Piaget For The Classroom Teacher

Professor Furth enlarges on Piaget's proposal that the goal in education is to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover operative structures.

'Do children have anything to teach teachers? Jean Piaget believes that they do. As a beginning teacher, I focused on elaborate preparation of explanations and demonstrations on content. To piaget and his co-workers I owe a special debt for their ingeneous methods of exploring children's thinking and their theory of intellectual development. A study of Piaget's work, together with direct observations of children, has been instrumental in my transition to another stage of development as a teacher.' -Ed Labinowicz

Abstract: Piagetian psychology offers an approach to education from a child development orientation. Piaget's concepts concerning learning, development and motivation may be especially useful to teachers of children of average ability who achieve below academic norms. The background and social science context of Jean Piaget's life and work is described. His conceptual framework for understanding the child in terms of stages of cognitive development is presented. From these developmental considerations come principles of 3 modes of learning--operative, figurative and connotative--as they apply to school curricula and the achievement of classroom skills. Motivational dynamics extending from the Piagetian philosophy are examined. Classroom applications of this approach provide teachers with methods for assessing children's levels of cognitive development or analyzing curriculum materials. The "Active Classroom" discusses how teachers can implement Piagetian insights in running school classrooms: principles of classroom practice are derived from concepts of child growth and development.

This second edition of Piaget for Educators represents a happy balance of the theoretical & practical aspects of Piaget's theory.