Jean Piaget, Lev Vgotsky, And Maria Montessori

In current educational psychology, both the works of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky have become prominent in an understanding of developmental cognition in childhood (Duchesne, McMaugh, Bochner & Karuse, 2013, p. 56). Their theories are complimentary and provide a more rigorous comprehension of childhood development (Shayer, M., 2003, p. 465). Their varying principles are applicable to many situations concerning the development of children. The focuses of Piaget and Vygotsky on the ways of childhood development differ. Piaget was focused on the four developmental stages of cognitive growth in his Theory of Cognitive Development, whilst Vygotsky’s principles were based on development in a societal manner with his

There are many different theories of development that help us to understand children’s behaviour, reactions and ways of learning. All equally important as they influence practice. To begin with there is Piaget’s constructivist theories which look at the way in which children seem to be able to make sense of their world as a result of their experiences and how they are active learners. He also suggested that as children develop so does their thinking. Piaget’s work has influenced early years settings into providing more hands on and relevant tasks for children and young people. In other words the children are ‘learning through play’. Teachers are working out the needs of children and plan activities accordingly.

There are three theories of cognitive development, which are Piaget, Information Processing and Vygotsky. I agree with Vygotsky because this theory states that children advance when they collaborate with others who are more skilled. As a young child, I wasn’t capable of learning everything by myself and I sometimes needed assistance from a peer or an adult who had more experience and knowledge than I did. The other two theories suggest differently. Piaget theory suggests that children are capable of learning alone. Information processing states that if you teach a child a certain subject or discuss a certain conversation they will process and install the information into their mind.

In this domain Piaget stated that the child who is still in the preoperational stage can’t conceptualize abstractly and needs concrete physical situations. They can’t mentally manipulate information. The child is able to form stable concepts as well as magical beliefs and their thinking is still egocentric, which means that the child has difficulty seeing the viewpoint of others. Piaget split this stage into the symbolic and intuitive thought substage. In the symbolic function stage children are able to understand, represent, remember, and picture objects in their mind without having the object in front of them. Vygotsky stated that children learn cognitive tasks through their interactions with older peers and adults. Not only do younger children watch and imitate older people or peers as they complete tasks, but these older guides also help younger children accomplish tasks they couldn’t accomplish on their own. He calls this the zone of proximal development which he describes what children can do alone and what they can do with assistance. Another theorist named Bandura coined the term observational learning which means people learn appropriate social behaviors by observing and modeling others. This type of learning is most effective during childhood. Vygotsky believed that the important part of the cognitive development is language. He observed that very young

This essay offers a biography of Jean Piaget and Marie Montessori. In addition to a biography it compares and contrast the two educators. One was more focused on the development of children, while the other specialized in the way children learn. They both were crucial components in the development of how teachers and professors educate their students regardless of their age.

From Piaget, we understand that children learn differently than adults because they don’t yet have the experiences and interaction needed to interrelate information. They not only just activities and sensory experiences to develop, but they also learn through interaction with adults and their peers by asking question and talking about events, experiences and ideas. For example, it is only through experiences and trusting relationships that infants learn the abstract on object permanence. From Piaget, we understand that children learn differently than adults because they don’t yet have the experiences and interaction needed to interrelate information. They not only just activities and sensory experiences to develop, but they also learn through

Jean Piaget (n.d.) has mentioned that “Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality.” This believed to apply to every human being including children. Cognitive development is a neuroscientific and psychologic study of a child’s development on how they process the information, uses of the mental resources and skills, learning different languages and other characteristic that a child will develop comparing to an adult’s brain. For decades, different psychologist such as Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Lev Vygotsky have researched and created different kind of theories that helps the adults to understand how a child’s mind and brain process new information especially in

Teaching strategies is something that is very important to teachers and it has been researched many times over the decades. For many years teachers stood at the front of the class and lectured and students were expected to take notes. However, today’s twenty-first century classrooms look very different. Today the expectation is that teachers are flipping instruction and allowing students to watch a lecture or video at home and then they work on the concepts learned the next day. It is still very much a progressive action in many districts. Several theorists have studied teaching strategies and documented how they feel children learn best. Two very prominent theorists are Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.

