- Concrete Operational Stage
This stage is approximately from 7 - 11 years; the child is able to undertake adult-style cognitive operations. During this stage the use of visual aids and props still continues, especially when dealing with more sophisticated material, for example: time-lines for history lessons and three-dimensional models in science. Students are given the chance to manipulate objects and test out their ideas with simple scientific experiments and craftwork. During this stage, Piaget points out that the student becomes more able to decentre and discuss open-ended questions that stimulate thought. Concrete Operational children are limited in one very important respect, however: They can apply their logical operations only to concrete, observable objects and events. They have difficulty dealing with abstract information and with hypothetical ideas contrary to their own reality.
- Formal Operational Stage
This final stage, according to Piaget, starts at approximately 11 years. The child is now fully decentred and can undertake abstract reasoning and perform logical operations. Once in the final stage of development, students are encouraged to discuss social issues and given the opportunity to explore many hypothetical questions. Teaching at this stage covers broader concepts, not just facts, and students work in pairs on a topic, encouraging them to explain how they solve problems. By this stage the students should have the ability to analyse and discuss.
- ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMODATION
In Piaget’s view, each unit of intelligent behaviour is represented by a schema, which contains the information about the particular task or activity it is concerned with. These schema's change to allow for new information as the child discovers more. He says that people interact with their environment through two unchanging processes, known as assimilation and accommodation. In assimilation, we use our current schemes to interpret the external world. In accommodation an individual either modifies an existing scheme, or forms a new one to account for a new event. The balance between these two processes varies over time. At times children are in a state of equilibrium (steady, comfortable condition), while at other times they are in a state of disequilibrium (cognitive discomfort). Piaget used the term equilibration to sum up the back and forth movements between these two states. More effective schemas are produced each time equilibration occurs.
Piaget has had a major impact on education, especially at the preschool and early elementary levels. There are three major principles that have been derived from his theory, each of which continues to have a great influence on teacher training and classroom practices:
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Discovery Learning: Spontaneous interaction with the environment is encouraged for children to discover themselves. Teachers provide activities to promote exploration, such as puzzles, table games, and dress up clothing.
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Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn: A Piagetian classroom does not try to speed up development. Piaget believed that appropriate learning experiences build on children’s current level of thinking. Teachers introduce experiences that permit students to practice newly discovered schemes and that are likely to challenge their incorrect ways of viewing the world. They do not impose new skills since this would lead to superficial acceptance of adult formulas and not true understanding.
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Acceptance of individual differences: Teachers must plan activities for individuals and small groups rather than for the total class. This is because Piaget assumes that all children do go through the same sequence of development, but at different rates.
Although the educational applications of Piaget’s theory have been criticized (discussed below), his influence on education has and still remains very powerful, since he gave teachers new ways to observe, understand, and enhance young children’s development.
DISCUSSING VYGOTSKY
The work of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), which spanned the brief period from 1924 to 1938, has steadily grown in influence. He made a significant contribution to psychology even though he died at an early age of thirty-seven. Lev Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as culturally based. He identified logical memory, voluntary attention, categorical perception, and the self-regulation of behaviour as the highest forms of psychological functioning. He grounded his analyses in the cultural history of the human race and the child's interactions with others in his or her particular environment. Western psychologists did not fully appreciate the value of the usefulness of his work until several decades later. Although Vygotsky never had the chance to develop his theory fully, his views are clearly evident in our views or learning and instruction today. Some of his most influential ideas are:
- Complex mental processes begin as social activities; as children develop, they gradually internalize these processes and can use them independently of those around them.
- Thought and language initially develop independently of each other; the two become interdependent when children are about two years old.
- Children can accomplish more difficult tasks when they have the assistance of people more advanced and competent than themselves.
- Tasks within the Zone Of Proximal Development promote maximum cognitive growth.
We will explain some of the above points in greater depth below:
- SOCIALLY MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY
The major theme of Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky (1978) states: "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)”. By internalization, he refers to the process of learning (and thereby internalizing) a rich body of knowledge and tools that first exist outside of the child, and evolve into internal mental activities.
- ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT(ZPD)
Another important concept in Vygotsky’s theory is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). By this he refers to the fact that the potential for cognitive development is limited to a certain time span. In the ZPD, a teacher and learner work together on tasks that the learner could not perform independently because of the difficulty level. Cognitive change occurs in the ZPD as teacher and learner share cultural tools. It is this culturally mediated interaction that produces cognitive change when it is internalized in the learner.
While for adults thought and language are closely interconnected, Vygotsky thought that they are distinctly separate functions for infants and young toddlers. Around two years of age, thought and language become intertwined.
According to Vygotsky, at first when thought and language merge, we begin to see self-talk. This eventually becomes inner-speech. By talking to themselves children learn to guide and direct their own behaviours, and thus both self-talk and inner-speech are examples of the internalization process.
Vygotsky’s argument bears a striking similarity to recent movement in cognitive science associated with the notion of distributed cognition and situated learning. Central to this line of thought, is the effort to create an external symbol system approach that “moves formal symbols … out of the head and locates them in the environment of the system.” Vygotsky’s position of the centrality of artefacts in human mental processes, is one that has great resonance in contemporary cognitive science, as well as the human sciences more broadly. For Vygotsky artefacts play a central role in elaborating an account of what and where the mind is.
Vygotsky’s theory offers visions of teaching and learning that emphasize collaboration and the importance of social context. Some of Vygotsky’s ideas which lend themselves to many educational applications are the following:
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Scaffolding: This refers to the same processes that should occur in the Zone of Proximal Development during instruction. In a learning situation, a more competent individual (teacher/tutor) initially does most of the work and provides some guidance, after which the teacher and learner share responsibility. As learners become more competent, the teacher gradually withdraws the scaffolding so learners can perform independently. The key is to ensure that scaffolding keeps learners in the ZPD.
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Peer collaboration: When peers work together in cooperative tasks, the shared social interactions can be used in instructional fashion. Cooperative groups are most effective when students each have assigned responsibilities and all must attain competence before any are allowed to progress. This peer collaboration attests the recognized impact of the social environment during learning.
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Reciprocal Teaching: Reciprocal teaching, another area of application, involves an interactive dialogue between a teacher and a small group of students. These dialogues create a zone of proximal development in which reading comprehension improves. From a Vygotskian view, reciprocal teaching stresses social interaction and scaffolding as students gradually develop skills.
COMPARING AND CONTRASTING PIAGET’S AND VYGOTSKY’S LEARNING THEORIES
As we have just discussed above, Piaget and Vygotsky each have their own important concepts. Their theories share a number of aspects, however they also differ in others. Piaget approached cognitive development from a biological, nature perspective, whereas Vygotsky approached the subject from an environmental, nurture perspective. This leads to major differences in their theories regarding the way in which we learn and the importance of certain aspects. Piaget’s theory focuses on the organisation of intelligence and how it changes as children grow, whereas Vygotsky’s theory centres on the social processes, and he defines intelligence as the capacity to learn from instruction. Below we will delve deeper and look into the similarities and differences of Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories and compare and contrast them.
- THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ONTOLOGY AND EPISTOMOLOGY FOR PIAGET AND VYGOTSKY’S WORK
When discussing theories about learning, one basically operates with three levels: 1) Ontology (the nature of reality), 2) Epistemology (the nature of knowledge), and 3) the “learning theory” (how one learns).
For Piaget, constructivism claims that we always and only learn through constructing. Piaget doesn’t separate the level of epistemology from the level of learning theory in his work. What he says is that knowledge does not exist before hand in the external world; but he does not say that the external world does not exist independently of man.
On the contrary, for Vygotsky, external reality must exist as we must assume that it is in reality that other human beings (through which we socially interact) reside. Since learning in Vygotsky’s view is the transmission of knowledge, one could argue that knowledge must be “somewhere” outside the individual before the individual has learnt it and thus there is something that exists independently of an individual’s construction of it.
To create a synthesis of Piaget and Vygotsky on the level of learning theory one must include realism on the level of ontology, as Vygotsky’s theory is indispensable without it, but Piaget’s epistemology and learning theory still works in a realistic world. Thus one can conclude that when regarding the way in which these two theorists differ from this point of view, a synthesis seems less difficult to create as they do not necessarily have a different ontological basis
Another area in which we see both similarities and differences between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories, is regarding their thoughts on the concept of make-believe play.
