educational psychology course

Syllabus:
- elements of educational psychology
- learning foundations and mechanisms
- The 1st learning theory: empiricism and behaviorism
- Gestalt theory
- Rationalism and mentalism
- Piaget constructivism
- Learning and language
- Examination and tests
- The teacher’s task

I) Elements of educational psychology
The application of psychology to education is not a recent enterprise, and it goes back to the age of primitive tribes. But it is only recently that this application has been given a scientific framework. It is important to show the relevance of educational psychology to the task of teaching or to instruction in general.
The human mind can process language whether first or second without assistance or formal instruction. The human mind draws on some universal strategies. If the human mind can do without instruction how can we identify the precise role of the teacher/materials…? The actual role of the teacher is not to determine learning but to facilitate it. Learning does not depend on teaching. Before worrying about the teaching activity we have to be informed about the complex process of learning. Educational psychology relates to those areas of psychology of most practical value to the instructor. It is concerned not only with issues relating to the classroom but with issues relating to the learner’s background, the learner as an individual outside the academic environment, issues relating to the learner’s own self-perceptions and self-concept. This kind of information is necessary for the teacher to make objective professional decisions and judgments to constantly review his expectations/ plans. Educational psychology relates the findings of psychological development to classroom practice without necessarily providing teachers with ready made classroom techniques; Hence, the difference between the teacher training (what actually happens in the classroom) and the teacher education (those theoretical insights about learning process that help the teacher revise his expectations). Educational psychology has no final answers to all the questions that face us in education. Learners and teachers are individuals so they should be considered as complex individuals and since there is a complexity of measurement and evaluation (this complexity doesn’t lend itself to direct observation); hence the challenging role of educational psychology. It provides the instructor with information about the factors that determine the learner’s behavior and helps him in envisaging strategies to handle his teaching activity. Educational psychology helps us understand the origins and the causers of individual differences (variability). Individuals are not equally intelligent; they do not have the same personality, creativity or motor skills, which shows that they do not have the same potential of learning. Educational psychologists seek to determine whether differences among individuals are genetically determined or the result of the environment. The teacher needs to be informed about the origins of these differences. One of the major objectives of educational psychology is to highlight the fundamental processes involved in psychological development. That’s why it gives primary importance to the way young children endowed their behavior to their environment and we can explain this interest in children in terms of two main reasons:
- 1st to determine how a helpless unconscious and totally dependent new born human manages to become a knowledgeable adult. How he can gain knowledge from different domains of knowledge. It is this process of development which is the chief concern of educational psychology. (genetic epistemology as referred to by a school of thought)
- 2nd to determine the relationship between the social context and childhood. Roughly speaking the study of psychological development involves the following points:
 The major aspects of physical development and mainly the central nervous system (any activity is always under the control of the brain)
 The way physical development and psychological development are determined by the experience of the individual.
 The process of learning in man as a social being, the role of language
 The way in which children form ideas about the world
 The different categories of thinking used by children.
 The child’s acquisition of complex habits of thought
The ultimate objective of educational psychology is to help the instructor apply his knowledge of these processes to the classroom activity; hence, the association between the two disciplines: psychology and education.

The difference between empiricism and behaviorism (tradition, claims and approach)
Empiricism can be viewed as an experimental method that relies solely on experience (the theory that sense-experience is the only source of knowledge)
Behaviorism is the doctrine that observes behavior provides the only valid data of psychology. (what is not observable does not exist) it rejects the concept of mind and consciousness.
Rationalism: the doctrine that knowledge comes from the intellect without assistance from the senses.
Mentalism: the doctrine that all objects exist only when perceived by some mind.

Empiricists believe that the only source of true knowledge about the universe is sensory experience (what can be seen heard, tasted... or what can be inferred about the relation between or invariance among such sensory facts) empiricism has played a dual role in the history of psychology for it provides both a method to increase knowledge and a theory about the growth of the mind. As a method, empiricism means that we learn by making observations, by having new experiences, by conducting experiments.
As a psychological theory, empiricism means that the child’s mind at birth is a blank slate upon which experience will write.
It is possible, of course, to apply the empirical method (conducting experiments to show the scientific validity of a scientific idea) without subscribing an empiricist theory of the mind.

