobe – plan, make decisions, solve problems, think
creatively

Advances in Brain Imaging
• CAT (computerized axial tomography) 3-D images
• PET (positron emission tomography) localize and measure
brain activity
• EEG (electroencephalograph) measure electrical patterns
• ERP (event-related potential) assess electrical activity
• fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) measure
changes during brain activity
• NIR-OT (near-infrared optical tomography) assess brain
activity using infrared light through scalp

The Developing Brain: Neurons
• Neurons: Nerve cells; store and transmit information
– Processing capacity of small computer in each neuron
– Billions of neurons (gray matter) in infant one-pound brain
• Neurogenesis: Production of new neurons
– Continues into adulthood, especially in hippocampus
• Synapses: Tiny spaces between neurons
– Info sent by electrical signals & chemicals across synapses
to form synaptic connections
– Neuron’s axon is the sender; dendrites are receptors
• Synaptic plasticity: Brain’s tendency to remain flexible

Overproduction and Pruning
Processes
• At age 2 to 3, oversupply of neurons and synapses
• Only needed neurons survive; unused neurons pruned
• Two kinds of synaptic overproduction and pruning
– Experience-expectant: Await and expect stimulation
▪ Oversee general development in brain’s large areas
▪ If not stimulated, synapse pruning occurs
– Experience-dependent: Form in response to experiences
▪ Synaptic connections involved in individual learning
▪ Stimulating environments likely improve development
▪ Extreme deprivation negatively affects development

Glial Cells and Myelination
• Glial cells (white matter) fill spaces between neurons
– Many functions: Fight infection, control blood flow and
communication among neurons, provide myelin coating
• Myelination: Process of coating neural fibers
– Myelin coating: Insulating fatty glial covering
– Makes message transmission faster, more efficient
– Happens quickly in early years; continues gradually
into adolescence
– Makes message transmission faster, more efficient

The Developing Brain: Cerebral
Cortex
Cerebral cortex: Brain’s outer 1/8-inch-thick covering
• Thin sheets of neurons, 3 square feet in area, crumpled to fit
• 85% of brain weight, last brain part to develop
• Allows complex problem solving and language
• Regions mature at different rates, serve different functions
– First, area for physical motor movement
– Then, areas for complex senses (vision, hearing)
– Last, frontal lobe for higher-order thinking
– Much later, temporal lobes (emotions, judgment)

Lateralization
• Specialization of the brain’s two hemispheres
– Each hemisphere controls opposite side of body
– Left: Language processing
– Right: Spatial-visual information and emotions
(nonverbal)
• Specializations are not absolute, just more efficient
– Example: Language processed differently and
simultaneously by both hemispheres
• Mental activities require parts of brain to work together
– Right side better at figuring out meaning of a story while
left side understands grammar and syntax

Brain Development in Childhood and
Adolescence
• Childhood: Increasing interconnections, stored knowledge
• Adolescence: Increasing ability to control behavior
– Abilities not fully developed until early 20s
– Trouble avoiding risks and impulsive behavior
▪ “High horse power, poor steering”
– Explanation: Limbic system and prefrontal cortex
▪ Limbic system develops earlier
– Involved with emotions, risk taking, pleasure seeking
▪ Prefrontal lobe takes more time
– Involved with judgment, decision making
– Neurological system changes affect sleep

Putting It All Together: How the Brain
Works
• All experiences sculpt how the brain works
– Formal and informal learning, play, and practice
• Neurons, synapses in constant change – plasticity
• Cultural differences in brain activity during tasks
– Differences in parts of brain that are active during the
task
– Adding with abacus versus adding numbers on paper;
reading picture language (Chinese) versus words with
letters
• Build knowledge by doing, thinking

Neuroscience, Learning and Teaching
• Instruction affects brain development
– Leads to formation of new connections in brain
– Parts of brain can be trained to function in new ways
• Applications to reading, teaching, and learning
– Reading involves complex integration of systems
– Different students learn in different ways
– Effective teaching requires use of multiple approaches
• Applications to emotions and learning
– Emotions like anxiety interfere with learning
– Provide positive learning environment and teach strategies for
emotional regulation
• Beware of misapplications of neuroscience to education

Brain-Based Education
Truths debunk common myths (See Point/Counterpoint)
1. You use all your brain (not only 10%)
2. Playing musical instrument increases cognitive achievement (not
listening to Mozart as a baby)
3. You use both sides of brain (not “right brained,” “left brained”)
4. Children world-wide can learn 2 languages at once
5. Brains are changing all the time
6. Most people recover well from minor brain injuries
7. Physical exercise (not playing Sudoku) prevents decline
8. Human brain not biggest (sperm whale brain 5X bigger)
9. Heavy drinking damages dendrites (does not kill brain cells)
10. Critical differences exist between adolescent and adult brains