By make-believe play we are referring to a type of play in which children pretend, acting out everyday and imaginary activities.
To Piaget, make-believe play is an example of the development of representation during the preoperational stage (prior to two years). He believed that through pretending, children practice and strengthen newly acquired representational schemes. Piaget believed that initially children possess a number of separate schemes that they use in play. He said that one way a child could co-ordinate and develop more complex schemes was to engage in sociodramatic play. This is a form of make-believe play-interaction with other children, and is typically observed by the time the child is two to three years of age. Piaget pointed out that this form of play demonstrates a major change in the child’s representation of the world.
Vygotsky also granted make-believe play a prominent place in his theory. Like Piaget, he too believed that with make-believe play children advance themselves as they try out a wide variety of challenging skills. However, he regarded it as a unique, broadly influential zone of proximal development in which children could advance themselves through a variety of challenging situations. For Vygotsky, the child is given many opportunities to represent culturally meaningful activities in make-believe play. However this is dependent upon the child's willingness to engage in the play activity, and social experiences which promote this activity. This is the point at which we can see a big difference appearing between the two theorists.
As we may see, both theorists regard this aspect as beneficial to development; however they look at it differently. Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky did not believe that play was the spontaneous product of a child's understanding of symbols and that toddlers discover make believe play independently. Rather, Vygotsky said that make-believe play has social origins. Society, he believes, provides the child with opportunities to represent culturally meaningful activities in play, and make-believe play, like other cognitive functions, is learned under the supportive guidance of experts.
A main area Piaget and Vygotsky are both concerned about is the relationship between language and thought. This is the concept in which they show great dissimilarity.
As preschoolers go through their daily activities, they frequently talk out loudly to themselves as they play and explore the environment. Piaget called these utterances egocentric speech, a term expressing his belief that they reflect the preoperational child’s inability to imagine the perspectives of others. Instead of the term egocentric speech, Vygotsky calls children’s “speech to self” private speech. By this term he refers to self directed speech that children use to guide their thinking and behaviour.
Piaget believed that egocentric speech reflects an inability to take the perspective of others, and plays no useful role in development. Whereas Vygotsky believed that egocentric speech is an important developmental phenomenon, which helps children to organise and regulate thinking.
Not only do the two theorists have contrasting views, but at times we see them commenting on and criticizing each other. With regards to this aspect (language and thought), we find instances in which Vygotsky does this towards Piaget’s theory.
According to Vygotsky, Piaget’s observations made him conclude that children’s speech can only fall into two groups, the egocentric and the socialized. In Vygotsky’s view, Piaget’s experiments showed that most of the talk of preschool children is egocentric but as the child approaches school age egocentric speech atrophies. In contrast to Piaget’s view, Vygotsky states that his experiments suggest that egocentric speech has a very specific function. Besides its communicative role, according to Vygotsky, it also has an important role as a thinking tool and as a tool to solve problems.
Whilst Vygotsky’s order of our schema of development is; first social, then egocentric, then speech; Piaget’s sequence is from nonverbal autistic thought, through egocentric thought and speech, to socialized speech and logical thinking. A main criticism from Vygotsky to Piaget is that thinking develops from the social level to the individual level, while it is opposite for Piaget.
Although they both agreed that action underlies thinking, Vygotsky places far greater emphasis on language as the creator of thought, and he gave much greater prominence to the importance of social interaction in development. On the contrary, Piaget concentrated more on the stages and constrains of logical development, and gave little importance to language in the development of thought.
As we may see from above, like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that egocentric speech was an important part of their cognitive development. However, the two differed in how they viewed the purpose of egocentric speech.
- THE DEBATE ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL
Another central issue about the difference between Piaget and Vygotsky is the discussion of the role of the individual and the role of the social in learning.
Piaget’s aim is to make children try to approach the grown up stage not through overtaking ready made reasons and rules for the right action, but by capturing it through own force, self-regulation, and personal experiences. Thus Piaget does not say that learning is social, only that the individual himself and by himself takes over some of the surrounding world’s knowledge. On the contrary, according to Vygotsky, learning is a question of appropriation of the culturally created surroundings.