Behaviorism as a learning theory: the idea was first formulated as follows: behaviorist psychologists discarded the mind, for them the mind is a simple system of connection and they claim that if we isolate the elementary connection processes then we can control the very material that minds are made of. The Russian physiologist Pavlov had shown one way to study the formation of connection in animals. (the connection between the cortical cells) he concluded that similar analysis should be possible for human behavior. If one thinks of learning as a process of establishing connections between stimuli and responses then the connection either exists (it becomes established as a habit) or it doesn’t exist. If it exists it exists at a strength that increases and decreases as a function of many different variables. To locate it doesn’t matter; whereas remembering which means making an appropriate response when a stimulus is repeated is something we do, not something we have, hence the difference between the structure and the function). This approach has the great advantage of being related directly to observable events (to observable stimuli and responses and their co-occurrences). The SR (stimulus response) theory had long been a popular approach in the US and in general, it is characterized by:
- 1st, their emphasis on peripheral muscular mechanisms, chained reflexes, movement produced stimuli, rather than on central brain processes as the source of behavioral integration.
- 2nd, their insistence that what we learn are not passive facts but active responses.
- 3rd, their faith that trial and error rather than is the basic mode of learning (which explains conditioning) and SR theorist has little use for quiet reflection (the organisms he studies are on the move struggling, responding and changing constantly).
The corner stone of SR theory was the following idea: whenever a response to some stimulus has the effect of reducing the biological drive (need); the strength of that stimulus-response link will be increased. The idea that we repeat actions hat were successful before is well established. In this behaviorist hypothesis, nothing is assumed about understanding the connection between the response and the satisfactions that follow it. If an organism is hungry in situation S and if some response “r” is followed immediately by Fe, then, the habit of responding “r” in situation S will be automatically reinforced. On closer reflection one recognizes that the situation in general is composed of many different stimuli for example on internal (physical) stimuli produced by hunger of current environmental sounds and of persisting traces of previous environmental stimuli and of stimuli resulting directly from the organisms or movements. An account of a particular instance of learning must specify all the connections fold (established) between each of these varieties of stimulation and the sequence of responses that leads to the goal; however, the weakness of this assumption is that all these SR links are established unconsciously and automatically that’s the whole theory is called “mechanistic theories” i.e. without intention or insight. The mechanistic theory is against the modular view of mind which claims that the human mind is divided into different modules, each being responsible for the acquisition and for the processing of distinct domains of knowledge. Behaviorist psychologists distinguish three general principles of learning:
1st, The Law of Exercise which claims that learning is promoted by active and repeated responses to stimuli
2nd, The Law of Effect stressing the importance of reinforcing the learner’s responses by rewarding or at least accepting correct responses and rejecting non-target-like ones.
3rd, The Law of Shaping (the Law of Readiness) according to this principle learning is promoted if complex behaviors are broken down into learnable components (units).
Behaviorist psychologists claim the learning takes place inductively thru analogy rather than analysis. They claim if transfer did not occur man would profit little from experience. As far as language learning is concerned they claim that the child imitates the sounds coming from his environment and people recognize the child’s attempts to reproduce these sounds as being similar to the adult models, so they reinforce them by approval and to get more rewards, this child repeats the sounds till they become verbal habits.

II) learning foundations and mechanisms
What is learning? How does it work? What does it require? Is it governed by specific rules? Is it controllable? Is it measurable? Is it specific to human beings? Can animals learn? Do we all learn the same way?

Let’s consider the following maxim “when an organism learns it adapts its behavior to cope with changes in its environment”  we all know the organisms never seize interacting with their environments (via their senses) so they always adapt their behaviors to cope with what is new, with what is unfamiliar, unknown. Since every new situation requires a new and different form of behavior for adaptation, the mechanism of adaptation must be fluid. The complexity of an organism’s adaptation to its environment depends on the complexity of its nervous system which controls every movement and of course the nervous system would be of little use if it were isolated from its environment.

