Piaget and Vygotsky’s Developmental Theories

Education 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 relation

Interpsychology -- 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