Project-Based Learning based on Piaget's theory of cognitive development

On 8th of September we started a New Dalton Year in Shenzhen Xinhua Dalton School. After summing up the work with 20 agreements of independency, we set the goals for the upcoming semester- both theoretical (we start again with Why?) and practical. Our session with school mentors and Dalton coordinators concerned implementation in practice project based learning based on the Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. We are currently developing with the team of teachers authorial projects, together with parents and children based on the children’s personal interests and experience. Since we are working with children from 6- 11 years old, we divided our project into two stages: pre- operational stage (children 2-7 years old- children learn the world with their own senses); concrete operational stage (7-11 year olds- starts logical thinking). In the project we are engaging all children’s senses (hear, smell, touch, movement) to awaken their intrinsic, natural motivation and to avoid awards and punishments. For older children (7-11) we implement different sorts of projects, in which their curiosity is stimulated by solving together a real-life authentic problem. The project weeks are done twice a year in both Shenzhen and Wenzhou Dalton schools. All the authorial projects will be soon published in our book “The Dalton Plan- a child’s lifetime experience””. The book will be published in China in North East Normal University.