The way information coming from the environment is processed:
We can identify those organs that receive information. They are called “the receptors”. Information is then sent to the nervous system “thru nerve fibers” to be analyzed and then it is sent to the “effectors”, in other words to those organs which act on the environment. The principle is the same in animals and human beings but human beings are equipped with organs much more sophisticated and complex and namely “the human nervous system”. The receptors and effectors act under constant control of the brain which includes 4 principle systems or structures (organic counter part of the function fulfilled by the structure: eg; Eyes= structure, function= sight).
1st, Reticular formation; the structure which responsible for the state of alertness of the organism, it enables it to exert full control over the environment and maintains a sort of readiness to react immediately
2nd, the Hypothalamus is the structure that regulates many basic body functions as temperature for example and registers’ states of organic needs.
3rd, the Limbic system which is the structure that controls emotions, behavior, smell, etc… It is thought to play a certain role in recalling things and events. In other words, it is connected to memory.
4th, Cortex which is the structure that controls and regulates our mental activity
These organic structures act coherently to determine the organism’s adaptation to environmental stimulation in general. In this respect, behaviorism provides a model of learning that rests upon and depends on the phenomenon of conditioning (conditioning of the organism to environmental stimulation) whose scientific validity has been well attested in the domain of physiology and namely reflexology. This idea dates back to the works of the Russian physiologist Pavlov and his identification of the stimulus-response bond that served as a basis for later psychological models providing an explanation of learning. Pavlov’s experiments were conducted with 2 stimuli: the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus (US) is an event that reflexively produces a response called an unconditioned response (UR) even in the absence of previous experience or training. A conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral cue that when paired/associated with the unconditioned stimulus comes to illicit a conditioned response (CR) similar to the original unconditioned response, hence the idea of conditioning.
This can be illustrated as follows:
Before conditioning During conditioning After conditioning
CS  no response
Metronome
Provides the exact time by emitting a sound at regular intervals. (this device should be neutral) CS  UR
Metronome: salivation
followed by the US (the same environmental stimulation: meat powder)
CS  CR
Metronome salivation
US  UR
Meat powder salivation CS x US  UR

Classical conditioning was later studied in humans and it was the behaviorist Watson who conducted the same experiments to show the conditioning of fear reaction in a 9 month old infant Albert. The unconditioned stimulus in Watson’s experiment was allowed noise produced by striking a hammer on a four food long suspended steel bar and this produced an unconditioned response as well attested by sudden disturbances in breathing patterns, crying, etc… Two months after his experience with the US the same child Albert was given a harmless white rat as a potential playmate and when he reached for the rat, the steel bar was once again struck immediately behind Albert’s head. Here the horrible noise acting as an unconditioned stimulus and causing the same disturbances UR & when Albert was presented with the rat one week later, but with no loud sound he began to cry showing the same reaction of fear; hence, the argument was made that people express different emotional reactions to the environment because of their different experiences. A variety of training conditions are thought to influence the strength of classical conditioning. There is a positive relationship between the strength of the conditioned response and the intensity of either the conditioned stimulus or the unconditioned stimulus. In this case of Albert, the stimuli were so intense that a substantial amount of learning took place on a single trial. In the sequence of acquisition of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus the conditioned stimulus is always neuter; otherwise, it becomes an unconditioned stimulus eliciting an unconditioned response i.e. a response that is not controlled by the organism producing it. This is show by the phenomenon of deconditioning or unlearning the response. In the case of Pavlov’s experiment, it consists in repeatedly presenting the conditioning stimulus (sounding the metronome which acts as a CS) without presenting food (which acts as an US). After many trials, the conditioned response is lost, it fades out. This phenomenon is called ‘extinction’. Experimental extinction (unlearning) has then been used to unlearn undesirable conditioned responses in the cognitive domain (cognitive psychology e.g. Mental disorders) as well as in the social domain to unlearn bad behaviors and as such we are left with the phenomenon of acquisition: CR to CS and its opposite, the phenomenon of extinction.

