EDUC 311: FACILITATING LEARNER-

CENTERED TEACHING

MODULE 3

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

The term Cognitive learning derives its meaning from the word cognition, defined by an electronic
dictionary, as “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,
experience, and the senses.” Thus learners are viewed to learn by using their brains. In the process, they are
actively engaged in mental activities involving perception, thinking, and relying on their memory as they process
new experiences. Through the connections of these old and new experiences, the acquisition of knowledge and
understanding results exist.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, the student must have:
1. Explained the meaning of cognitive learning theories;
2. Differentiated the cognitive learning theories by citing their key features
3. Cite empirical proofs of the cognitive learning theories
4. Identified the teaching implications of the cognitive learning theories

CONTENT

Lesson 1:

PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY

In his theory of cognitive development, Jean Piaget argued that children’s development is influenced
by biological maturation and their interaction with the environment. Children undergo a similar order of stages of
development. Owing to varied circumstances, the children are exposed to, the rate at which children go through
the stages differ. Some children may even miss the later stages of cognitive development.
How Learning Occurs
To explain how cognitive development happens, Piaget introduced the concepts of schema, assimilation,
and accommodation. He defined schemas as “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component
actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning” (Piaget, 1952. It is the person’s way of

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organizing knowledge. Viewed like the central processing unit of a computer, schemata (plural form) are like
individual files representing an aspect of the world like objects, actions, and concepts. Schemata guide the
person’s way of responding to a new experience. Piaget used the term adaptation to refer to the ability to adjust
to a piece of new information or experience, making it possible for the person to cope with the change. If the
person can adapt to every experience, learning happens.
Consider the story of Jayden, a boy who is no more than 2 years old, who formed the concept of “dog”
as he played very often with Starbucks, a Shih Tzu, the family dog. When introduced to a poodle, he called the
same as “dog”. One day, he saw the neighbor’s cat and shouted “dog” to get the attention of his mother.
Jayden’s schema for dogs includes having a small furry body, with four legs, a waggling tail, and barking
ability. Calling the poodle “dog” is a case of assimilation, the process of taking new information into the existing
schema. When the mother explained that dogs bark but cats meow, Jayden accommodated the new experience,
thus, his schema for “cats” was created. Accommodation involves changing or altering existing schemas owing
to the new information provided or learned. The balance between assimilation and accommodation is achieved
through a mechanism, which Piaget called equilibration. This ability is believed to be a factor in children’s ability
to move from one stage to another in cognitive development. If the person is unable to take a balance of these
two processes, disequilibrium occurs (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Adaptive processes of schema development. Adapted from McLeod (2018).

Stages of Cognitive Development

To Piaget, cognitive development among children has four phases (see Figure 4). Children generally
move through these different stages of mental development. Each stage describes how children acquire
knowledge and the nature of intelligence.

Figure 4. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.

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 The milestones in terms of cognitive abilities children manifest in the different stages are summarized
as follows:
Stage Milestones
Sensorimotor Learns through reflexes, senses, and movement – actions on the environment. Begins to
(0 – 2 years) imitate others and remember events; shifts to symbolic thinking. Comes to understand that
objects do not cease to exist when they are out of sight-object permanence. Moves from
reflexive actions to intentional activity.
Preoperational Begins about the time the child starts talking, to about seven years old. Develops language
(2 – 7 years) and begins to use symbols to represent objects. Has difficulty with past and future- thinks
in the present. Can think through operations logically in one direction. Has problems
understanding the point of view of another person.
Concrete Operational Begins about first grade, to early adolescence, around 11 years old. Can think logically
(7 – 11 years) about concrete (hands-on) problems. Understands conversation and organizes things into
categories and in series. Can reverse thinking to mentally “undo” actions. Understands the
past, present, and future.
Formal Operational Can think hypothetically and deductively. Thinking becomes more scientific. Solves abstract
(12 years and up) problems logically. Can consider multiple perspectives and develops concerns about social
issues, personal identity, and justice.
Adapted from Woolfolk (2016)
Sensorimotor Stage. Children at this stage think through what they see, hear, move, touch, and taste.
Two major accomplishments happen at this stage. One is object permanence, the belief that an object still exists
even if not within the sight of the child. Even when the mother leaves for work, the child is aware that the mother
comes home in the afternoon. The other major achievement children demonstrate in this stage is goal-directed
actions. Initially, children do not think about what they do these actions are instinctive and involuntary (e.g., getting
food and family attention). Later, Piaget believed that as children grow, they begin to think about what they need
to accomplish, how to do it, then act on it.
Preoperational Stage. At this stage, children have not yet mastered mental operations because they
use action schemes connected to physical manipulations, not logical reasoning. By operations, it means actions
a person carries out by thinking them through instead of performing them (Woolfolk, 2016). The case of
kindergarten learners using sticks to count illustrate this preoperational ability.
Another ability demonstrated at this stage is children’s ability to form and use symbols to represent a
physical action or reality; this is a semiotic function. A child’s ability to identify from a book the picture of a bird
illustrates this skill.
Concrete Operational Stage. Concrete operations are described by Piaget as the ability to engage in
“hands-on” thinking. A major ability at this stage is reversible thinking, thinking backward, from the end to the
beginning (Woolfolk, 2016). Reversibility involves conversation and decentration. Conservation is the belief that,
whatever the arrangement or appearance of the object, as long as there is nothing added or decreased, the
number or amount of the object would remain the same. A related skill is decentration, the children’s ability to
focus on more than one dimension of an object at a time. Children at this stage would understand that the smaller
but wider glass contains the same amount of fruit juice with the content of the tall but narrower glass. These
children not only focus on the height of the glass but also considers its width. The width of the narrow glass
compensates the shortness of its height. Figure 5 shows sample conversation tasks.

