THEORIES RELATED TO HOW

CHILDREN LEARN SCIENCE

1. CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY - JEAN PIAGET (1973)

2. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY – VYGOTSKY ( 1978)

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 THEORIES RELATED TO HOW
CHILDREN LEARN
MATHEMATICS
1. CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY - JEAN PIAGET (1973)
2. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY – JEROME BRUNER ( 1976)
• JEROME BRUNER (1976)
3. BEHAVIORIS THEORY

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 THEORIES RELATED TO HOW
CHILDREN LEARN SCIENCE
1. CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
(1973)
• Piaget believes that learners constructs new ideas or
concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
• Construction can happen in two ways: assimilation and
accommodation.
• Direct experience, making errors, and looking for solutions
are vital for the assimilation and accommodation of
information.

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 JEAN PIAGET: COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT AND MENTAL
PROCESSES

• PIAGET BELIEVED THAT PEOPLE’S THINKING CHANGED AS

THEY LEARN AND ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT;
• THAT THE GOAL OF THINKING OR THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF
THINKING PEOPLE COULD DEVELOP IS ABSTRACT THOUGHT.
• ABSTRACT THOUGHT IS THE KIND OF THINKING SCIENTISTS
USE…THIS KIND OF THINKING IS CALLED LOGICAL-
MATHEMATICAL THINKING/INTELLIGENCE.

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 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• ACCORDING TO PIAGET, CHILDREN CONSTRUCT KNOWLEDGE
THROUGH CONCRETE, HANDS-ON EXPERIENCES.
• THEY CONSTRUCT KNOWLEDGE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD.
• THE KNOWLEDGE BECOMES THEIR MENTAL ACTIONS.

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 ACCORDING TO PIAGET, KNOWLEDGE IS
CONSTRUCTED THROUGH: (I) ASSIMILATION
AND (II) ACCOMMODATION
ASSIMILATION:
• IS A PROCESS BY WHICH A PERSON TAKES
MATERIAL INTO THEIR MIND FROM THE
ENVIRONMENT, MAKE IT FIT INTO THEIR
EXISTING KNOWLEDGE.
• IT IS LIKE YOUR MIND HAS A DATABASES
ALREADY BUILT, WITH ITS FIELDS AND
CATEGORIES DEFINED. IF IT COMES ACROSS NEW
INFORMATION WHICH FITS INTO THOSE FIELDS,
IT CAN ASSIMILATE IT WITHOUT ANY TROUBLE.

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 ASSIMILATION
Assimilation - process by which new experiences are
incorporated into an existing schema

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 What concepts are being assimilated or
accommodated by the children in this picture?

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 CHAIR

KAK3023@hakcipta aminah ayob/upsi 3/11/2013 10

 These new type of chairs are being assimilated into the
child’s schema of the concept of chair.

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 SCHEMA/SCHEMAS
• A SCHEMA (PLURAL: SCHEMAS/SCHEMATA) DESCRIBES AN
ORGANIZED PATTERN OF THOUGHT OR BEHAVIOR. IT IS A
MENTAL STRUCTURE OF PRE-CONCEIVED IDEAS, OR A
FRAMEWORK.
• SCHEMAS - IDEAS WE HAVE ABOUT THE WAY THINGS WORK.
• IT IS A REPRESENTATION IN THE MIND, OF A SET OF
PERCEPTIONS, IDEAS, AND/OR ACTIONS, WHICH GO TOGETHER. 

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 ACCOMMODATION:
• WHEN THE NEW INFORMATION CANNOT FIT INTO THE
PRE-EXISTING ‘DATABASES’, SO IT HAS TO DEVELOP
NEW ONES TO ACCOMMODATE THE NEW INFORMATION
 FORMING SCHEMA.
• ACCOMMODATION IS A PROCESS BY WHICH SCHEMAS
ARE MODIFIED IN LIGHT OF NEW EXPERIENCES

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 ACCOMMODATION

Can you think of some examples to describe assimilation

and accommodation?
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 PIAGET’S 4 STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT
CHILDREN'S THINKING OR INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
OCCURS THROUGH 4 STAGES:
1. SENSORIMOTOR  (BIRTH-2 YRS) 
2. PRE-OPERATIONAL  (2-7 YEARS) 
3. CONCRETE OPERATIONAL  (7-11 YEARS) 
4. FORMAL OPERATIONAL  (11 YEARS AND UP) 