Instrumental conditioning
There are two basic types of associative learning. We have classical conditioning or learning and instrumental learning (as the behavior is used as an instrument in producing some change in acting on the environment thru the subject’s constant interaction with it). In other words, the change will determine the efficiency of learning and it was Edward Thorandike who identified instrumental learning with his famous “cat in the puzzle-box” experiments. it consisted in depriving the animal of food and placing it in a small box. The experimentor puts food outside and he places a device inside the cage acting as a lever to open the gate of the cage from inside. He observed that the animal’s spontaneous behavior produced the intended result as it discovered the relation between responding and the positive consequences: the reward consisting in having the gate open. Thorandike assumed that it is the bond between a stimulus S and a response R that determines the organism’s behavior. The SR connection according to Thorandike is established automatically, in other words, without depending on the organism’s awareness which means that it does not include insights: The mechanism which is responsible for the transformation of a new connection into a habit being the law of effect; in other words, the effect of a response on the environment. It acts as a positive reinforcement when the response leads to satisfaction. The connection is consolidated and the resulting behavior will occur systematically under the conditions that activated it initially. The opposite effect will result if the response does not lead to satisfaction, to frustration or annoyance for example. This has the effect of punishment.
Instrumental vs. classical conditioning
The American psychologist skinner decided to explore the phenomenon of reinforcement and his major objective was to determine the effects of manipulation on this phenomenon in different organisms. Skinner made a clear distinction between classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning and the difference between the two can be illustrated by Skinner’s own diagram.

Classical Conditioning
a) S1 ------ R1 (attends the sound of the bell: not important)
(bell)
b) S2 ------ R2 (salivation: eating)
(food)

a) S1 ------ R1which is not important
naturally evokes
b) S2 ------ R2 but as S1 is presented almost at the same time (contiguity) as S2, S1become naturally evokes linked with R2 so that S1 eventually elicits R2
 S1 eventually elicits R2
c) S1 (bell) ------- R2 (Salivation) ----------- S2 (food) -------- R2 (salivation)

Instrumental conditioning

(d) S1 (lever) ----- R1 (pressing) ------ S2 (food) -------- R2 (salivation)
SA-R2 (via R1  S2)

In Skinner’s instrumental conditioning, the activation of the lever results in the presentation of food. According to the diagram the lever acts as a stimulus and this stimulus is neuter initially (before the animal’s discovery of its actual efficiency) In its trial and error behavior the animal acts on the lever. In other words, it responds to that stimulus by pressing it without having any idea about the effect of that lever as intended by the conditioner. The animal then notices the effect its response had, so we can say that the pressing response is instrumental in producing a reinforcer (food) and this reinforcer will act as a stimulus S2 for response R2 which is salivation. It should be noted that the amount of food which is presented when the lever is activated does not satisfy the animal’s hunger. It is meant to attract his attention only and once the animal has noticed the relationship between the stimulus ‘lever’ and the response ‘our hungry animal’ continues to press the lever to get more food until its need is completely satisfied.

