Classic Theories: Piaget, Vygotsky, & Learning Theory Flashcards
Piaget
child as scientist
o Construct their own knowledge from experimenting with the world
o Learn things on their own without the intervention of older children or adults
o Kids are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from adults to motivate learning
o Discontinuous (because of stages)
o Maturational sequence of qualitatively different stages
Maturational sequence of qualitatively different stages
- Broad applicability- type of thinking at each stage pervades across content and tasks
- Invariant order (order is genetic, timing depends on individual experience
- NO skipping
- Abrupt transitions
Order of Piaget’s stages
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete Operational
Formal operational
Sensorimotor (piaget)
(infancy and toddlerhood, birth-3 years)
• Knowledge tied to sensory and motor abilities (accomplishment)
• Imitate actions and behaviors (accomplishment)
• Fails test of object permanence until about 12 months
Preoperational (piaget)
(early childhood, 3-5 years)
• + Objects and events are represented by mental symbols
• + Make believe play, deferred imitation
• - Egocentric
• - Centration (focus on single feature to exclusion of others; therefore fails test of operation
Concrete Operational (piaget)
(middle childhood, 5-11 years)
• Children can reason logically about concrete objects and events
• Use logic; pass conservation test
• Fails to engage in systematic hypothesis testing
Formal Operational (piaget)
(adolescence, 11-18 years)
• Children can reason abstractly and hypothetically
Developmentally appropriate (piaget)
- Says that at certain ages kids can only think in certain ways
- This helps with the framework of what to do with kids and targeting curricula
- Bad because you’re not individualizing instruction
- Holding back good kids, being insensitive to slow kids
Applications to education (piaget
Pros
•Constructive approach- classroom designed for discovery and exploration
•Teacher as facilitator (rather than giver of information)
•Base curriculum on child’s knowledge and level of thinking
•Kids need to generate their own ideas
Cons
•Overemphasis on “developmentally appropriate”
•Undervalue the importance of direction and feedback
•Young kids are more competent than Piaget thought
Vygotsky
Same time as piaget but behind the iron curtain so his stuff came out later
Child as social butterfly
•Humans are unique in ability to teach and learn from each other
•Social interactions are crucial for development
•Views development as constrained by the culture in which you live
•The kids makes sense of the world through social interactions
•Culture (that values education) constrains
What changes (Vygotsky)
Internalization
Zone of proximal development
Internalization (Vygotsky)
- Imitation → self guiding → interalization
- Cycle repeats itself as the child acquires increasingly sophisticated ways of thinking
- You internalize what you do in certain situations
- Tied to how much experience/ knowledge you have
Zone of Proximal Development
- The range between what children can do unsupported and what they can do with optimal social support
- Continuously increases with development
- May be different for tasks, concepts, or domains (e.g. better at math than art)
- It is important to give tasks below the zone for confidence
- Important to give above to challenge kids
Key Mechanisms (Vogotsky)
- Sharing our thoughts
- Joint attention
- Social referencing
- Interaction with more competent people
- Guided participation
- Social scaffolding
Joint attention (vygotsky)
mutual gaze or attention to the same object, event or problem
Social Referencing (vygotsky)
looking to social partners for guidance about how to respond to unfamiliar events
Guided participation (vygotsky)
participate in activity with more competent person
Social Scaffolding
more competent person provides temporary framework that lead children to higher order thinking; adjust support to child’s current level of performance (ZPD) and gradually withdraw
o Helps kid do something he/she couldn’t do alone
o Happens during guided participation
Vygotsky pros
- Focuses on social aspects of development
* Explains individual differences (as product of culture and socialization)
Vygotsky cons
- Little focus on children’s cognition
* Complexity of social context makes it difficult to be specific about cause and effects
Vygotsky applications to education
- Cooperative learning- Encouragement of learning from each other
- Scaffold learning- stronger role for teacher/ more advanced peer than Piaget (teacher hands on)
- Base curriculum on child’s ZPD
- Clearer goals on extending range than Piaget
- Individualized education good but difficult
Learning Theory
o John Watson and BF Skinner
o Child as blank slate, children’s personality and behavior are shaped entirely by there experiences
Key Mechanisms (Learning Theory)
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Observational learning
Classical conditioning (LT)
- We associate two stimuli (e.g. loud noise and white rabbit) that occur before the behavior (e.g. cringing in fear)
- Getting kids to like books
Operant conditioning (LT)
• We repeat behaviors that lead to favorable outcomes (rewards) and suppress behaviors that lead to negative outcomes (punishment)
o Crying when mother’s return
o Whining w/ treat or no whining w/ treat
o Doing homework with praise
o Basis for reward charts etc
Observational learning (LT)
- Children learn by observing a model and the consequences of the model’s actions
- Modeling works because child is watching
- Know you will get in trouble because seen older sibling
- Aggressive modeling leads to aggressive children
- Kids who saw adult hit doll were more likely to imitate and create new aggressive acts
- Boys are more aggressive
- Girls are more likely to imitate
Learning Theory pros
- Focuses on observable behaviors, so easily tested
- Explains individual differences (as product of experiences)
- Highlighted the importance of modeling
Learning Theory cons
- Little focus on children’s cognition
* Unable to explain creative thought
LT Applications to education
- Use of positive and negative reinforcement for classroom management
- Importance of feedback for learning
- Interventions/ remediation for atypical learners
