Piaget TIPR

What evidence do you see of specific teacher behaviors that are geared toward Piaget's theories about cognitive development? Cite specific examples and make clear connection to Piaget's work. Be thorough in your coverage of the theory, addressing multiple concepts (e.g., stage(s) of development, process of adaptation/equilibration) to demonstrate your understanding. Be sure to include a reference in your response.

John Piaget developed a four-stage model of cognitive development on how the mind processes new information. Is is known a Piaget's Theory. Piaget suggests that the information in our brain is sorted into categories called schema. He also suggests that when learning new information our brain must assimilate the new information (put new information in an existing schema) or accommodate the new information (create new schema for the new information). In other words, the brain must adapt to new information. As secondary educators, the stage our students will be in is the formal operations stage of cognitive development. According to this article: http://www.simplypsychology.org/formal-operational.html the formal operations stage of cognitive development starts around age 12 and goes into adulthood. It is when students are learning to think abstractly and to manipulate ideas in their brain.
In a 9th grade math class ( a subject that causes a lot of cognitive dissonance) the teacher was teaching about shapes and their symmetry, reflections, rotations, and how to translate the shapes. The teacher knew that this was going to cause a lot of disequilibrium (a state of imbalance when new information requires us to develop new schema or to modify existing schema). To help the students assimilate or accommodate the new information of shapes, the teacher made cutouts out of clothing material into the shapes they were learning about for every student. The students were able to hold each shape and fold it, rotate it, reflect it, and translate it right with their own hands instead of only imagining it.  I could see the students right there start to assimilate and accommodate the new information and adjusting their schema, thus bringing their brains back into a state of equilibrium.