Comparing Piaget And Bruner's Theories Of Development

Throughout this essay the theories of development by Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner will be discussed, highlighting the similarities and differences in both and their influence and relevance to the teaching of mathematics in primary schools today. Jean Piaget divided a child’s cognitive development in to four main stages. The sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) is outlined by Piaget as a child learning about the environment around them through their senses with no realisation of object permanence. Whilst in this stage children have a very basic mathematical understanding and can begin to recognise counting patterns when introduced to these ideas, e.g. the child’s parents counting and organising items belonging to the child with them (Ojose, 2008, p27). The …show more content…
However, children remain to only see problems from a single focus and are found to be egocentric in the sense of taking other people’s points of view and feelings into consideration. The concrete operational stage (7-11 years) is the development of a child’s understanding in relation to other’s points of view and the child’s ability to see multiple aspects of a problem, referred to as decentration (Halpenny and Petterson, 2013, p124). The final stage of cognitive development described by Piaget is the formal operational stage (12+ years) within this stage children no longer rely on concrete objects and can think hypothetically. This transition allows significant progression in maths to take place as abstract symbols are fully understood and children can reach a hypothesis so can later relate maths to real-life situations instead of needing concrete