Lessons for Teachers: General
Principles (from Neuroscience) (1 of 2)
• Multiple ways to teach and to learn skills
• Use a range of modalities for teaching
• Use enriched active environments, flexible strategies
• Use graphic organizers, visuals, glossaries, other tools
• Neurological testing helps diagnose learning disorders
• Use real-life problems and concrete experiences
• Link new learning to prior learning
• Give feedback to help students’ brains make corrections
and improve learning

Lessons for Teachers: General
Principles (from Neuroscience) (2 of 2)
• Elaborate, extend, and apply concepts over time to form
strong connections
• Build useful associations with emphasis on large general
concepts (rather than small details)
• Use stories in teaching—beginning, middle, end
• Support learning by nurturing positive emotions, good
health habits
• Teach students to take responsibility for their learning

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development
• Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist, prodigy
– Developed model describing how humans make sense of
world by gathering, organizing information
– Insightful descriptions of children’s thinking, differences
between adult and child thinking
• Identified four factors that interact, influence cognitive
development
– Maturation: Genetically programmed biological changes
– Activity: Explore, observe, organize information
– Social transmission: Learn from others
– Equilibration: Apply our schemes to new information

Basic Tendencies in Thinking
• Organization: Tendency to arrange into categories
– Schemes: Categories of perceptions, experiences
• Adaptation: Tendency to adapt to environment
– Assimilation: Fit new info into existing schemes
– Accommodation: Alter schemes or create new ones
• Equilibration: Process of applying our schemes to
incoming information (how thinking changes)
– Disequilibrium: New information doesn’t fit existing
schemes
– Use assimilation and accommodation to create
equilibrium

Four Stages of Cognitive Development
• Sensorimotor: Age 0 to 2 years
– Learn through reflexes, senses, movement
• Preoperational: Around age 2 to 7 years
– Develop semiotic function; think logically in one
direction
• Concrete operational: Around age 6 or 7 to 11 years
– Master identity, compensation, reversibility
• Formal operational: Adolescence to adulthood
– Think hypothetically, abstractly, deductively

Infancy: The Sensorimotor Stage
• Thinking involves seeing, hearing, moving, touching,
tasting
• Understand object permanence
• Begin to construct mental representation
• Achieve logical, goal-directed actions
• Learn to reverse actions but not thoughts

Early Childhood to the Early Elementary
Years: Preoperational Stage
• Ability to see actions carried out and reversed mentally
• Ability to form and use symbols (semiotic function)
– Use language (symbol system) to represent objects,
actions
– Use symbols to pretend (play-drink from empty cup)
• Think logically in one direction (not reversible thinking)
• Egocentric and assume others experience the world the
way they do (single viewpoint)
• Difficulty with decentering and conservation principle

Guidelines: Helping Families Care for
Preoperational Children
• Use concrete props, visual aids
• Make instructions short, few steps; model processes
• Help child see other’s viewpoint; imagine how other person
feels, how they like to be treated
– Set clear rules for sharing; establish value of rules
• Provide hands-on practice with skills that help build more
complex skills
• Provide wide range of experiences
– Build foundation for concept learning and language

Later Elementary to the Middle School
Years: The Concrete-Operational Stage
• “Hands-on” thinking with concrete objects and situations
• Reasoning and ability to solve conservation problems
– Identity: Person or object remains same over time
– Compensation: Changes in one dimension can be
offset by changes in another
– Reversibility: Ability to think through a series of steps,
then mentally reverse the steps
• Classification: Grouping objects into categories
• Seriation: Arranging objects in sequential order according
to one aspect (size, weight, or volume)

Guidelines: Teaching the Concrete-
Operational Child
• Use concrete props, visual aids
– Timelines in history, 3-D models in science, diagrams
• Allow to manipulate objects, do hands-on experiments
• Use brief, well-organized presentations, readings
• Use familiar examples to explain more complex ideas
– Make relevant to their lives, their experiences
• Allow to classify/group increasingly complex objects/ideas
• Present problems that require logical, analytical thinking
– Use open-ended questions to stimulate thinking

High School and College: Formal
Operations
• Abstract thinking, coordination of multiple variables
• Deductive and inductive reasoning
• Hypothetico-deductive reasoning ability
– Identify all factors of a problem, then deduce and
systematically evaluate possible solutions
• Ability to imagine ideal worlds, utopias
• Adolescent egocentrism; sense of imaginary audience
• Level of thinking not reached by all high school students

Guidelines: Helping Students to Use
Formal Operations
• Use concrete-operational teaching strategies, materials
• Allow to explore many hypothetical questions
– Write position papers, debate issues, create utopias
• Allow to solve problems and reason scientifically
– They design experiments to answer questions
– They create logical arguments
• Teach broad concepts, not just facts
– Make materials/ideas relevant to their lives

Some Limitations of Piaget’s Theory
• Problems with the stage model
– Stages don’t represent inconsistency in children’s thinking
▪ Children conserve number before conserving weight
– Processes more gradual, continuous than stages imply
• Piaget underestimated children’s abilities
– Used problems too difficult, instructions too confusing
• Children’s cognitive development can be accelerated with
effective instruction
• Piaget overlooked important effects of child’s cultural and social
group (developmental differences among cultures)

