IDE 621 KB by Soboleva Violetta
Cognitive development theory explains everything for me. Literally. The way people's brain works opens a lot of food for thoughts. Looking at my own experience, starting from the US adaptation - when I just arrived, local traditions and life itself was new and different for me and did not apply to my world picture at that time. From the cognitivist perspective (Paige's theory), when I just arrived, I entered the stage of disequilibrium - when my existing schemas did not match life overseas. Through the process of accommodation and assimilation, I started feeling like home here after some time, but it took several months to feel differently, less homesick. I partially knew that adaptation is a difficult process before but had no clue what are the names of the processes stand behind this term. Still, now I can explain and understand cognitive processes, and it is only one example.
As a teacher, I knew ID theories like advanced organizers or scaffolding, but I did not know their names again. For example, back in Russia, our professors taught us to follow nine events of instructions of Ganie, but guess what - I did not know that it is called "9 events of instructions" and that Ganie is its author. It makes much more sense when the information is structured instead of just "do like this". Now, as a knowledgeable person, I can explain educational decisions from a theoretical perspective, and not just by saying, "I was taught this way". Many things that I used before as a teacher now name more sense to me, thanks to cognitive-developmental theory knowledge.
In comparison with behaviorism, cognitivism goes deeper in people's understanding as they can not only be "trained" the way behaviorism explains but understand things, which does not necessarily lead to behavioral change but for sure to developing new mental representations (schema).