Analysis Of The Concrete Operational Stage Of Piaget Stages Of Development

Brayden falls in the concrete operational stage in Piaget stages of development. I placed him in the concrete operational stage based on his logical responses to questions about conservation, his manipulation of variables, and his response to hypothetical situations. When I asked Brayden to explain the saying “Don’t cry over spilt milk”, his response was, “it means cheer up.” I also asked him to explain the saying “Better to light a candle than to curse the dark.” He responded “it means to not be afraid.” Although these answers may have not been correct, he still answered them by giving his own figurative explanations. Brayden continued to use figurative language when asked more abstract hypothetical questions such as, describing a friend. He described a friend as being someone who will be there and play with you at all cost.
I used Aesop’s Fable “The Wolf and The Kid” to further assess Brayden’s stage of development by asking him “What do you think this story means?” He stated “The story means that a wolf should never listen to a human.” This concludes that Brayden is in the concrete operational stage based on his literal response to the story. During the classification task, I gave Brayden a pencil, paper, sticky note, tape, and a magnet and asked him to place them in categories. He placed the pencil and paper into a category, and the tape, magnet, and sticky note in another category. He stated “the pencil and paper go together for writing, and the tape, sticky note, and magnet, sticks to things.” Per Piaget, Brayden’s grouping strategies place him in the preoperational stage since he placed items based on their functional relationships.
The following observation I called Brayden over to perform tasks of conservation and c...

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...” I approached him and asked what was going on, “He stated that he is smarter and knows how to do this, but they won’t listen to me.” He then went on to ask if he could work alone. I told him “Brayden we are working together to create a way to build the catapult and we need to be considerate of others ideas.” He got upset and began to cry and stated “he hates this school, and his group.” I have observed from other collaborative learning activities that Brayden has the tendency to get upset often, and never wants to participate, and states he would rather work alone. When the students are participating in independent work he prefers complete silence and often complains if someone is talking amongst themselves. Although he does work well independently and can learn through scaffolding, he has difficulties learning through peer interactions and collaborative learning.