Jean Piaget And Lev Vygotsky's Contribution To Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was a psychologist who looked at a child’s developing their reasoning skills. Piaget carried out detailed observations of them and as his work started taking shape on how our understanding a child’s intellectual skills and as a result of this he has made changes in education. Piaget understood that cognitive developments occurred in stages, his research concentrated on how children learn and start to gain an understanding of their stage of development to be able to learn new concepts. He identified a four-stage process of cognitive development all the way through childhood. He stated that every child would go through each stage but not at the same time, but he also said that some children would sometimes never reach the later stages.

Psychology is full of theories that explain why we think the way we think. Of those theories, is the popular Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Jean Piaget introduced a variety of ideas and concepts to the world of psychology describing logical thinking in children and adolescents. To fully comprehend just how valuable his theories are today, it is important to explore the life of Jean Piaget, his educational background, and the stages of cognitive development and how the stages impact the classroom. This will give a further analysis and explanation of how Piaget has helped to shape our viewpoints as teachers today.

Lev Vygotsky developed a theory of cognitive development in children and young adults. His theory of cognitive development states that people’s mental structures are based on their interactions with OTHERS. Basically he says that other people create our thinking processes and cognitive structures as we interact with them, which begins particularly at a young age. Vygotsky supported sociocultural theory, “which states that the role of development in children happens through their community and interactions” (Woolfolk 59). This is referring to peoples ways of thinking and behaving in other words. Vygotsky notes three themes that explain how these social interactions dictate people thoughts. The three themes are co-constructed, cultural tools, and private speech. “Every function in a 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). This applies equally to voluntary attention, logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals” (Woolfolk 59). Higher mental processes and thinking through problems are first co-constructed during activities between children and another person. The child internalizes the process and it becomes part of their activities with other people. It means that together they figure something out, then later on the child can use that interaction to regulate their own behavior. This can be applied in a classroom for a lot of problem solving situations. For intense if I gave a math word problem, and asked the class a serious of questions as to help them figure out the problem, they would be able to answer the question. This would help them to answer this kind of math problem in the future, without my help. Vygotsky believed that children’s cognitive development happens through interactions with people who have a higher, more advanced thinking, people such as PARENTS or TEACHERS. This could be applied in the classroom, because children learn from their teachers, who have a more advanced thinking and they help their students solve problems, and questions, and

Lev Vygotsky founded the social development theory. He is seen as one of the leading psychologists in education. The social development theory basically says that the potential for cognitive development relies mainly on the zone of proximal development, or what we know as ZPD. The ZPD places emphasis on what social interaction and how important it is for the developing child. This paper will go into more depth of what ZPD is, how it benefits children, and opinions on the theory.

This essay concerns the psychology of cognitive development. Cognitive development can be explained in terms of the acquisition, construction and progressive change in thought processes such as memory, problem-solving and decision-making that occurs from childhood to adulthood (in Smith, P.K., Cowie, H & Blades, M. 2003). Major pioneers in this area and whose work has been the foundation of much research in cognitive psychology are among Jean Piaget’s (1926) and Lev Vygotksy’s (1978). A common understanding between the two rest on the idea that cognitive development in children occurs through stages, however, their approach in identifying these stages highly differ (in Smith P.K. et al., 2003).

Vygotsky’s ideas about how mental abilities develop, on the other hand, show us how important and necessary the social and cultural context are to developing each child’s mental abilities. Lev Vygotsky (1978) strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning." He and

are already learning at birth, and they build up and learn at a rapid pace in their early years when

In this essay I intend to evaluate and analyze Jean Piaget cognitive learning theories to the current educational environment and demonstrate the understanding of the reading assignments, class discussions, my research, and the application of the learning theories to the current educational environment. I believe that Piaget is one of the most influential researchers of all time, and he will always be the greatest theorist by far in the field of psychology, because he was best known for his research on children 's cognitive development and studied and theorized the biological influences. Piaget brought a vast knowledge of understand in his era and his contributions were remarkable and profound and it relate to cognitive learning and an in

Four sub-domains of a child’s development are physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Every single domain is very important for children’s development. Therefore, cognitive development is one of the important factors of children’s development. As many doctors and researchers began to study cognitive development in depth, there are different theories and many steps and data about cognitive development. All of the individuals in this field of the study must have heard Piaget and Vygotsky at least once. They both announced two different theories about cognitive development. They do have some of their thoughts in common, but they approached it in different views. Also, this development is not just an explanation of how children learn and process information. There are important sub-stages inside this broad topic called cognitive development. So the question is “what is the cognitive development of children in ages of 0 to 18 months including some perspective of Piaget

Piaget was a cognitive theorist and is the most common of all educational theorists and possibly the main factor to current exercise of education. Piaget made vast contributions towards the direction, meaning and idea of current constructivism. Examples of Piaget's efforts include his concepts that knowledge needs to be actively constructed by the child and learning activities should match the degree of the development stage of each child. Also, several major ways to the national course and instruction depend on Piaget's theory. For example, Piaget influenced a lot of teaching techniques for example the focus on the process of the child's thinking and also the active role from the learner. Piaget's focus on the process from the child thinking

Child Development is a text book based upon children’s development looking at all issues, influences and theories. The section of the book that I am referring too looks into detail the likes of Jean Piaget’s and Lev Vygotsky’s perspectives, in relation to cognitive development. In the book, Piaget’s developmental theory was described as a constructive approach, this refers to the ways we build our own understanding of the world around us and how we fit into it.

Jean Piaget is considered to be very influential in the field of developmental psychology. Piaget had many influences in his life which ultimately led him to create the Theory of Cognitive Development. His theory has multiple stages and components. The research done in the early 1900’s is still used today in many schools and homes. People from various cultures use his theory when it comes to child development. Although there are criticisms and alternatives to his theory, it is still largely used today around the world.

The three adaptive processes for cognitive development are assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. These are three agents

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development suggested that to develop cognitively, children must have social interaction. He also “believed that this lifelong process of development was dependent of social interaction and that social learning actually leads to cognitive development” (Riddle, 1999). Vygotsky believed that children 's social learning must come before social development. Vygotsky also believed that "human activities take place in cultural settings and cannot be understood apart from these settings" (Woolfolk, 2004). Therefore, our culture helps shape our cognition.

Jean Piaget, a cognitivist, believed children progressed through a series of four key stages of cognitive development. These four major stages, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational, are marked by shifts in how people understand the world. Although the stages correspond with an approximate age, Piaget’s stages are flexible in that if the child is ready they can reach a stage. Jean Piaget developed the Piagetian cognitive development theory. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development proposes that a child’s intellect, or cognitive ability, progresses through four distinct stages. The emergence of new abilities and ways of processing information characterize each stage. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.