The second question: Consider the organism with all the complexity of highly developed central nervous system. The system manipulates and processes the input. It is the second question that was considered by another learning theory which is the Gestalt Theory (theory of the form). When we consider the condition approach, learning would be a simple process of connecting environmental stimulation to the different responses produced by the organism. This principle was questioned y the Gestalt theory which admits that environmental stimulation constitute the sources of knowledge which doesn’t necessarily entail a similarity between empiricism or associanist empiricism and the G theory. A common denominator between the two is environmental stimulation. G admits environmental stimulation constitute the sources of knowledge but rejects the associanist (identifying x with y) principle of behaviorist psychology which reduced learning to connecting. In this respect, Kohler, one of the leading G psychologists argued “explanation of our intellectual life in terms of conditioning would simply mean its reduction to the operations of an often most practical but intrinsically blind connection of mere facts” hence the mechanistic aspect of the conditioning theory. G psychologists and the terms Gestalt means configuration or pattern are chiefly concerned with the field of perception and the way (two types of organism ‘human and animal’ and there is a difference between the way information is perceived by the human brain and that of the animal. The most important difference is in the symbolic function of the human organism, this symbolic function is responsible for the conversion of the precepts into concepts) we perceive environmental inputs. G psychologists identified precise laws of perception, all showing that we cannot cut off the study of behavior (the resulting behavior) from its roots in the organism and more precisely its roots in the mental activity of the organism. Proximity, similarity, symmetry, opposition, asymmetry are examples of those laws that determine our perception of things and they combine together in such a way that the whole configuration appears more than the sum of its parts. The idea is that the significance of a situation or pattern of stimuli is in the total pattern and not in its single constituent. This view is the opposite of the conditioning theories in that it stresses the importance of the total situation or configuration whereas the principle of conditioning in those theories rests basically on the separate elements. In other words, an element of the situation acting as a stimulus that elicits (produces) a response. In this context, the G psycho argues that the significance of a dish of the specialty is not in the individual ingredients nor is the significance of a piece of music in the individual notes. Kohler conducted many experiments on Chimpanzees to understand how this animal learnt to solve problems. Among these experiments we can mention the following: a chimp is placed in a cage and a banana is put out of reach outside. At the other end of the cage a stick was put within the reach of the animal. Kohler noticed that the chimp found the solution (this comes from the animal’s processing of the whole situation) i.e. solved the problem after surveying the total situation without necessarily focusing on one single element and having failed to reach the fruit with its hand or feet. The chimp took the stick and used it to rake the food and this has nothing to do with Thorndike’s cat that solved the problem thru random movement in the beginning i.e. thru trial and error. In another experiment, food was placed in the cage but out of the reach of the chimp and a box was placed inside. Kohler noticed that the chimp did not act immediately on either stimulus but processed the whole situation and came out with a conclusion. The chimp used the box to climb on and reached the objective thru a restructuring of the total situation. This, he called insight. For Kohler, the principle features of insight are that the solution is perceived in a flash and that the nature of this solution shows that the situation becomes organized in the brain, the situation is perceived in its physical feature. The total pattern or configuration is perceived without any preliminary trial and error. The problem of the notion of insight is that it explains nothing, and the G answer is that the insight in the restructuring of the situation giving organization or pattern to what is perceived. i.e. it is not perceived passively. But this answer removes the problem, it doesn’t explain it. Another theoretical problem that faces the G explanation of learning relates to the role of previous experience. Their idea is that new problems can be solved in this way without previous experience because other experiments showed apes exhibiting insightful learning (perception resulting from whole processing of the total situation) only after preliminary training in simpler tasks. Other G psychologists admit that previous experience is important in achieving insight. Here we are left with a problem consisting of determining the precise part of trial and error in previous experience then comprehension of the whole situation. Is this insightful learning?

It is not unreasonable to assume what is linguistic is cognitive. What seems to Chomsky linguistic can reasonably seem cognitive. If we focus on any structure of the phrase (NP, modifier…) these can correspond to cognitive strategies (agent, what is done…). For one, these properties are linguistic and within the framework of his nativists theory he considers them to be the precursors of language. The basic difference between the Gestalt theory and the nativists theory is that the G psychologists claim that the who situation is restructured in terms of those properties of the human mind (not at random), it is determined by features as symmetry, asymmetry…. These properties are innate and not acquired. The chomskian feature is specific and that’s why it fits in with the modular view. What is given in Chomsky’s theory can’t be used to process another domain of knowledge. Chomsky doesn’t believe in multi puirpose general cognitive ability.