Information Processing, Neo-Piagetian, and
Neuroscience Views of Cognitive Development
• Development of information processing skills: Attention,
memory capacity, learning strategies
– Improvement in executive functioning: Processes we
use to organize, plan, perform goal-directed actions,
use memory
• Neo-Piagetian theories: Information processing + Piaget
– Integrate findings about attention, memory, strategy
with Piaget’s insights about construction of knowledge
– View cognitive development stages as domain specific
• Neuroscience: Predictable levels of development
– From actions to representations to abstractions

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective
• Lev Vygotsky: Russian psychologist
– Believed human activities take place in cultural settings
– Social interactions shape cognitive development
• Sociocultural theory: Emphasis on interactions between
children and more knowledgeable members of society
– Co-construction of knowledge during social interactions
– Internalization of co-constructed processes by the child
• Views of role of social interaction in cognitive development
– Piaget: It creates disequilibrium, motivates change
– Vygotsky: It fosters development

Cultural Tools and Cognitive
Development
• Cultural tools: Allow people to communicate, think, solve
problems, create knowledge
– Real tools such as computers, plows, rulers
– Psychological tools such as symbol systems (numbers,
language, graphs)
▪ Used to mediate higher-order mental processes
• Cultural tool kit: Develops by exchange of signs, symbols,
explanations
– Transforms as children make sense of their world

The Role of Language and Private
Speech
• Language—critical to cognitive development
– To express ideas, ask questions, categorize concepts, link
past and future
• Private speech: Self-talk
– Piaget’s view: Sign of immaturity, collective monologue
▪ Type of egocentric speech preceding socialized speech
– Vygotsky’s view: Guide for children’s thinking
▪ Develops out of social interactions (internal verbal
thinking)
▪ Moving children in stages toward self-regulation
▪ Verbalized at young age; later becomes inner speech to
gain self-control (direct attention, solve problems, plan)

The Zone of Proximal Development
• Phase at which a child can master a task if given
appropriate help and support
– Area between child’s current performance and what
child could achieve with adult guidance
– Area in which instruction can succeed—appropriate
difficulty
• Private speech and the zone
– Teacher’s verbal prompts/structure provide scaffolding
to help child solve problems, complete tasks
– Adult support gradually reduced as child takes over
(may use self prompts as private speech/inner speech)

Role of Learning and Development
• Piaget
– Development: Active construction of knowledge
– Learning: Passive formation of associations; must wait
for readiness
– Cognitive development precedes learning
• Vygotsky
– Developmental processes: Set in motion by learning
– Learning: An active process, a tool in development,
does not have to wait for readiness
– Other people (social interactions) play significant role in
cognitive development

Limitations of Vygotsky’s Theory
• Humans are likely born with more cognitive tools than
Vygotsky or Piaget recognized
– Evidence: Young children figure out aspects of their
world before having chance to learn from culture or
teachers
• Major limitation: Vygotsky theory consists of general ideas
– Vygotsky’s death at age 38 before expanding,
elaborating on his ideas
– No time to detail applications of his theories for
teaching
– Applications constructed by others after his death

Implications of Piaget’s and
Vygotsky’s Theories for Teachers
• Piaget: What can we learn?
– Teach how to learn; children construct their own knowledge
– Understand and build on children’s thinking
– Keep disequilibrium just right to encourage growth
– Actively engage students in concrete experiences
• Vygotsky: What can we learn?
– Use imitation, instruction, and collaboration
– Scaffolding: Support learning with clues, tips
– Assisted learning: Strategic help in initial stages
– Teach in “magic middle”—zone of proximal development

Strategies to Provide Scaffolding and
Assisted Learning
• Model thought process for students; think out loud
• Use organizers, starters (who, what, why, how, what next)
• Do part of the problem with students
• Give hints, cues
• Encourage short-term goals, small steps
• Connect new learning to interests, prior learning
• Use graphic organizers (timelines, charts, tables, lists)
• Simplify tasks, clarify purpose, give clear directions
• Teach key vocabulary and provide examples

Guidelines: Applying Vygotsky’s
Ideas in Teaching
• Tailor scaffolding to students’ needs
– Models, prompts, sentence starters, coaching,
feedback
• Give students access to tools that support thinking
– Teach how to use tools, apps, strategies
• Build on students’ cultural funds of knowledge
– Tie assignments to family/community knowledge/skills
• Capitalize on dialogue and group learning
– Peer tutoring, cooperative learning strategies

Cognitive Development: Lessons for
Teachers
Big ideas about cognitive development
1. Requires both physical and social stimulation
2. Involves mental, physical, linguistic activity (experiment,
describe, discuss, reflect, write, solve problems)
3. What students already know is boring; what is beyond
their readiness is frustrating (target “magic middle”)
4. Provide challenge with support to keep students engaged
but not fearful

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