Piaget sees the individual as the source of learning, and that children learn by continuous interaction and experience with their environment. Instead Vygotsky emphasises that one can’t learn without the verbal interaction and activity with others.
For Vygotsky, like Piaget, the relationship between the individual and the social is necessarily relational. However, by placing cultural mediation at the centre of adult cognition and the processes of cognitive development, social origins take on a special importance in Vygotsky’s theory, which is less symmetrical than Piaget’s notion of social equilibrium. For Vygotsky, the social world does have primacy over the individual in a very special sense.
Thus the differences between Piaget and Vygotsky are not that one puts an emphasis on the individual side and the other on a social side, but instead that Piaget seams to balance the two aspects more equally than Vygotsky.
- THE SOCIAL CHARACTER OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
From a socio-cultural perspective, development involves transmission of the individual’s participation in a socio-cultural activity rather than a change in the structure of individual’s action (like in Piaget’s theory) or individual’s growing mastery of tool, sign, and speech use (like in Vygotsky’s theory). The notion of participation in a socio-cultural perspective has not only an individual but also social nature. It involves negotiation of individual’s contribution to the activity.
According to Piaget, for the child, the adult is simply a part of his or her environment upon the he or she is acting. The fact that the adult interprets child’s actions as culturally and socially appropriate and meaningful, is a simple misunderstanding that confuses the solo nature of child’s activity.
Vygotsky would agree with Piaget that there is often a gap between children and adults understanding of the situation they both are involved in. However, Vygotsky differed from Piaget in the judgement of the consequences of this gap for child development. He argued that this difference, pointed out by Piaget, in the understanding of what an infant does and how an adult sees the child’s actions, may be the very key for the child’s socialization and development. Vygotsky argued that the mother provides the infant with a zone of proximal development of the index gesture by constant misunderstanding of infant’s actions
- VYGOTSKY’S AND PIAGET’S VIEWS OF LEARNING
With regards to the activity as the basis for learning, Piaget and Vygotsky share some important ideas. Vygotsky places far greater emphasis on the role of communication, social interaction and instruction in determining the path of development. He believed that knowledge acquisition is essentially a socio-historical cultural process. He believed that through socialization children learn the accumulated way of thinking and doing that are relevant to their cultures. Although Piaget recognizes the importance of social experiences, they play a secondary role in his theory.
A principle difference between Piaget and Vygotsky is that, Vygotsky claims that the capacity to learn through instruction is a fundamental feature of human intelligence and is the main vehicle for the transmission of knowledge. In contrast, Piaget suggests that a child under the age of seven cannot profitably be thought tasks and concepts, because he is not mentally ready. According to Piaget, a child’s capacity to be taught and make logical sense of what they are shown is limited by their stage of development.
In short, Piaget believes development precedes learning, whilst Vygotsky claims learning causes development.
CRITICISMS TOWARDS PIAGET’S AND VYGOTSKY’S LEARNING THEORIES
In spite of all the points that Piaget and Vygotsky put forward, and that are mentioned above, there is still much to be learned from both Piaget and Vygotsky, and in many cases the strengths of one theorist complement the weaknesses of the other. Below I shall discuss the criticisms put forward towards both these theorists.
- CRITICISMS TOWARDS PIAGET’S THEORY
Piaget’s theory is not free from criticism. First, much research has demonstrated that children possess many of the cognitive abilities that Piaget outlined at ages much earlier than he expected. Second, many researchers argue that Piaget severely underestimated social influences on development. Inadequate explanation of his concepts is the third problem. For example, although Piaget possessed functional invariants as the best framework to examine cognitive change he did not explain precisely how sensory motor thought becomes preoperational thought. Child abilities also quite often overlap in two stages. Therefore some researchers suggest that development might be better regarded as a continuous process. More sophisticated research methods also revealed some methodological weaknesses of Piaget’s theory.
