AP Psychology Term 2 Project Carrie Brown Period 7 Piaget vs.

Vygotsky Child Psychologists of The Century Jean Piaget was a French biologist, who later moved on to child development and psychology. He rewrote English intelligence tests in French and became interested in why children answered the way they did when questioned about their wrong answers. His studies were done primarily through observation and conversation with his own children, which would later lead to much criticism. Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who lived during the Russian revolution. He wrote six books within about ten years. The books varied in topic, but still focused heavily on child development and education. He firmly believed in language being one of the biggest factors in learning and developing. Lev Vygotsky and Jean-Jacques Piagets' theories are similar in that they are both very much focused on child development in stages. They differ in how they focus on said development. Vygotsky states that fluid social interaction and understanding speech and language and being able to speak is absolutely necessary for learning, which he often referred to as making meaning. Piaget states that learning just naturally occurs through maturation in everyday experience. He focused more on when to teach certain concepts, while Vygotsky focused more on what those certain concepts to teach would be and how to teach them to the appropriate age group. Vygotsky and Piaget both have multiple stages in their theories and they both shared

the idea of the theory of mind. Theory of mind is a person's idea of the mental state of them self and others around them. Theory of mind is something that develops more and more through every stage, growing through out the entire life span, in both theories. Even with the above similarities in their theories, they both had very different and individual ideas. Piaget said we build thought in schemas, which are an organized way of putting our thoughts and information together, for example, a young child may see an image of a horse in a book, then later see a horse at a zoo and ask it's parent if the creature is a horse. The parent tells the child that the animal is indeed a horse and the child remembers that it has two ears, four legs, a long tail, whinneys and neighs, and is shorthaired. The child then sees a zebra in the same zoo and asks the parent if it is a horse, but the parent corrects the child, telling it that the animal is in fact a zebra. The child then understands that a zebra, while similar to a horse, is different because it has a different fur pattern and makes different sounds. In this scenario, the child has experienced both assimilation, the addition of new information into an existing schema, and accommodation, the remembrance of old information in the formation of a new schema. A concept Vygotsky advocated, was scaffolding. He stated that a more knowledgeable other, someone or something that knows more than the student, can help encourage learning by assisting in such a way as to help the student solve the problem perhaps by giving a clue that still requires thinking or asking another question that could aid in the solution of the original problem. The answer is not simply given away, it must still be found by the student. The information gained with the help of the more knowledgeable other is in the zone of proximal development, which is between the known and unknown.

Piaget's theory on development has four distinct stages. The first stage is the sensorimotor period from birth through the first two years. In this stage, the infant takes in information primarily through touching things, especially by putting objects in its mouth. The infant is more afraid of strangers than it will be as it ages and it gains object permanence, which is the knowledge that something exists even when it is out of site. Once object permanence has been reached, the infantile game of peek-a-boo is no longer as exciting. The second portion of Piaget's theory is the pre-operational stage, going from about two to seven years of age. In this time span, the child is capable of speech and communication, but can not fully understand all logic. By the end of this stage, the child will understand the idea of conservation, which is a concept that states that properties remain the same in a different form. For example, the child may think that a tall, narrow glass of juice has more in it that a shorter, wider glass has even though the two glasses have equal volume. The child will also become much less egocentric in this time, meaning he or she will be able to view situations from another individual's perspective more easily. The third stage is the concrete operational stage, spanning from the ages of seven to eleven. In those years, the preteen will gain the ability to logically think about ideas, but are not yet capable of abstract thought. The last stage of Piaget's theory, the fourth, is the formal operational stage. It begins around age eleven and continues through out life. In this stage, the individual will eventually be able to think about abstract ideas and concepts. In Vygotsky's theory, the stages are often times referred to as periods of critical development. Each period has a crisis which must be resolved before the next period can be reached. If a crisis is not resolved, an unhealthy mental state can be the result. The first

crisis is immediate at birth. The infant is physically separate from it's mother, but still depends on her for life. The second crisis is reached around the twelfth month. The child must grow to communicate and move itself effectively to survive as efficiently as possible. The next crisis is reached around three years of age. The toddler wants to have his or her own personality, but is unsure of how to do so. The child must learn to become more independent. The fourth stage occurs around the age of seven. The child knows he or she must be more mature in thought and not think so childishly to solve his or her problems. The fifth and final crisis is often times around age thirteen, when the child is nearing the onset of puberty. Educational systems are very influenced by both of these theories. Piaget's studies are very influential in when to teach certain material, while Vygotsky's studies are more influential in what that certain material is, and how to teach it to the appropriate age group. For instance, it would not be wise to teach quantum mechanics to a first grade class when they do not yet understand basic addition. Although both theorists are very influential in western education, they also both have many criticisms. In Piaget's case, his studies were very open to bias because he studied his own children, his friends' children, and the friends of his children. He also studied them individually, so they were unaffected by peers. Vygotsky, on the other hand, didn't pay close enough attention to developmental issues. In addition, his idea of the Zone of Proximal Development, while a good concept, is rather vague.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/wits/vygotsky-development.pdf http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm http://www2.honolulu.hawaii.edu/facdev/guidebk/teachtip/piaget.htm http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html The Moral Development of The Child by Jean Piaget Vygotsky's Developmental and Educational Psychology by Peter E. Langford