Chomsky’s ideas and synthesis on basis of Piaget’s genetic epistemology
The nativists hypothesis
It claims that the child is born with a genetically determined potential and in Chomsky’s nativists theory this potential includes the precursors of language, we can mention Subject Specified Condition, identified by Chomsky as a linguistic feature that is not acquired by the child. This genetically determined potential enables any new born human being to process any natural language. Within the framework of his x bar theory (where Chomsky claims to identify what is constant and variable) we can not ascertain that these relate to phrases as linguistic unit bearing in mind the difference between the linguist’s identification of linguistic units and the psychological units at work when processing language. No one today can deny the discrepancy between what actually happens in our minds and the linguist’s description of language: our mental grammar vs. formal grammar. That’s why we have many grammars: structural, functional, TGG, stratificational, cognitive… All these show and reflect the linguist’s attempts to describe language but do not correspond to the psychological units we use to process language.
For Chomsky the process of language acquisition is not a process of learning, it is a simple maturational process. Hence, Chomsky’s Language Growth Hypothesis.
S0 S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 … SS (steady state)
Chomsky sees not difference between the initial state and the steady state. To show the minimal role of the environment, its role is to activate the potential. The linguistic precursors are there. In this context, Chomsky maintains “ I don’t see any particular reason to believe that there exists such a thing as a learning theory, it seems to me a very odd idea that such a theory should exist, rather as if there existed something like a growth theory for organs.” Chomsky’s argument’s to refute Skinner’s extension of the behaviorist conclusions to the domain of language (in his book Verbal Behavior). Chomsky reviews Skinner’s work argued that language is far too complex a form of behavior to be accounted for in terms of features external to the individual of course drawing the observer’s attention to the fact that before the age of six the child has already possessed the essentials of the surrounding language despite the highly abstract nature of the rules of language. This happens again unconsciously, effortlessly, rapidly, successfully and uniformly which shows the scientific validity of Chomsky’s concept of the essentials of language. The problem with Chomsky’s theory is to determine whether his LAD contained linguistic structures or simply features of our general multipurpose learning strategies which are valid to process any kind of knowledge (which are not specific to language) here lies the basic difference between the nativists theory, G theory… the nativists theory claims that this is specific to language whereas the other theories claim that they are multipurpose. In this respect constructivists do not see the scientific validity of those specific features and maintain the difference between Chomsky’s construct LAD and one’s ability to learn in general. Of course Chomsky maintains that the LAD operates thru mere exposure to language which acts as a trigger for the LAD. It (the LAD) then formulates hypotheses about the structure of the language and it builds an internal grammr going thru successive stages till it becomes adult grammar (the SS steady state). For Chomsky expericen and social factors have no role at all and he claims “the child’s internalized grammar goes far beyond the presented primary linguistic data and is in no sense an inductive generalization because apart from occasional corrections of learners’ attempts by the linguistic community, no special care is taken to teach children, the latter must have the ability to invent a generative grammar that defines well formedness and assigns interpretations to sentences even though the linguistic data are deficient” the generative grammar that Chomsky is describing corresponds to the adults’ linguistic intuition because these adults who are uneducated yet speak their native tongue accurately and appropriately and cannot state anything about the rules: this shows that they have invented this generative grammar: the difference between the type of grammar found in books and the linguistic intuition of the L1 speakers. Some structures are heard once without receiving any active responding which shows there is not reinforcement and no repetition, the child produces them, though, correctly in contexts which have nothing to do with the context in which they were first produced. This is called creativity by Chomsky; the behaviorist psychologists consider this a instance of inductive generalization. Chomsky’s whole theory fits in with the rationalist claim that innate ideas/ principles,/ concepts/ categories fixed in advance as a disposition of mind determine the form of acquired knowledge in a restricted and highly organized way. In this context Chomsky claims “we observe that a person proceeds from a genetically determined initial state (S0) thru a sequence of states (S1, S2, S3…) finally reaching a SS which then seems to change only marginally say by the addition of new vocabulary” And as regards the role of experience in the learning process, he claims “evidently experience is required to attain SS, so we can think then of the initial state as being in effect a function that maps experience onto the SS”

