Wednesday Words
We will look at the words that define us.
Last week we started talking about Piaget. I know you guys were just dying to know what new term we are going to tackle this week. It probably ruined your week just pining over Piaget and all his awesomeness. Well the wait is over. This week we will talk about accommodation versus assimilation.
Assimilation is where a child takes in new information that matches their previous schema. For example if a child hits a rattle on the table and it makes noise, but does not break they have started forming a shema that objects make noise but do not break when hit on a table. If they then attempt to hit a wooden block on the table it will do the same as the rattle so the block will be assimilated into their current scheme.
Accommodation is where the new information does NOT match the existing information. For example if a child takes a raw egg and hits it on the table it will become a gooey mess (Anyone else cringe at just the thought of that gooey salmonella filled mess?!? Yuck!). A child now needs to accommodate this new information by changing what they know about the world.
Ideally a child will do both as they form knowledge of the world.
I love this little diagram to help explain. You can find the source for it here.