PIAGET’S CONSERVATION TASKS

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 Figure 6. Sample Piagetian conservation tasks.

Classification is another skill at this stage. It involves the ability to group similar objects in terms of color,
shape, use, etc. For example, children would group balls, wheels, marbles as round objects; that 4, 12, 36 are
numbers divisible by 4. A related skill is seriation, the ability to arrange objects according to size, like small to
smallest, far to farthest, etc. That a bull is big, the carabos is bigger, and the elephant is the biggest best illustrates
this ability.
Formal Operational Stage. At this stage, adolescents can engage in mental processes involving
abstract thinking and coordination of some variables (Woolfolk, 2016). All the earlier mental abilities have been
mastered. The adolescents can now think like a scientist, as they can give hypotheses and conjectures about the
problem, set up experiments to test them, and control extraneous variables to arrive at a valid and reliable
explanation. They are capable of giving deductions as they systematically evaluate their observations as well as
their answers. This ability is called hypothetico-deductive reasoning.
Another feature at this stage is adolescent egocentrism, the assumption that although others have
different perceptions and beliefs, every individual shares other’s thoughts, feelings, and concerns. This is opposite
to the egocentric characteristic in the earlier stages, wherein children think that what they and others think are
similar to theirs.

Teaching Implications of Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

The influence of Piaget on classroom instruction is summarized in his words, “What is desired is that the
teacher cease being a lecturer satisfied with transmitting ready-made solutions; his role should be rather that of
a mentor stimulating initiative and research”. It behooves the teacher to be creative in imparting knowledge and
skills to the students to engage them in a more active learning environment so they can construct meaning and
concepts. In addition to instruction, the classroom environment, curriculum and instructional material should
complement each other.
Berk (2013) provided a summary of teaching implications derived from Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development. These considerations include the following:
1. A focus on the process of children’s thinking, not just its products. Instead of simply checking for a correct
answer, teachers should emphasize the students’ understanding and the process they used to get the
answer.

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 2. Recognition of the crucial role of children’s self-initiative, active involvement in learning activities. In a
Piagetian classroom, children are encouraged to discover themselves through spontaneous interaction
with the environment, rather than the presentation of ready-made knowledge.
3. A de-emphasis on practices aimed at making children adult-like in their thinking. It refers to what Piaget
referred to as the “American question,” which is “How can we speed up development?” He believes that
trying to speed up and accelerate the children’s process through the stages could be worse than no
teaching at all.
4. Acceptance of individual differences in developmental progress. Piaget’s theory asserts that children go
through all the same developmental stages. However, they do so at different rates. Because of this
variation, teachers must exert a special effort to arrange classroom activities for individuals and groups
of children rather than for the whole class.
In addition, Webb (1980) recommended some considerations for teachers to ponder upon in their teaching
practices. These include the following:
 Consider the stage characteristics of the student’s thought processes in planning learning activities.
 Use a wide variety of experiences rather than drill on specific tasks to maximize cognitive development.
 Do not assume that reaching adolescence or adulthood guarantees the ability to perform formal
operations.
 Remember that each person structures each learning situation in terms of his schemata; therefore, no
two persons will derive the same meaning or benefit from a given experience.
 Individualize learning experiences so that each student is working at a level that is high enough to be
challenging and realistic enough to prevent excessive frustration.
 Provide experience necessary for the development of concepts before the use of these concepts in
language.
 Consider learning an active restructuring of thought rather than an increase in content.
 Make full use of wrong answers by helping the student analyze his or her thinking to retain the correct
elements and revise the miscomprehensions.
 Evaluate each student in terms of improving his or her performance.
 Avoid overuse of materials that so highly structured that creative thought is discouraged.
 Use social interaction in learning experiences to promote increase in both interest and comprehension.