Stage = A period in a child's development in

which he/she is capable of understanding some
things but not others. 
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1- SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (BIRTH-2
YRS) 
• A CHILD CAN DIFFERENTIATE SELF FROM OBJECT 
• RECOGNISES SELF AS ACTOR/DOER AND BEGINS TO ACT
INTENTIONALLY: E.G. PULLS A STRING TO SET MOBILE IN
MOTION OR SHAKES A RATTLE TO MAKE A NOISE, ETC. 
• ACHIEVES OBJECT PERMANENCE – ABILITY TO REALISE THAT
THINGS CONTINUE TO EXIST EVEN WHEN THEY NO LONGER
PRESENT TO THE SENSE (PEEK-A-BOO GAME)

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 2- PRE-OPERATIONAL STAGE (2-7
YEARS)
• AT THIS STAGE, CHILDREN LEARN TO USE LANGUAGE
AND TO REPRESENT OBJECTS BY IMAGES AND WORDS. 
• PIAGET NOTED THAT CHILDREN IN THIS STAGE DO NOT
YET UNDERSTAND CONCRETE LOGIC AND CANNOT
MENTALLY MANIPULATE INFORMATION.
• THEY ARE UNABLE TO TAKE THE POINT OF VIEW OF
OTHER PEOPLE, WHICH HE TERMED EGOCENTRISM.
• THEY CAN CLASSIFY OBJECTS BY A SINGLE FEATURE
ONLY: E.G. GROUPS TOGETHER ALL THE RED BLOCKS
REGARDLESS OF SHAPE OR ALL THE SQUARE BLOCKS
REGARDLESS OF COLOUR .
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 PRE-OPERATIONAL EGOCENTRIC
THINKING
• Egocentrics regard themselves and their own opinions or interests as
being the most important or valid.
• E.G. In this dialogue, a child is completely oblivious to what the other is
saying:
• Julie: "I love my dolly, her name is tina"
• Carol: "i'm going to colour the sun yellow"
• Julie: "she has long, curly hair like my auntie"
• Carol: "maybe i'll colour the trees yellow, too"
• Julie: "I wonder what tina's eyes are made of?"
• Carol: "i lost my orange crayon"
• Julie: " I know her eyes are made of glass.“
• According to piaget, egocentrisms believe that everyone thinks as they
do, and that the whole world shares their feelings and desires.
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KAK3023@hakcipta aminah ayob/upsi

 ANIMISTIC AND MAGICAL THINKING
OF CHILDREN IN PRE-OPERATIONAL
STAGE
• CHILDREN GIVE LIVES TO INANIMATE OBJECTS.

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 PRE-OPERATIONAL STAGE ARE LESS
LOGICAL
MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY, SYMBOLIC PLAY
Children 4-5 year olds
believe in magic, e.g.
magical box, magical wand,
magical mirror, etc.
Adult uses children magical
thinking to create story
books and entertainment
films – Harry Potter, Lord of
the ring, Shrek, Kung fu
Panda, Ice Age, Dragon,
KAK3023@hakcipta aminah ayob/upsi etc. 3/11/2013 20
 3- CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE (7-
11 years)
• Concrete stage is a major turning point in the child's cognitive development,
because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought.
• The child is now mature enough to use logical thinking or operations (i.E.
Rules) but can only apply logic to physical objects (hence concrete
operational).
• Children become better at reasoning tasks – they can understand that
although the appearance of something changes, the thing itself does not. He

called this ability ‘CONSERVATION’.

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 CONSERVATION ABILITY:
• DEFINITION:
• CONSERVATION IS THE UNDERSTANDING THAT SOMETHING
STAYS THE SAME IN QUANTITY EVEN THOUGH ITS
APPEARANCE CHANGES.
• SEE VIDEO ON PIAGET’S CONSERVATION TASKS

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KAK3023@hakcipta aminah ayob/upsi
However you arrange
them, the number is still
the same
No matter how he put the
pebbles down, when he counted
them, the number is still the
same, that is the sum is
independent of the
order.”(Piaget 1970)
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 4- FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE (11
YEARS ABOVE) 
• AT ABOUT 11+, THE CHILD BEGINS TO MANIPULATE IDEAS IN ITS
HEAD.
• HE/SHE CAN DO MATHEMATICAL CALCULATIONS, THINK
CREATIVELY, USE ABSTRACT REASONING, AND IMAGINE THE
OUTCOME OF PARTICULAR ACTIONS.
• THEY GAIN THE ABILITY TO THINK IN AN ABSTRACT MANNER,
THE ABILITY TO COMBINE AND CLASSIFY ITEMS IN A MORE
SOPHISTICATED WAY, AND THE CAPACITY FOR HIGHER-ORDER
REASONING.
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 IMPLICATIONS OF PIAGET’S
THEORY
• DISCUSS (IN TUTORIAL) THE IMPLICATION OF PIAGET THEORY
IN TEACHING SCIENCE AND MATHS TO YOUNG CHILDREN.

