A couple weeks ago you asked the class if we thought we were individual or social learners. I said individual. In the moment it seemed like a lot to admit; I felt like I needed more time to evaluate myself. Since then, and thinking about it now, I realize that that that’s still true, I am an individual learner.But that’s not the basis of this paper. However, to answer the question raised, I would say that human cognition is inherently an individual process. Even if Finland, the country with the best schools, stresses outside group play instead of in class group work, Piaget’s stance that learning is an individual process makes sense. My own experiences and other assigned readings point to this conclusion.
To me, the opposing argument on the
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To learn anything at all it first has to make sense to you. I believe that there is no way to judge one’s understanding if the process of metacognition does not take place. In an article published by the Onion, a discussion on the traditional classroom group dynamics and teacher-student relationships are examined. According to the assigned reading by Steiner, one criticism of Piaget’s theory is that classrooms are social settings where there’s an exchange of information from the teacher to the student or from student to student: “The teacher and the social context of the classroom play limited roles in Piaget’s cognitive theories of development. According to social constructivists, by contrast, learning and development are social, collaborative activities”(320). With this type of exchange it is argued that individual learning can’t take place in the classroom.
Similarly, the Onion article also explains the struggles of a teacher whose students write down everything she says without question, even if the information was strange or obscure. This is not learning. If Vygotsky’s theory of socio-cultural foundations of learning fits best in a classroom setting then questions need to be raised on that side of the argument. What does this theory say in response to the passive exchange of information from teacher to
Vygotsky placed much more emphasis on language that Piaget (book). Vygotsky’s theory focuses on the role of interpersonal processes and the role of the child’s community and culture which provide a framework from which the child’s construction of meaning develops (book). Although Vygotsky stressed that the process must be in in the context of the child’s culture and the tools available within that culture. Vygotsky was always especially interested in cognitive processes which underline understanding which has led to the concept of shared understandings that occur when people communicate with each other. Vygotsky argued that through the use of language formed through social interaction a child can develop as a thinker and a learner (book). As a conscious individual people could not accomplish very much without the aids and tools within their culture such as language (book). Piaget argued that language was strongly influenced by the underlying cognitive structures within the individual child (book). They also disagreed on the egocentric speech of children. When observing children Piaget concluded that half of the mistakes children made was down to egocentric speech which he argued showed that children have not tried to communicate with another or adapted so others can understand them he also argued that young children did not seem to care if anyone else could understand them and
This reading reminded me about how Vygotsky’s theory is mostly based on the interactions and influences help children to learn. I really do believe this theory is very accurate, because students can learn from each other. If a teacher is having trouble explaining a complex topic to a student, another student can explain it in more relatable way. Also, I was fascinated when I read about what cultural tools, were and how they related to Vygotsky’s beliefs. Learning about what cultural tools were, helped me to broaden my understanding of how crucial cultural tools are to student’s learning process. Also, the chapter did a great job of elaborating on how these tools can help to advance and grow in the understanding of student’s thinking process. Another aspect of this reading that interested me was the elaboration on private speech and the Zone of Proximal Development. Each of the definitions displayed help me to advance my own thinking on what it was and how it is used in regards to the education of students. The description of what private speech and how it is basically the inner narration of their thinking process helped me to understand how this aspect can help with students learning. Also, the Zone of Proximal Development helped me to make a connection to both what is and how it relates to private speech as well. The Zone of proximal development plays a crucial role in the
Piaget believed that human thinking is always changing, and human cognitive development is influenced by “…biological maturation, activity, social experiences, and equilibration”. Also, as humans, we tend to want organization and adaptation. According to Piaget, humans need to arrange information and personal experiences in to the mental process, and humans will adjust their thoughts into different “schemes” which is understand something one way then adding to make it correct or change the idea to fit the thought. To understand new information, Piaget believes humans “disequilibrium” which is they will add or create new schemes to assimilate or accommodate new or existing ideas or schemas to fit new or old information. This information goes
Piaget versus Vygotsky: Similarities and Differences This paper explores the ideas of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Exploring their philosophies and how they impact us today. The two scholarly articles show similarities and differences in their works and explore what they each mean. Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are two of the most influential philosophers in the field of cognitive development.
