Piaget and Vygotsky’s Developmental TheoriesEducation Foundations, Week 3
Mental Development
Piaget: o Bio and contexto Developmental stageso The learning processo Piaget’s classroom
Vygotsky:o Bio and contexto Development and social relationo ZPDo The role of languageo Vygotsky’s classroom
Overview
Started as a zoologist
Worked with Binet on standardising IQ tests
Clinical method
Piaget: Bio and Context(1896-1980)
Sensori-motor thinkingPreoperational thinkingConcrete operational thinkingFormal operation thinking
Developmental stages
Universal stagesInvariant sequenceIndividual differences in age limits
Developmental milestones:o Object permanence o Goal-directed actions o Immediate and deferred imitationo Emergence of pretend play
Sensori-motor thinking (Birth – 2 years)
Developmental milestones:
o Acquisition of language
o Emergence of symbolic thought
o Blossoming of pretend play
Preoperational thinking (2-7 yrs)
Animism
Centration (lack of conservation)
Precausal reasoning “I haven’t had a nap, so it’s not afternoon yet”
Egocentricism
Deficits of preoperational stage
Developmental milestone -- conservation o Identity; o reversibility; o compensation; o seriation; o classfication
Concrete operational thinking (7-11 yrs)
Concrete specificity rather than abstract reasoning
Deficit of concrete operational thinking
Developmental milestones:o Propositional thinkingo Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
• Not every individual reaches this stage• Context matters• Formal schooling plays a key role
Formal operational thinking (>11/12 yrs)
Schemes: a cluster or structure of ideas organising existing knowledge to make sense of new experiences
DisequilibriumAdaptation:
1) assimilation2) accommodation
Piaget: the learning process
Students as ‘solitary scientists’
Constructivism; discovery learning; inquiry-based learning
Peers as thought provokers
Teachers as assessors and experience providers
Piaget’s classroom
Research methods
Later research findings
Stage-like development
Tendencies rather than potentials
Universal vs differences
Criticisms of Piaget
Born in Orsha and raised in Gomel, Russia
Superior intellect shown in early schooling
Entered university through Jewish lottery
Philosophy, art, psychologyOppressed by the Stalin
regime, his publications were prohibited till 50 years after his death
Vygotsky: Bio and context(1896-1934)
Teaching and learning lead development; teaching cannot lag behind development
From lower (first-order) to higher (mediated) mental functions
"The central fact about our psychology is the fact of mediation”
Developmental process
"We can formulate the genetic law of cultural development in the following way... Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an inter-psychological category and then within the individual child as an intra-psychological category... but it goes without saying that internalisation transforms the process itself and changes its structure and functions. Social relations or relations among people genetically underlie all higher functions and their relationships”. (Vygotsky 1978)
Development and social relationInterpsychology --
intrapsychology
The meaning of ‘Hello’The origin of the indicative function of
finger pointing
Enabling thinking development and transformation
The ‘square bamboo’ story
Realising the knowledge potential in apparently wrong, illogical and nonsensical remarks
The Role of Language
Distance between what students can do independently and what they can do with others
Measuring the size of the child’s mind by the shadow it casts vs. understanding the child’s mind by the assisted light it emits
Zone of Proximal Development
Role of teacher Guide and mentor
Role of peers Guide and mentor
Dynamic assessment
Vygotsky’s classroom