The Importance of Piaget’s Theory in the Science Classroom

As teachers, we always hear that hands-on activities are important for student learning. However, do you ever wonder why hands-on learning is so important, besides the fact that it is more “fun”? “Jean Piaget proposed that through interacting with and reflecting on their physical and social worlds, children self-construct increasingly complex understandings and reasoning abilities with age”(Ormrod, pg. 289). Piaget’s cognitive-developmental theory showed the importance of individual constructivism in children’s development and learning. Ormrod states, “Piaget depicted learning as a very constructive process: Children create (rather than simply absorb) their knowledge about the world”(Ormrod, pg. 291). In addition, Piaget suggested that children need to be active learners, they need to organize what they learn from their experiences or existing schemes, and they learn by interacting with their physical environment (Ormrod, pg. 291-292).

His theory is very important for teachers to use to their advantage. Ormrod lists a number of ways that Piaget’s theory can be beneficial for teachers, but there are a couple that relate directly to the science classroom. The first one is, “Puzzling phenomena can create disequilibrium and spur children to acquire new understandings”(Ormrod, pg. 309). The whole idea behind the Next Generation Science Standards is to present the students with a phenomenon at the beginning of the unit to get them thinking about the topic. An example of a phenomenon that I have used in the classroom is a picture of a rock formation that has been eroded by the wind. At the beginning of the erosion unit the students have to guess what could have caused this rock to have this hole in it. They work in groups to draw a model to explain what they think is happening, conduct multiple hands-on activities, and research different types of erosion to try to figure out this phenomenon. This is a great way for students to revise existing schemes like Piaget suggests.

Ormrod also writes about how Piaget’s view relates to inquiry learning, “Children and adolescents can learn a great deal through hands-on experiences”(Ormrod, pg. 307). Discovery learning or inquiry learning are both very hands-on and are used often in the science classroom.  Throughout the entire process I described above, students use inquiry learning to construct their knowledge about erosion. This self-construction of knowledge is what Piaget proposed as being extremely important in a child’s learning process.

Ormrod, J. E. (2012). Human Learning. New York, NY: Pearson.