The father of the cognitive epistemology is Jean Piaget. This men born in Switzerland in 1896 and die on 1980. His parents were Arthur Piaget, who was Swiss and Rebecca Jackson who was French. Piaget develop an education theory in which one he suggest the children past by 4 different stages on their mental development and explains the way to understand and acquire the knowledge.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development: Piaget’s stages of cognitive development are the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. To start the book Holden is getting kicked out of his current school. He has already failed out of three other schools and is not looking forward to telling his parents he has just failed out of the fourth school that they paid for. Holden is in the fourth stage, the formal operational stage. According to piaget, in this stage people think ahead to solve problems, and in this situation, that is what Holden is trying to do to deal with his parents and getting kicked out of school. also, In this stage, people compare the results of what might happen from the choices that they could make and then they decide what path to choose. Holden is doing this when deciding how to tell his parents what had happened
Many people have made astounding contributions to the school of psychology. One of them was Jean Piaget and his theories on the cognitive developmental stages. Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland on August 9, 1896. He received a doctorate in biology at the age of 22. When he was younger, he became instantly interested in psychology and began researching and studying it. In Piaget’s research, he created an inclusive theoretical system for the development of cognitive abilities. His work was similar to Sigmund Freud, but Piaget focused on the way children think and obtain knowledge. At the age of ten, he wrote his first scientific paper. As a young teen, he was publishing papers in earnest. He was considered a great expert in the field.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory states that as children are adapting to the world they go through four stages that include: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. Each stage is very different according to Piaget. Cognitive theories focus the attention on conscious thoughts which means someone is more aware of their surroundings. Erik Erikson psychosocial theory differs from Piaget’s in a several ways. Erik Erikson believes people develop in psychosocial stages, which his theory consists of eight stages. Erikson’s theory states it is the main way connect with other people. Erikson says the first five years of life are the most important part in development and each stage has
Although Piaget and his famed clinical method started within the realm of cognitive psychology, in the 1920’s, Piaget became a prime influence toward the beginning of organizational psychology. In the United States during the industrial revolution, there was a series of experiments with about 20,000 workers at Western Electric Company in Hawthorne, Illinois. A company who was already known for caring about the welfare of their employees wanted to run a trial of two sets of offices: one room as the control group, and the other to run experiments. The goal of the experiments was to see how the illumination of the light fixtures would increase or reduce work productivity. What made the research so interesting was that no matter how the lights
Jean Piaget is best known for his cognitive development. Piaget had three children of his own, and through them he started making observations on his own children which eventually became the basis of his many future theories. In the 1920’s, he began to observe every day actions of infants and children to draw inferences about the thinking children do and underline their behaviors and why they act the way they do. Piagets’ theory went deeper than any psychologists or philosophers before him, and his theory is what shaped how we look and see children still in today’s time. Piaget discovered the fact that children have trouble learning new concepts when just being told or instructed, but do better
A number of aspects can influence one’s mind and its relationship with the world, and how it grows and flourishes. Both genetic and environmental traits have a contribution to the development of cognition and intelligence. Biologically, a person is born with the same number of brain cells they will ever possess, however, a person’s complete brain function capacity and strength will take years to solidify as neural networks grow more complex (Hank, 2014). Biological maturation will allow for such growth processes, and it enables orderly changes in behavior to take place. Cognitive development refers to how thought, intelligence, and language processes change as people mature (King, 2017). The development of thought processes, including memory, problem-solving, and decision-making, expand from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Jean Piaget (1896-1980), proposed his theory on how children actively construct and seek to
Another major difference seen in Lourenco’s (2012) article is that Piaget felt that instruction lead to memorization and not a functional understanding. Piaget felt that we keep children from understanding something completely when we teach them something they could have discovered on their own. Concepts are formed naturally and scientific concepts are not gained by a teacher. Vygotsky on the other hand found that children did better with guidance form an adult. He felt that scientific concepts are gained from teachers and that the child-adult relationship promoted development. In his theory the adult or higher-functioning peer plays an important role in the child’s development and knowledge. Whereas Piaget’s theory looks at social relationships as two equal peers, Vygotsky’s theory looks at an authority based
== Piaget’s theories of cognitive development are that children learn through exploration of their environment. An adult’s role in this is to provide children with appropriate experiences. He said that cognitive development happens in four stages. 1.
Piaget’s theory was guided by assumptions about how a learner interacts with their own environment and how they integrate new knowledge and information into existing knowledge. Briefly, he proposed that children are active learners who construct knowledge from their own environment. They learn through assimilation and accommodation in complex cognitive development. Furthermore, interaction with physical and social environments is the key and development occurs in stages. An example of Jean Piaget theory carried out in the classroom is that it gives children a great deal of hands-on practice, by using concrete props and visual aids.
One hundred years ago, Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a young man developing new insights about learning. He was one of a handful of constructivist-minded writers and educational theorists of the time. Learning theories open educators up to new ideas. They are necessary to expand our knowledge of how learning works. Piaget’s work is a well-tested and educators around the world should be aware of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive development in particular because it will improve the quality of their teaching. Once a teacher knows this theory, they can plan lessons appropriate to their students’ cognitive ability and build upon students’ earlier knowledge in a constructivist way.