Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Piaget and Vygotsky have antonymous beliefs when dealing with the concepts of cognitive development. Vygotsky believes in development through social behaviour whilst Piaget believes in individuals acquiring knowledge on their own. Both however, believe that the interaction between development and learning hold significant implications for a child’s growth. This essay discusses some of the philosophical beliefs of each theorist in regards to a scenario based in the classroom of a year five teacher named Ann. Ann reinforces classroom lessons through the outdoor environment, exemplifying Piaget’s theories of constructivist based

Cognitive Development refers to the construction of the thought process that includes problem solving, remembering and the ability to make decisions, from childhood up to the adulthood stage. Cognitive/Intellectual Development is the ability to learn, reason, and analyze the fact that a process begins from infancy and progresses as the individual (Educational Psychology). Cognitive Development contains events that are logical, like thinking and remembering. Some factors remain the same throughout many of the theories on cognitive development. All theorists agree that people go through specific steps and/or

Many child development centers, preschools, and school programs are passed on Jean Piaget’s cognitive development theory. When you combine the theory with teachers challenging a child’s ability without introducing concepts beyond their understand, hands on learning, field trips, art crafts, and games you have the perfect learning program for children.

B. Blake & T. Pope. (2008). Developmental Psychology: Incorporating Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories in. Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education, Vol. 1, No 1,, 59-67. Retrieved from http://jcpe.wmwikis.net/file/view/blake.pdf

Cognitive development can be defined as a field of study in neuroscience and psychology revolving around the growth of the brain (Schacter & Woods 2009). This development is the evolution of skills such as, information processing, perceptual skills, conceptual resourcing, language knowledge and other brain development traits (ibid).

Cognitive development is the term used to describe the construction of thought process, including remembering, problem solving and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. In this essay I will compare and contrast the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, both of which were enormously significant contributors to the cognitive development component to/in psychology. In addition to this I will also weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of each theory and outline how they can be applied to an educational setting.

Cognitive development is very important throughout the stages of life. It is very important to how we function and think as individuals. In order to be successful academically and physically, we as human beings have to crawl before we can walk. So it is a step by step process that starts from prenatal development.

The approach of using cognitive and knowledge development creates the mental process of attention, memory, producing and understanding the process of learning (Smith, 2002). The three different cognitivist theories, Cognitive Information Processing (CIP), Piaget's Theory and Perspective of Interactional Theories of Cognitive Development helps capture the significants of cognitive and knowledge development in capturing the true meaning critical thinking. Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) develops the approach of problem solving and decision making. The concepts of cognitive information processing provides the content of effective decision making including being knowledgeable about the content of personal human values, interest, skills and preference (Peterson, 2008). Piaget's theory develops the idea of formal operational stage of development. Piaget's theory of cognitive

Cognitive development is the childs brain process of how they learn to develop physically (sit up, stand etc.) as well as speech in early years, through to problem solving, thought processes and learning as the child grows and develops.

Vygotsky believed in a zone of proximal development when helping a child investigate and comprehend new concepts. He felt educators, should build on what the student already knows, to acquire and process different information. By allowing children a zone of proximal development, you can guide students to assimilate a new stimuli, make accommodations, and cultivate new schemes. Vygotsky also provided educators with a valuable tool to use when teaching new concepts, or guiding positive behaviors; scaffolding. Scaffolding allows a teacher to assist a child at one level, so they are able to progress to the next, allowing you as the educator to meet each child where they are.

Cognitive development, as described by Piaget, is how a child learns and develops their intelligence. He describes intellectual development as a sequence of four principles, which children move through in the same order, but at their own pace (Nakagaki, 2011, p. 370). Development is defined as an increase in function and progression of skills, and proceeds from

To begin with, Piaget’s theory on the four stages of cognitive development has been highly researched. He put little to no emphasis on social factors in his theory and came to the conclusion that children do not think like adults and do not learn from them but by interacting with their physical environment. Vygotsky, on the other hand, differed from Piaget’s thought and believed children learned mostly from others and he called this process, Scaffolding. According to Eutopia website, scaffolding is a teaching strategy that provides individualize support based on the learner’s zone of proximal development (Eutopia, 2015). Proximal development is the distance between the actual developmental level as determine by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determine through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (Bruner,1982). He believed knowledge comes from experiences within their culture and strongly thought that learning came from the outside in. On the other hand, Piaget theory stated that children are only able to perform in certain cognitive stages. He found that human understood whatever information that fit into their view of the world. When information does not fit, then individuals examine and accommodate the new information, is similar to Piaget’s theory on

Cognitive developmental theory is founded on the idea that children gain knowledge by exploring and influencing the world that is all around them. According to Mossler (2014) “After many years of observing the mental limitations of children, including his own, Piaget came to the conclusion that children of

The second component in the sociocultural theory is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky believed that any training creates learning processes that lead to development and this system results in zones of proximal development. It's the thought that a child completes a task that he/she cannot do alone, with the help from a more experienced person. Vygotsky also described the ZPD as the difference between the actual development level as determined by individual problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or collaboration with more experienced peers. The result of this process is children become more socialized in the dominant culture and it encourages cognitive development.

Lev Semionovich Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist and constructivist learning theorist who was known for arguing against the theories of psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget believed that in order for any learning to occur there had to development within the individual first, but Vygotsky argued the contrary. He argued that in order for development to occur, the individual would first have to have learning take place through instruction and example in a given appropriate environment. Vygotsky’s theory on cognitive development is centralized on two key ideas known as scaffolding and the zone of proximal development which will be explored in this essay and how they contribute to the classroom.