Banerjee (2011) - Learning & Group Work

Question 1

Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Answer 1

‘Child-centerd education’. Rejected view of children as passive respondents. Constructivist approach - focuses on how children construct their knowledge based on experience. When something does not map on to schemas, places child in state of disequilibrium. Schemas can be extended (assimilation).

Question 2

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Answer 2

Focuses on the way in which people e.g. parents and teachers play an active role in transmitting cultural knowledge to the child. Transmission of cultural tools, enable and stimulate cognitive growth. All higher mental functions emerge in a child’s development within the context of social interactions with others who are more experienced in the use of psychological tools. Shift in regulation - move toward self-regulation. Private speech plays a role in this. Process of learning takes place in the zone of proximal development - what a child can do unaided and what they can achieve with support. Educational thinking is scaffolded.

Question 3

Information-Processing Theories

Answer 3

Many e.g. Klahr use computer as a metaphor for human cognition - can think of the brain as our hardware, with specifiable limits regarding speed of processing and memory capacity. Siegler (2005) characterised development in terms of a series of overlapping waves - different strategies rise and fall in frequency of use as the child gets older.