Week 2 Piaget and Vygotsky

Cultural tools

Tools that shape a child's development along culture-specific lines

Piaget

Emphasized that children construct their understanding through a constructive process

Bronfenbrenner

Theorist who did not emphasize the role of cultural tools

Vygotsky

Theorist who emphasized the role of cultural tools

Bandura

Theorist who did not emphasize the role of cultural tools

Development

Gradual acquisition of new abilities

Nature

Genetic programming

Nurture

Environmental factors

Monozygotic twins

Twins with more similar personalities, school achievement, and abilities than fraternal twins

Nature and nurture

Most psychological outcomes are due to the interaction of genetic programming and environmental factors

Maturation

Unfolding of the genetic program over time

Sensitive period

Time when a child is more able to learn particular abilities from experience

Lateralization

Specialization of function on one side of the brain

Brain development

Manifests as behavioral change

Neural development

Stimulated by input and feedback from the environment and genetic program

Myelination

Produced by genetic program (maturation)

Piagetian stage theory

Influenced how academics viewed child development

evidence against stage theory has accumulated

Conservation

Examples include volume, number, and abstract thinking

Egocentric speech

Self-directed speech that does not communicate with others

group of preoperational children may speak in a collective monologue without any meaningful interaction

piaget saw this as evidence of a general inability of young children to see the world from the perspective of another

Schema

Cognitive structure that codes knowledge

Assimilation

Incorporating new information into existing schemas

the schema is “filled-in” with the new info but the structure of the schema does not change

Disequilibrium

State of imbalance caused by new information inconsistent with current schemas

this may be somewhat stressful or uncomfortable

Accommodation

Modifying a schema or creating a new schema to resolve disequilibrium

the cognitive structures are re-organized

Genetic maturation

Interaction with experiential learning in development

Constructivist psychologist

Piaget was the first and laid the foundation for later constructivist theories

Neo-Piagetian theory

Combines Piaget's insights with cognitive research on attention and memory.

piaget underestimated pre-school children’s abilities. They develop many abilities earlier than he theorized

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Identifies problems or tasks that can only be done with assistance

Scaffolding

Help provided by the teacher or resources to support learning

Regulating task difficulty

Type of scaffolding that adjusts the level of challenge

Procedural facilitators

Type of scaffolding that provides step-by-step guidance

Partially solved problems

Type of scaffolding that presents problems with some parts already solved

Interactive assistance

Type of scaffolding that involves direct interaction with the learner

Piaget's theory application

Observing how children solve problems and providing hands-on experiences to construct knowledge

Vygotsky's theory application

Talking with children, giving activities just out of reach, introducing cultural tools, and providing scaffolding

Which theorist emphasized the role of cultural tools?

Piaget

Perhaps Piaget’s most important insight was that

children construct their understanding, and learning is a constructive process

children are active in their knowledge and are questioning of their surrounding

construct their own understanding

What is Development?

Cognitive development is the gradual acquisition of new abilities

related abilities such as babbling, speaking first words and speaking first sentences typically develop gradually and in same order

Nature and nurture

monozygotic twins have more similar personalities, school achievement and abilities than fraternal

it is possible to estimate how much of the variation in a population is due to nature and nurture

outcomes either due to interaction and maturation

neuroscience of development and learning

complex task use many areas of brain at same time. Brian development manifests as behavioural change

Role of Nature and Nurture in Neural Development

input and feedback from the environment stimulates development of new synapes

genetic program (maturation) produces myelination

both the environmental stimulation and maturation cause neural development

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Learning

function of childs cultural development appears between people and inside child

cultures expose their children to tools that shape their development along culture-specific lines

cultural tools is language

The Piagetian Legacy

he saw child an active agent who constructs her own understanding and knowledge of the world

first constructivist psychologist and laid foundation for later constructive theories

physical development

changes in body structure that takes place as one grows

personal development

changes in personality that take place as one grows

social development

changes over time in ways in which one relates to others

maturation

genetically programmed, naturally occuring changes over time

coactions

joint actions of individual biology and environment

Critical Periods and Earlier versus Later experiences

many earlier psychologists, believe early childhood experiences were critical, especially for emotional/social and cognitive development

others say sensitive periods as when a person is ready to certain experiences

general principles of development

1. people development at different rates

2. development is relatively orderly

3. development takes place gradually

developing brain: cerebral cortex

• accounts for 85% of brains weight and contains lots of neurons

• last part of brain develop and more suspectible to environmental changes

• controls physical motor movement, complex senses, and frontal lobe controls higher order thinking

• temporal lobe controls emotions, judgement and language

plasticity

brains of young children show plasticity because they are not specialized and and can somewhat overcome damage which allows language development to proceed

assimilation

fitting new information into existing schemes

accomodation

altering existing schemes or creating new ones. inresponse to new info

equilibriation

search for mental balance between cognitive schemes and info from environment

disequilibrium

“out of balance” state that occurs when a person realizes that his or her current ways of thinking are not working to solve a problem or understand a situation

executive functioning

processesed to organize, coordinate and perform goal-directed, intentional actions, including focusing attention, inhibiting impulsive responses, making and changing plans and using memory to hold and manipulate info

Fischer connected development in different domains to research on brain:

when learning new skill, children move through three tiers- actions to representations to abstractions

each pattern is moving from accomplishing a single action to mapping or coordinating two actions together

each skill level, brian reorganizes itself

support and practice keys in another explanation of a cognitive development

co-constructed

constructed through a social process in which people interact and negotiate to create an understanding or to solve a problem

private speech

children’s self talk, which guides their thinking and action- verbalizations are internalized as silent inner speech

zone of proximal development

phase at which a child can master a task if given appropriate help and support