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 (2) VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF SOCIAL
LEARNING

FOUR BASIC PRINCIPLES:

1. CHILDREN CONSTRUCT THEIR KNOWLEDGE (SIMILAR TO
PIAGET’S IDEA)
2. DEVELOPMENT CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM ITS SOCIAL
CONTEXT (DIFFERENT FROM PIAGET’S IDEA)
3. LEARNING CAN LEAD DEVELOPMENT (X PIAGET’S IDEA)
4. LANGUAGE PLAYS CENTRAL ROLES IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

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• VYGOTSKY THEORY COMBINES THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
AND COGNITION.
• CHILDREN WILL ACQUIRE THE WAYS OF THINKING AND
BEHAVING BY INTERACTING WITH A MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE
PERSON IN THEIR SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.
• SOCIAL INTERACTION LEAD TO ONGOING CHANGES IN A
CHILD'S THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR.
• CHILDREN LEARN FASTER IF THEY ARE HELPED BY TEACHER
(THROUGH ‘SCAFFOLDING’.)

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 VYGOTSKY’S ZPD
THROUGH SCAFFOLDING, ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
(ZPD) OF A CHILD CAN BE EXPANDED.

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REFLECT: HOW CHILDREN LEARN ABOUT
THEIR WORLD
• Children explore the world with their senses. They look, touch,
smell, hear, and taste.
• They are born curious and want to know all about their
environment.
• As children learn to crawl, to stand, and to walk, they discover
more on their own and learn to think for themselves.
• Babies/toddlers, as they crawl/walk, they discover space: big
space, small spaces, space in a crib, playpen, room and space
outside.
• With time, they develop spatial sense.

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 REFLECT: HOW CHILDREN LEARN ABOUT
THEIR WORLD
• Children like to sort things. They put them in piles of the same color, same
size, same shape, or with the same use.
• Young children pour sand and water into containers of different sizes.
• They pile blocks into tall structures and see them fall and become small
parts again.
• All these activities of exploring and experimentation help to develop muscle
coordination and the senses of taste, smell, sight, and hearing. These are
skills that serve as a basis for future learning.
• As children enter preschool, exploration continues. At this time, however,
children also begin to apply basic concepts to collecting and organizing
data to answer a question.
• Children are learning the processes of science.
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 THEORIES RELATED TO HOW
CHILDREN LEARN
MATHEMATICS
1. CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY - JEAN PIAGET (1973)
2. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY – JEROME BRUNER ( 1976)
• JEROME BRUNER (1976)
3. BEHAVIORIS THEORY

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 CONSTRUCTIVIST THEORY -
JEROME BRUNER

• Bruner’s theory of scaffolding emerged around 1976 as a part of social

constructivist theory, and was particularly influenced by the work of
russian psychologist lev vygotsky. Vygotsky argued that we learn best
in a social environment, where we construct meaning through
interaction with others. His zone of proximal development theory,
where we can learn more in the presence of a knowledgeable other
person, became the template for bruner’s model.
• Bruner believed that when children start to learn new
concepts, they need help from teachers and other adults in the
form of active support. To begin with, they are dependent on
their adult support, but as they become more independent in
their thinking and acquire new skills and knowledge, the
support can be gradually faded. This form of structured
interaction between the child and the adult is reminiscent of
the scaffolding that supports the construction of a building. It
is gradually dismantled as the work is completed.
• In a very specific way, scaffolding represents a reduction in
the many choices a child might face, so that they become
focused only on acquiring the skill or knowledge that is
required.
•  Jerome Bruner felt the goal of education should be
intellectual development, as opposed to rote
memorization of facts.
• Bruner views and beliefs on learning, language, and
discovery differentiate from those of Jean Piaget.
 Three Stages of Representation
Jerome Bruner identified three stages of cognitive
representation.

