Compare And Contrast Piaget's Theory Of Schema Development

Piaget had a very simplistic theory on schema development, in my opinion, compared to Vygostsky. However, Piaget’s theory was used and agreed upon by many others. He theorized that, development predates learning. This means that he believe humans, especially newborns and infants, portray their surrounding world through mental schema and this is what enables us to interpret and understand our environment. Piaget refers to schemas as a way for individuals to organize their knowledge. He theorized that individuals learn when they go through a situation that their mental schema can not process easily and this leads to disequilibrium. To re-equalize, according to Paigets theory, the mind has to adapt to using a new skill or assimilate some new information.

He pointed out that children do not learn only passively, they also learn actively to try and understand things around them. Piaget also pointed out that as children learn and grow up, they develop schemas and those schemas become more elaborate and plentiful. His theory was that children at different ages can do different things and that they think differently. When he thought this, he out the ages into four separate stages. Piaget’s four stages of development included sensorimotor, from birth to age two, pre-operational stage, from age two to age seven, concrete operational stage, from age seven to age eleven, and the formal operational stage, from age eleven to adolescence and adulthood. Piaget thought that children try to link new knowledge with their existing schemas and that they either use assimilation or accommodation to do so. Assimilation is when an individual uses their existing schema to overcome a new situation or object. Accommodation happens when the person's schema does not work in the situation and they have to change it. He believed that assimilation and accommodation were things that were not taught but