One is tempted to admit the source of knowledge which is environment. Knowledge is about the surrounding environment. It doesn’t stem from within the organism. The problem resides in the process whereby knowledge is extracted. This is the behaviorist empiricist framework. The G theory, reviewed this initial theory and modified it showing the role of the human mind, because within the initial paradigm there was no room for intellectual activities. Of course, what the G psycho added concerns the role of the human mind at least in reorganizing the situation and getting some insights which are due to certain features that area claimed to be given. (symmetry, proximity)… At the other hand of the same continuum we discussed the rationalist approach which holds that that certain ideas/. Concepts. Notions are given from advance and that they determine the organism’s interaction with the environment. The modular view was more scientifically excessive in that it holds the human minds is divided into different modules each involving the specific precursors of different domains of knowledge. The problem with the nativists and rationalistic approach is that without these specific precursors you cannot process (without the LAD);; the basic difference between the G theory whose biological features are general whereas in the modular view we have specific features. Within the initial framework we can say that knowledge is acquired (empiricist, behaviorist and G theory) within the 2nd paradigm (nativists) (language growth hypothesis) Chomsky sees no difference between the initial state and the last state; we can simply say that knowledge is given and not acquired. The role of the environment is to rigger what is there. They remain at a latent state till they are activated by the environment. A third theory which stands midway between the two but is completely different. A certain Piaget (a biologist and the founding father of genetic epistemology ‘the genesis of knowledge’) borrowed certain knowledge from biology to account for the mechanisms of our cognitive life. He found out that these notions are valid in the domain of knowledge. We have two types of lives: the human organism has a biological life and a mental life. Piaget is a Constructivist Empiricist/ Environmentalist. Piaget claims that knowledge is neither given nor acquired because when we claim that knowledge is acquired this entails that knowledge is there waiting for the human being to be processed while knowledge does not exist in the environment, it is constructed, hence, constructivism. Knowledge is constructed by the individual thru the individual’s constant interaction with the environment. Knowledge can on no account be identified with some raw materials in the environment. This reminds us of the linguistic sign as a link between the sign pattern which is constructed and the concept. The concept has nothing to do with the sound. This example shows the inevitable role of the human mind. Would it be possible for the human mind to construct a concept without the referent? Of course no, this why Piaget is called an environmentalist. Piaget calls schemata the patterns exerted on what is being processed now even if it is new. The environmental input is not imposed on my senses the way it sis imposed on a an animal; it is imposed thru different processes schemata. This is the first notion Piaget uses. He borrows the notion of assimilation. Intellectual assimilation and biological assimilation re almost similar; the organism received organic elements, what is being assimilated by the organism undergoes certain transformations coming from the organism to make it fit with the properties of the organism. This is the same with knowledge when I perceive environmental things, my mind is not an open container in which I can put things. Things are not added to the already existent files. What is added reorganized the whole set in which similar things have been classified. This shows the double process of showing the role of the organism on the environment and at the same time the role of the environment on the individual, this is called as assimilation and accommodation. What matters is not this double process but the amount of assimilation and that of accommodation hence Piaget’s concept of equilibrium, this is called adaptation. The constructivist theory that has been summarized by Wadsworth who considered every detail in the following statement. Wadsworth defined Piaget’s concept of schemata as follows:
Schemata are “the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize the environment. Schemata are structures that are the mental counterparts of biological means of adapting.” Let’s now clarify the basic difference between the old theories and constructivism: does schemata make part of our biological state? At birth the human baby is endowed with few schemata which are empty and which do not include any sort of precursor. They are valid for processing anything coming from the environment, they cannot be identified with Chomsky’s notion of precursors, they are bare and their number does not depend on this potential which is given in advanced. They are phenomena constructed as the organism interacts with the environment. Piaget claimed that the initial schemata are given and their number is very limited that’s hwy they are necessary but not sufficient. For Wadsworth schemata can be simplistically thought of as concepts, categories or sets or files which are given at birth. The child is equipped with few schemata. As the child develops his schemata gradually broaden and they become more and more differentiated and progressively more adult. Indeed, schemata never stop changing and becoming more refined. Both conditions will determine the nature of the changes schemata undergoes and the two ways as assimilation and accommodation that will reflect the influence on the individual on the environment and vice versa. In this context, Wadsworth adds “schemata are intellectual structures that organize events as they are perceived by the organism into groups according to common characteristics” This organization is a crucial variable in that it enables the human mind to store, classify and retrieve and use the environmental input. What is the exact role of the environment? Wadsworth “since schemata are structure of cognitive development that do change, allowance must be made for their growth and development, adult have different concepts from children, schemata, their structural counterparts change. The cognitive schemata of the adult are derived from sensory motor schemata of the child. The processes responsible for the change are assimilation and accommodation.”

