Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development took into account some of Piagets work, but moved the theory forward. It is far from the image of a child struggling to make cognitive sense of the world through problem solving and rules. Vygotsky stressed the importance of context in which learning takes place and the interaction of the learner with their peers. His main emphasis was on the way that culture influences the course of human development, and that through social interaction and language a child receives the motivation to develop. Vygotsky central concept of development is that of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), this is the area of competence that a child is ready to develop into, if provided with the appropriate environmental and social stimulation, that the things children cannot learn on their own are able to learn with the appropriate help. This theory states that the child is provided with a form of scaffolding enabling the development of cognitive skills and understanding. Vygotsky’s stages of development take into account the same age ranges but his theories are less structured than Piaget. From approximately 0 – 2 years; Affiliation. From approximately 2 - 7 years; Play. From approximately 7 - 11 years; Play. And moving towards adulthood, approximately 11 years; the Peer group.
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 supporting the developing interests of the child are two primary instructional techniques, 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.
In the pre-operational stage the use of concrete props and visual aids to illustrate lessons, helps a child’s understanding of what is being presented. Instructions are kept brief, using actions alongside words to avoid confusion and encouragement to manipulate physical objects such as the ‘glass of water’ experiment help the child to understand constant mass, whilst engaging in conversation about the experiment facilitates the child with the understanding of conversation and two-way logic which is needed in the next stage of development. At this stage a child is still very egocentric and therefore unable to grasp lessons about the world too far from its own experiences. Teaching resources in this early childhood stage range from cut out letters, drawings and clay to field trips and watching television.
During the concrete operational 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 the student becomes more able to decentre and discuss open-ended questions that stimulate thought.
Once in the final stage of development, the formal operations, 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.
Although Piaget has helped us to understand that a child learns through active experience, interaction and teacher intervention, his work has since been questioned by various theorists as too rigid, and that a child’s development is not as structured into the defined stages as previously thought. Jerome Bruner (1966) believed that although the work of Piaget has greatly influenced the way in which children are taught, his work was strongly effected by the social climate in which he lived. Bruner also criticised Piaget’s research stating that he used very little quantitative data, relied on the clinical interview and concentrated more on a child’s mistakes rather than their success, and that children can be taught any subject at any age providing it was presented in a way that makes sense to them in the light of previous experience. Another critic of Piaget is Margaret Donaldson (1978), in which she dismisses the idea that children are as egocentric as claimed by Piaget and are not so limited in ability as the four stages of development suggest. Findings and research carried out by Donaldson have concluded that although she has questioned various areas of Piagets work, some of her findings are consistent with what he found, for example the pre-operational stage where a child cannot entertain the idea that an element of any task or situation, whatever its nature, can belong at the same time to two or more categories or classes. What the child ‘sees’ is determined by how he thinks (Donaldson 1978, p59).
The theories of Piaget have influenced the move in the 1900’s towards more child centred education with the establishment of schools such as Summerhill (1921), child centred education to the extreme, and the publication of the Plowden report (1967). These theories of cognition are used all over the world to facilitate children’s understanding of social issues in the world in which they live. In the late 1960’s a television programme was created for the children of Brazil, it has adapted and revised its model for individualised programming in more than 20 different countries. Sesame Street emerged amid cultural and political turbulence in the United States, when the civil rights movement and the war on poverty brought issues such as homelessness and inner-city squalor to the national consciousness. During this time several studies showed that poorer children who were lass prepared when they entered school tended to fall further and further behind their more privileged counterparts. Subsequent studies showed that young children who frequently watched the program were better prepared for school and had more developed skills than children who did not, regardless of social influences. The vice president for educational research, Charlotte Cole (1993) puts the programs success down to the original theories of cognitive development and simplicity and states, ‘If you are learning to count by counting apples and you have never seen an apple, you are not going to absorb it as readily as you would if you were counting mangoes and they are indigenous to your country’. This view incorporates the theories of Piaget and clearly shows the contribution to education that they have both made. As with any theory, if not taken to the extreme and incorporating recent research, it can be a great tool in the education of children today, from any culture or social background.
REFERENCES
J Bruner (1983) Child’s Talk: Learning to use Language, New York: Norton
M Donaldson (1978), Children’s Minds Fontana Press
J Piaget (1977), The Origin of Intelligence in the Child, Penguin Books
D Wood (1988), How Children Think and Learn, Blackwell Publishers
Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopaedia. © 1993-97 MS Corp.
www.gse.harvard.edu
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/cognition
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piagtuse.html