1.Enactive, which is the representation of knowledge

through actions.
2.Iconic, which is the visual summarization of
images.
3.Symbolic representation, which is the use of
words and other symbols to describe experiences.
The enactive stage appears first. This stage involves
the encoding and storage of information. There is a
direct manipulation of objects without any internal
representation of the objects.

For example, a baby shakes a rattle and hears a

noise. The baby has directly manipulated the rattle
and the outcome was a pleasurable sound. In the
future, the baby may shake his hand, even if there is
no rattle, expecting his hand to produce the rattling
sounds. The baby does not have an internal
representation of the rattle and, therefore, does not
understand that it needs the rattle in order to
produce the sound.
The iconic stage appears from one to six years old.
This stage involves an internal representation of
external objects visually in the form of a mental
image or icon.

For example, a child drawing an image of a tree or

thinking of an image of a tree would be
representative of this stage.
The symbolic stage, from seven years and up, is
when information is stored in the form of a code
or symbol such as language. Each symbol has a
fixed relation to something it represents.

For example, the word 'dog' is a symbolic

representation for a single class of animal.
Symbols, unlike mental images or memorized
actions, can be classified and organized. In this
stage, most information is stored as words,
mathematical symbols, or in other symbol
systems
 HOW IT CAN BE APPLIED TO
EDUCATION
• Bruner believed that all learning occurs through the stages we just discussed. Bruner
also believed that learning should begin with direct manipulation of objects. For
example, in math education, bruner promoted the use of algebra tiles, coins, and
other items that could be manipulated.
• After a learner has the opportunity to directly manipulate the objects, they should be
encouraged to construct visual representations, such as drawing a shape or a
diagram.
• Finally, a learner understands the symbols associated with what they represent. For
example, a student in math understands that the plus sign ( + ) means to add two
numbers together and the minus sign ( - ) means to subtract.
• It is important for teachers to provide
opportunities for children to constantly learn
new things. Some of those may be highly
complex and will require support of a very
focused kind. Teachers need to be aware of
the developmental state of each of the
children in their care, and should provide
scaffolding that is appropriate.
Although this may not be possible to do on their own, teachers
can improvise and provide scaffolding through other support,
including the use of other adults such as teaching assistants
(para-educators) parent helpers, or more knowledgeable other
children within the classroom.

As children gain in confidence and competence in a particular

areas, teachers might place them in groups to extend each
other’s learning further. It’s also important that teachers
recognise when a child is at the point where they begin to
learn independently, and decisions can be made to set them
free from the scaffolding.
•Menurut ahli-ahli psikologi behaviorisme, pembelajaran
adalah perubahan kekal yang berlaku dalam diri seseorang
individu disebabkan oleh latihan atau pengalaman.
•Aliran behaviorisme menumpukan perhatian ke atas aspek
tingkah laku manusia yang boleh diperhatikan dan diukur.
•Perubahan tersebut muncul sebagai respon terhadap
pelbagai stimulus yang datang dari luar diri seseorang.
Secara teoritikal, belajar dalam konteks behaviorisme
melibatkan empat unsur utama iaitu drive, stimulus,
respon dan peneguhan (Geist. E, 2003 dan 2009).
• Berdasarkan teori behavioris pembelajaran dalam
matematik dapat dicapai melalui latihan berulang kali,
latih tubi dan penghafalan
• Hal ini kerana ahli behaviorisme percaya semua
proses pembelajaran berasaskan alam sekitar melalui
pembudayaan dan pengukuhan (Miller, 2002). Oleh
itu, Matematik boleh diajar kepada kanak-kanak
melalui dua cara, iaitu :

Ganjaran untuk jawapan yang betul

Hukuman untuk jawapan yang tidak betul.
•  
• Kelemahannya pendekatan behaviorisme ini tidak dapat memastikan
atau menyelesaikan masalah nilai atau proses pemikiran murid.
Behaviorisme hanya melihat dan memberi perhatian berkenaan
dengan tingkah laku yang dapat dilihat atau hasil dapatan dari yang
dikaji. Fokus hanyalah untuk mengukuh kemahiran kanak-kanak
agar boleh menghasilkan jawapan yang betul dan tepat.

• Contoh kaedah mengajar matematik ikut teori behavioris:

Mengulangi soalan sukar,
membekalkan kerja rumah,
ujian yang memberi gred,
lembaran dan latihan kerja,
‘pelekat’ untuk prestasi yang baik
• Beberapa tokoh dalam teori behaviorisme seperti
J. B. Watson, Bandura, Skinner.