Historically, viable theoretical models have been developed and applied throughout the history of the field of psychology in an attempt to better understand how the human mind receives, processes, stores, and retrieves information. Understanding how the human brain receives, processes, stores, and recalls information is significantly important to psychological research of cognitive development and identifying deficiencies in learning. The vast compilation of theoretical views regarding brain functioning and cognitive development are sometimes overwhelming and contradictory, however a basic framework from valid and reliable theoretical views appears to be dominant among the masses.

Throughout the course of our studies, we have explored various theories of children and how they learn and synthesize information. I am glad that the educational process has undergone major transformations right from Leave it Beaver teaching approach to more advanced approaches. Indeed education has made significant milestone from the 1950's conventional teaching approach. From Gardener's Multiple of Intelligence to the Montessori style of instruction. Though all these principles and theories are applicable, the one that is most applicable in the classroom situation is Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.

The developmental needs of students should guide the classrooms lesson plans, as well as the materials used should be unique the the age group. Every year a child grows and develops at a drastic rate, and children need drastically different supports depending on their age. For example, children ages 2-7 would be considered to be in Piaget’s Preoperational Stage. During the Preoperational stage children are able to, “…think about things and can use symbols to mentally represent objects (Massey, 2008). Their language and concepts develop at an incredible rate. Yet much of their thinking remains surprisingly primitive” (Slavin, 2015 p. 33). When children’s cognition is “primitive” they show characteristics of egocentrism, among other things. The egocentric child, “…believe(s) that everyone sees the world exactly as they do” (Slavin, 2015 p.33). However, compared to children ages 7-11 who are

For decades psychological research has accepted the cognitive theory and ideas proposed by Jean Piaget in the early 20th century without much skepticism. While Piaget’s theory holds many vital aspects of childhood cognitive development, certain aspects may be worth examining or perhaps re-evaluating. Piaget largely contributes cognitive development to the acquisition of knowledge in stages, this suggests that children are only capable a finite amount of tasks at a given time. However, development particular cognitive development is much more complex and does not fit neatly into ordered categories without some variance. While, cognitive development can be characterized by linear or step-like progressions for the acquisition of some skills, this is not the case for many developmental milestones and tasks. Children’s cognitive abilities are not as linear or step-like as previously proposed. Rather, cognitive strategies ebb and flow similar to the movement of waves. The theory of overlapping waves proposed by Robert Siegler suggests that children and adults alike may use a variety of different strategies with varying degrees of frequency instead of large shifts in thinking or problem solving (Siegler, 1994). Siegler’s cognitive theory focuses on the variability within and among children for how they think about concepts in different ways.

Throughout the course of our studies, we have explored various theories of children and how they learn and synthesize information. I am glad that the educational process has undergone major transformations right from Leave it Beaver teaching approach to more advanced approaches. Indeed education has made significant milestone from the 1950's conventional teaching approach. From Gardener's Multiple of Intelligence to the Montessori style of instruction. Though all these principles and theories are applicable, the one that is most applicable in the classroom situation is Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory.

Another group of theorists have explained cognitive development in terms of changes in children’s ability to process information (Duchesne, 2012 pg. 94). Kindergarten, according to Jean Piaget, is the time children would fit into the Preoperational stage of development. This is the stage in which a child is not yet able to operate or carry out logical physical actions mentally but is reliant on manipulating real materials. Piaget emphasized the limitations of children’s thinking during this stage (Duchesne, 2012 pg. 60). With this information we can recognize that at this age, children’s information processing is not yet at it’s strongest.

“Cognitive development is concerned with our ability to think, to reason, and to understand and remember the world around us. It involves mental processes that are associated with taking in, organising and making sense of information- processes that include perceiving, attending to, understanding and recalling information. These mental funstions are part of what is referred to as cognition(Duchesne & McMaugh, 2016). There was a person who made a great contribution to cognitive development. He was a very famous child psychologist and he was also one of the first theorists to attempt to comprehensively describe the process of cognitive development of children. He observed children and questioned them about the way they solved problems. His work changed the way we think about cognitive development(Duchesne & McMaugh, 2016). It was Jean Piaget. He proposed four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational