For Week 5 of the lecture, we were introduced to another topic which relates to Semiotics which is the effect of Gestalt and the Schema theory. For this week’s journal, I am going to focus on Schema theory by creating a presentation for a group of primary school children and I am going to explore and investigate how schema theory can be used and applied by learners of every age especially in young children. My topic for the schema will be about fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home. The reason why I chose these schemas is because according to Piaget’s ideas of children’s cognitive stage development, children between 7 -11 go through a pre-operational stage of learning, hence they are able to think logically about classifying objects into several features.( Atherton, 2010). Therefore based on Piaget’s theory, I will investigate whether they are able to classify things that causes fire and extend their schema about the causes of fire.
Before that, I will first explain a little bit about Gestalt and how it works. Both Gestalt and Schema theory are interrelated. Weitheimer( 1910) a German Psychologist describes Gestalt as “the whole is different from the sum of its parts”. The word Gestalt comes from the German noun meaning “Shapes”.
On the other hand , A schema generally means anything that an individual has experienced. According to The Schema Theory, people organize everything that they know into schema and structures. When people have their schemas , they are able to identify and associate things that they see around them. Schema theory also suggests that when a person doesn’t have any existing schema, it is very difficult for them to learn new information on a certain topic. There are two important parts for Schema theory, one is that every person’s schema is individualized and the other is that the knowledge structures are expandable.
Furthermore, Schema theory explains how knowledge is created and used by people who are in the learning stage. The term “Schema” has been created by Bartlett (1932). However, This theory was developed further by R.C Anderson (1984) , a respected American Psychologist. This theory represents an individual’s understanding of the world.
The first video clip that I use demonstrates how dangerous fire can be to children and at the same time it helps the child to understand how to prevent fire accidents in the home. The video clip also includes an animated fire engine which will catch the attention of the child and at the same time give them a schema of what a fire engine does.
Bartlet viewed schema as “ an active organization of past reactions, or past experience.”(pg. 257). It is important that every child has a schema about things around them so as they grow older, they are able to extend their schema further. Fire preventions and safety precautions are also important for children to understand at a young age because without these schemas, a child might be prone to play with matches, candles, oven and other dangerous things in the house without knowing the dangers that it can cause. According to Piaget’s theory of development, children adopt a series of schemas to understand the world ( ).In the above figure, I have provided two visual schemas that will frame my topic for fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home.
According to the Piagetian Theory, when a child receives information that doesn’t fit his or her own schema about a particular object or event ,the child will experience incongruity. (Martin, 2007). The video shows a fire engine giving advice to the children regarding the fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents at home. Here, the fire engine is an incongruous schema because we don’t see fire engines talking in real life . By using the animated fire engine as an incongruous schema , the children will pay more attention to it and will create arousal and excitement because the fire engine is talking and giving them advice. Hence, it will make them wonder what the fire engine is trying to say to them.
In this video clip, the fire engine is talking and teaching the children about fire safety and how to prevent fire accidents in the home. This video is able to build a schema on the children regarding fire safety. It gives them the idea of what to do when a fire is detected in the house and the do’s and don’ts in the house to prevent fire accidents at home. By using animated graphics to relay the message to children, it helps them to recognise and remember the situation.
By using this incongruous schema, the presentation will be successful as this is part of “accretation” of the schema. According to Widmayer (2004), “Accretation” is a process whereby learners take in new information but do not need to alter the existing schemas. When the video clip show the children that the fire engine is giving advice, it strengthens their schema of a fire engine thus they get to understand and believe what the fire engine is telling them in regards to fire precaution. According to Widmayer (2004), Schema theory articulates three process of which knowledge structure changes. Among them is accretation, tuning and restructuring. Here, If the child has a schema of what a fire engine does and the dangers of the fire, they will go through an accretation process. An accretation process is where the children have an existing schema of the fire engine and they will just take in new information but do not have to change existing schemas.
Children are attracted to the flames of the candle or lighter or anything that burns with flames. By nature, children are constantly curious of their surroundings and they are always ready to try out new things. However, it is the parents or teachers responsibility to create the schema in children that these things are dangerous. Their curiosity might lead them into danger in which they are not aware of. In video 2, it shows a schema of what will happen if the children do not listen to the advice given by the fire engine in Video 1. When we look at the 2nd video, it shows a real image of what fire looks like. This gives an image and a schema to the children of what fire really looks like in the real world and the dangers of it.
The top level of the schematic process is the fire. The top level always represents the truth about the situation. For example in the video 1, the top level schema is the fire engine and the flames of the fire because this is the schema that I am trying to embed in the children when doing my presentation. However, the lower level of the schematic process is the variables that cause the fire. For example , the candles , the stove, the matches, the lighter , cigarette etc. This is part of the lower schema because it has terminals that can change. For example the candles can become different kinds of candles, or the stove can be of different colour or brand, or perhaps the variables which caused the fire can vary into different cause such as electrical wiring mishaps. The variables can change and it will not effect the top schema. The people who watch the video still know that the video presentation is focusing and highlighting on fire safety and precautions.
In conclusion, I am convinced now about Piagets theory whereby he claims that children are able to think logically about “classifying objects into several features.”. I have also explored the use of incongruity for visual images to create schemas in children. By understanding the use of top and lower schemas, children are able to classify the objects into groups because when the top schema changes it doesn’t fit their existing schema however, when the lower schema change, they are still able to modify their top schema and adjust it to the changes.
References :
Atherton J S, (2010) Learning and Teaching ; Piaget’s developmental theory , UK : http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Retrieved on 10th September 2010.
Martin, R.A (2007). The psychology of humor : an integrative approach. Google Books, Retrieved on 8th September, 2010 from http://www.books.google.com.bn/books
Retrieved on 10th September, 2010 from www.spiritus-temporis.com/schema-psychology
Tracey, Diane H., Morrow, Lesley Mandel. Lenses on Reading : An Introduction to Theories and Models. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press, 2006. Pg 53
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