- CRITICISMS TOWARDS VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
Various forms of criticism have been raised against Vygotsky’s work, especially the fact that he did not pay enough attention to the biological factors in his work, particularly in his empirical research. Vygotsky almost exclusively focused on the socio-cultural forces in his empirical studies, and he neglected the biological line of development, especially the physical maturation in the child during its first years of life. Vygotsky tended to view the biological factors as raw materials, which then were transformed by the socio-cultural forces, whereas he mentioned almost nothing about how changes in the biological factors may influence the socio-cultural ones. Another criticism is that Vygotsky only managed to accomplish a broad outline, due to very few details. This is partly explained by the fact that Vygotsky died of tuberculosis at the age of 37, before he had developed a complete theory.
Although Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories are very popular in the current psychological field, some important aspects of their theories need to be considered in the light of more recent evidence.
CONCLUSION: CONSTRUCTIVISM AND LEARNING PRACTICE
The theories of both Piaget and Vygotsky are used in the classroom today, and are based around the concept of constructivism. Many pre-school and primary school methods of teaching are modelled on Piaget’s theory, and also steer towards previous research into child-centred education. Discovery learning and supposing the developing interests of the child are two primary instructional techniques are challenging the child’s abilities but not presenting information that is far beyond the child’s level. The educational implications of Piaget are apparent in all four stages of development.
Constructivism is a concept that in recent years has gained considerable attention among science education researchers. It is a model or metaphor of how learning takes place. The potential significance of constructivism has already extended beyond research and into the science classroom.
The focus of this approach is on the learner and authentic problems. It is stated that students should take responsibility for their own learning.
The main problem with constructivist approaches is that, without guidance, learners can feel overwhelmed by the number of options and the paucity of clear goals.
Although social constructivism and cognitive constructivism differ, the fall within the same basic assumption about learning, the child’s individual development is at the centre of instruction.
- LEARNING TAKES PLACE WITHIN LARGER TASKS
According to the constructivist philosophy, people learn in order to better function in the world. Learning occurs when the learner interacts with the world to overcome a problem or task that challenges existing cognitive structures. The task presented to the learner should be appropriate to the learner’s developmental level, but contain all the cognitive elements an expert would employ.
- LEARNER’S MUST HAVE OWNERSHIP OF THE PROBLEM
Constructivism relies on the learner’s willingness to involve himself or herself in the process of tackling the task or problem. Learner control is an idea found in virtually every resource that discusses constructivism. In constructivism, learners establish objectives that reflect their specific interests and needs. For the constructivist, the notion of ownership must expand to allow different learners to solve the problems in their own ways.
- LEARNING TAKES PLACE THROUGH SOCIAL NEGOTIATION
Constructivism embraces a holistic view of learning. One aspect of this belief is the need for social negotiation. Through interactions with other learners, constructivists believe that synergism results, benefiting the whole group. Social negotiation also forces learners to attempt to see the perspectives of other learners, and forces them to either accommodate those perspectives into their construction or understanding
- LEARNERS MUST EXAMINE MATERIAL FROM MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
For more holistic understandings of material to occur, learners must revisit the content on several occasions in different contexts to gain a more holistic understanding and avoid insufficient or faulty understandings.
- LEARNERS MUST REFLECT ON BOTH WHAT WAS LEARNED AND THE LEARNING PROCESS
The ability to reflect on one’s learning is critical in the constructivist approach, because it allows the learner to understand the strategies he or she employs. Beyond this reflection process, the learner must also be allowed to reflect on the new cognitive structure.
- IN A CONSTRUCTIVIST CLASSROOM
The following are characteristics of a classroom in which constructivism is practised:
- Student autonomy and initiative are accepted and encouraged.
- The teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses.
- Higher level thinking is encouraged.
- Students are engaged in dialogue with the teacher and with each other.
- Students are engaged in experiences that challenge hypothesis and encourage discussion.
- The class uses raw data, primary sources, manipulatives, physical, and interactive materials.
As we have discussed all throughout, Piaget and Vygotsky have touched on various topics, and have left a great influence on everyday life, especially on the field of education. Despite the fact that their theories were constructed many years back, they are still influential today, and we are sure that their theories will not be forgotten for many years to come.
REFERENCES:
- “Human Learning” third edition – Jeanne Omrod Ellis
- “Child Development” sixth edition – Laura E. Berk
- “Contexts for Learning – Sociocultural Dynamics in Children’s Development” – Edited by Ellice A. Forman, Norris Minick, C. Addison Stone
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