"How Children Learn" Essay

Submitted By mv4jk
Words: 401
Pages: 2

Precis #1: Chapter 4 “How Children Learn”

Hypotheses:

“It was once commonly thought that infants lack the ability to form complex ideas,” pretty much basically calling a newborn’s mind as a blank slate which the “baby could not have knowledge.” Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget broke the misconception on the “blank state” view, based on his conclusion, babies have the “development of an accurate representation of physical reality” depending on “schemes of looking, listening and touching.” “Infants actually seek environmental stimulation”, the author provides some theories that apply to infants and children’s cognitive development which “promotes their intellectual development” in how they learn.

Methodology and Evidence:

There are four major areas of research discussed in this chapter: 1.”Early predisposition to learn about some things but not others.” Four methods were discussed: “non-nutritive sucking”, “an infant’s thirst for novelty”, “habituate”, and “visual expectation”, “using infants gaze patterns to determine if they are comprehending patterns of visual events”. This experiment showed that infants “were capable of and interested in learning how to control their own environment.” (Kalnins and Bruner,1973) and (Eimas et al.,1971) 2. “Strategies and metacognition” discuss about “information processing” especially with the use of “clustering” method. 3. The author discussed about two different theories of mind: “entity theories and incremental theories.” Which helps teachers to make it a positive learning, they can “guide children to a more healthy conceptualization of their learning potential.” 4. “Children and community”, the author categorizes the learning into two “self-directed” or “self-motivated” and “other-directed learning.” The author emphasizes on the use of guides who “foster the development of learning in