The major thesis can be summarized as: the adult intelligence derives from the child sensory motor intelligence. Piaget observed children because his major objective was to identify the initial state (what is given) and what developmental stages this initial stage undergoes to gain more sophisticated knowledge. Sensory motor intelligence means: sensory (my senses which receive environmental stimulation) and motor (the effectors or the action coming from the organism and showing that the organism is reacting). Piaget observed children and he concluded that the child’s reaction is not random and has nothing to do with those insights or configuration described by the G theory. For him, any movement performed by the baby is not random and more importantly the movement leaves something. For example, a baby lying in her bed and perceiving a hanging object over her head, the first reaction is to catch the object. This movement which reflects the baby’s reaction to the hanging object is performed and if the object is reached, the consequence is positive, if not the baby will keep trying to catch it. Once the object is seized by the child, something will be retained by the child’s mind. This is called a cognitive pattern or schema. One among the most intricate things is the notion of schema. The best explanation is hat the schema is a practical concept (this is contradictory ‘practical vs. concept’). We have two types of concepts: the concept that lies in the signified and another that is constructed and the latter reminds us of the grammatical morpheme that has not counterpart in the real part (counter part of ing, present perfect, relative pronouns…). The relative pronoun is constructed by the speaker’s mind. Every movement performed by the organism leaves something in the human mind. If for example the baby who reached the object hanging over her head, the practical concept comes form her movement and concept corresponds to what is retained by the baby. This is stored as a file used to process other environmental stimuli. The child is discovering his surrounding environment, the child perceives a chair, in processing this immediate environmental stimulation, the object is not perceived as a passive object. The child looks for salient features (a four legged object). This for legged object is constructed by the organism which perceives it. This practical object will be used to process other environmental stimulation (table, stool). But when the child perceives a cat for example, the first thing that strikes the organism is the feature ‘four legged’. In processing ‘a cat’ a four legged entity: this shows that the practical concept which was derived initially from the chair has been imposed on the new entity which is different; but initially the two objects are processed alike. This common processing is based on this cognitive pattern. This is called assimilation: imposing a cognitive patter on the new stimulus, this cognitive movement reflects the action of the organism on the environment. That’s why table, chair and cat were grouped together. Sometimes, the new stimulus displays a different feature. Let’s supposed the child perceives a bird. This difference between the bird and the cat forces the child to reorganize the previous category. The child is left with two possibilities: he can modify the first schema governed by ‘four legged’. He can broaden the first schema in such a way that it can receive ‘legged’ objects (any number of legs). The second thing is to create another file given the obvious difference between the two types of stimuli. He creates another file. This shows the action of the environment on the organism. (assimilation: the organism imposed his schemata on the environment and accommodation: the action of the environment on the organism). The child creates a new file because the new stimulus reorganized the general configuration of the child’s mind. Wadsworth defines assimilation “it can be seen that in assimilation, the person imposes his available structure on the stimuli. In other words the stimuli are forced to fit the person’s structure.” (not given but constructed ‘four legged’ no insights as described by the G theory) whether it is necessary to create or to broaden the file. Individual and internal (vs external G theory)) we are tempted to identify assimilation with the rationalistic claim, the environmental stimulus is determined by what is in the organism’s mind, but it is different because those precursors are specific and not valid to process general knowledge and they are not modified (frozen) in the rationalistic claim. In Piaget’s view it is dynamic and constantly refined and it is determined by the opposite phenomenon (accommodation) determined by the foirts movement (assimilation). Wadsworth “It can be seen that in assimilation the person imposes his available structures on the stimuli being processed that is the stimuli are forced to fit the person’s structures. In accommodation, the reverse is true. The person is forced to change his schema to fit the new stimuli. Accommodation accounts for the development which is qualitative and assimilation accounts for growth which is a quantitative change. Together they account for intellectual adaptation and the development of intellectual structures.” (when the new file is created, it will be used to process other stimuli, it’s not the quality which a=is affected, it’s affected bearing in mind that at birth the baby is equipped with very few schemata.) And to account for Piaget’s notion of adaptation as a form of equilibrium Wadsworth adds “of equal importance, are the relative amounts of assimilation and accommodation that take place” to show the scientific validity of this equilibrium he asks us to consider the following situations; “if a person always assimilated and never accommodated, such a person would end up with a few large schemata and be unable to detect differences in things. On the other hand, if a person always accommodated and never assimilated this would result in a person having a great number of very small schemata that would have little generality. The person would be unable to detect similatrities