Method & Media Used:Narrative, Pen and paper Time: Started1. 00pm Finished1. 10pm Number of Children Present:4 Number of Adults Present:2(including myself) Ages of children observed:2:6 years 2:8 years 3 years 6. 5 years Aim & Rationale of observation: My aim while carrying out this observation was to observe a group of children, specifically the 2nd youngest child, aged 2yrs 8 months and his cognitive response to an activity involving numeracy.
The type of cognitive skill I was looking for is what cognitive developmental stage children need to be at to be able to conserve and my colleague used Piaget’s Conservation Test involving Numbers to determine this. Background Information I am using the narrative method for this cognitive observation. The room in which I carried out this observation was a pre-school room. It is a bright, friendly room with lots of art work, made by the pre-school children on the walls. There are also some educational posters on the walls, a home corner and a reading/quiet time corner.
There is a lot of Montessori educational material on the shelving units in the room. The 4 children with the group that I am observing are all attending the service on a full time basis, i. e. 8. 30am – 5pm, Monday to Friday. Child A, male, the 2nd youngest, on which I mainly based this observation, has an older sibling and a younger sibling. Child A lives at home with both parents and both siblings. Child A attends the creche 5 days a week. His older sibling attends the afterschool club and his younger sibling is attending the baby room. Observation:
There are 4 children sitting at a table. The teacher is setting up an activity for them, involving counters. This test/activity she is using is from Piaget’s Theory of Conservation. Conservation refers to a logical thinking ability which, according to the psychologist Jean Piaget, becomes evident in children aged between 7years and 12 years, during the concrete operations stage, of their development. It is part of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, to logically determine that a certain quantity will remain the same despite adjustment of the container, shape, or apparent size.
The activity is set out to see if the children, Child A in particular, who are of different ages, have the ability to conserve. The teacher has set the test out on a table using some red counters and blue. She set out a line of ten red counters and another line of 10 blue counters, each counter in each line spaced at exactly the same distance apart so both lines of counters look exactly the same length. She asks Child A to count the number of counters in each line, beginning with the top line.
Child A starts counting the counters, using his index finger and going from left to right he counts from 1 – 10. He then counts the 2nd line, of blue counters, underneath the line of red counters and confirms to the teacher that both lines have 10 counters. She then asks Child A to now go and sit at the other table with the other 3 children. She proceeds to moves the line of blue counters a further distance apart from each other so both lines are of different length but still had the same amount of counters.
She instructs Child A to return to her and she asks Child A to look at both lines of counters and knowing that there were ten counters in each line did he still think there was the same amount of counters in each line. As he looked in the direction of the lines of counters on the table he told the teacher that there were now more blue counters in the 2nd line as it was bigger than the line of red counters. The teacher then carried out the test on the other 3 older children.
Requesting each child, in turn to count the counters, determining that each had the same amount of counters and then after re-arranging them asking them if both lines still looked to have the same amount of counters. The oldest child was the only one of the children who was able to determine, logically, that they did in fact have the same amount of counters in each line. Evaluation: I found that during my observation I had to repeat and re-phrase the questions in order that the younger children were able to understand what I was asking of them.
I found that using the Checklist method that I had clear and concise areas to observe and that I didn’t have to interfere too much with the children while carrying out the tests as I was able to note my findings after the tests were carried out and I was able to get more involved in the Actual observation. The children enjoyed being in a small group and were able to concentrate better also. From this observation I learned that not all children are able to conserve on a numerical test.
The inability of Child A to see that the amount of counters hadn’t changed, only the space between them had, shows that this child is not of the cognitive mental age to conserve i. e. he is still at the Pre Operational Development Stage of cognitive ability. According to Piaget, the Pre-Operational Stage, ranges from ages 2 to 7. Child A being in the Pre-Operational stage expresses his ability to mentally represent events and objects (the semiotic function), and engage in symbolic play. Their thoughts and communications are typically egocentric (i. e. about themselves).
Egocentrism refers to a child’s inability to see a situation from another person’s point of view. Child A has not yet reached the cognitive stage of logic therefore is unable to conserve. However the eldest child, being almost 7 years old is nearer to Piaget’s Third Cognitive Developmental Stage, the Concrete Operational Stages. At this stage of development a child is more capable cognitively to conserve. Piaget considered the concrete stage 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, cognitively, to use logical thought or operations (i. e. rules) but can only apply logic to physical objects (hence concrete operational). Children become less egocentric and better at conservation tasks. This means that the child understands that although the appearance of something changes, the thing itself does not. For example, if you take two pieces of string that are the same length and scrunch one up, a child will reply that the scrunched one is shorter, if conservation hasn’t yet been reached. The other two children, aged 2.
6 years and 3 years were still also in the Pre Operational Stage of development and so neither were at the cognitive development stage to enable them to conserve. Personal Learning: I found after carrying out this observation that children respond very well on a one to one basis, i. e. when the teacher was asking each individual child the questions relating to the Conservation test they all responded well and enjoyed the activity. I feel they felt they really belonged, therefore I was able to piece together the Aistear theme of Identity and Belonging while observing and evaluating Child A and the other children.
I also learned that children seem to have better concentration while set in a small group. I sensed that the younger children of the group seemed to be a bit upset if they felt that they had gotten the answers wrong (even though this was only due to their cognitive development stage) and they didn’t understand that so the teacher I feel maybe could have been a bit more sympathetic with their feelings and responses and not let them feel that they were doing wrong or let them feel that they were correct or incorrect. Recommendations:
To help children improve their cognitive development it is very important to allow the children to part take in creative activities and encourage them to use their imagination, for example in dress up games or drawing pictures. This will encourage well being, communication and Identity and belonging, as outlined in the Aistear Education Framework, this will also encourage their cognitive abilities, their confidence and also their problem solving ability if they are put in a position of play with other children and one child finds him or herself feeling left out or inferior.
I would also recommend these activities as they will offer Child A a variety of challenging and stimulating experiences and also ensure that Child A’s rights are met by offering choice and allowing Child A to use his initiative as an active participant in the activity so as to encourage his own learning and development, as set out in Siolta Standards 1 &2.
