Group items tagged

You can find the famous basis of Piaget's developmental stages via demonstrations.

I did such an experiment to my 2,5 year old cousin. I asked for his mother to bring 2 tea glasses with full of water and 2 water glasses one of which was wide and short and one of which was narrow and tall. Next, I asked my cousin if the water amount is the same in both tea glasses. She said "Yes". Then I said "now watch carefully" and slowly poured one of the tea glasses into the wide&short glass and poured the other one into the narrow&tall one. In narrow&tall glass, the level of water seems above from the wide&short one despite the fact that the amount of water is the same in both glasses. Then I asked if water amount of the glasses is the same. And she answered "No, there is much more water in the narrow&tall water (She was pointing to level of water in narrow&tall glass with her finger while telling it)" Then I asked for 6 biscuits from her mother and separated them into 2 groups each of which contain 3 biscuits. Then asked if they are the same and she said "Yes". After that, I took one of the group which contains 3 biscuits and divided each biscuits so that numerically they looks like there are 6 biscuits with half length. Now I had 2 groups one of which had 3 standard biscuits and the other one contained 6 biscuits pieces with half length of standard biscuits. Afterwards I asked her again if the amount of the biscuits are the same in each group and she says "No". When I ask "why" she said, " This one is much because it has more biscuits(by pointing out the group containing 6 biscuits pieces)" It was nice to see such an experiment. It means that children at a specific developmental stage process their observations in line with their own perceptions, not the ones adults have and as such it supports the idea that children build their own knowledge by making interpretations on what they see, on what they interact with the world.

Good for concrete understanding of Piaget's approach