The Role of Play in Cognitive Development: Implications for Teachers
Journal Title: Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences - Year 2015, Vol 3, Issue 9
Abstract
Play is central to the development of a child. Different views have been expressed on how play contributes to intellectual development, physical development, emotional development and personality development among other domains of human development. The paper focuses on the conceptual framework of the term play. Different forms of play are covered. These include free play, spontaneous play, make-belief play, creative play, physical play and manipulative play. These are examined to provide a theoretical framework for the concept play, and as a way of giving the reader an appreciation of the role of play in education. Apart from developing other human domains, play contributes to cognitive development. A number of theories have been advanced to explain cognitive development in children. To demonstrate the importance of play in education the paper discusses Piaget’s theory of cognitive development in relation to play. The paper focuses mainly on Piaget’s first three stages of cognitive development and how play can contribute positively to development. The theory is examined according to its contribution to learning in relation to the role of the teacher. The paper concludes that play stimulates a child’s social, physical, emotional and cognitive development and that the school has to promote the use of play in teaching all subjects. Keywords: cognitive development; play; theories of play; Piaget’s theory of cognitive development; teachers and school heads
Authors and Affiliations
Dr. Wellington Samkange
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP379899
- DOI -
- Views 106
- Downloads 0
Rethinking Palliative Care and Public Health Services in Urban Indian Context
The pioneering works of Cicely Saunders 1960s onwards made Palliative Care (PC) and hospices embrace the end-of-life care needs of patients across the world. In 1986, World Health Organisation defined palliative care as...
Sentence Fragmentation in the Writing of Senior Secondary School Students of Gwale, Kano, Nigeria
It is conventionally agreed that the effectiveness of written English depends on the grammatical correctness. This study empirically investigated the sentence fragments from the compositions of senior secondary students....
Effects of Farmer Field School (FFS) Training on Cocoa Farmers’ Job Performance (CFJP) in Southwest Nigeria
Abstract: Sustainable Tree Crop Programme (STCP) of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) introduced Farmer Field School (FFS) in 2003 as pilot project. In 2005, FFS was scaled up and adopted by cocoa pr...
Religious Movements in Igbo Land: the Place of the Modern Woman
This paper interrogates the changes that have taken place in the religious sphere among the Igbo people South East Nigeria from the pre colonial to the modern day Nigeria and how this has affected the Igbo woman’s socioe...
Portrayal of Environmentally Denatured India in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, which was awarded the ‘Man Booker Prize’ in 2008, is in the epistolary form which presents the burning issues of this developing era. The novel is a form of seven- parts letter written by...