Tools of the Mind
Student achievement for children is dependent upon the mental processes that are developed and nurtured through educators, culture, and society. Society plays a major role in cognitive human growth and development. It is important for educators to understand that children need opportunities to develop and expand their cognitive abilities. Vygotsky’s theory about mental tools suggest that every child has the ability to develop skills that will enable them to think in complex ways.
According to Vygotsky, mental tools are the cognitive strategies and processes that we invite students to experience in order to promote independent thinkers and learners. This process doesn’t necessarily take place automatically. Children should be taught and given opportunities to engage in activities that promote independent thinking and reasoning. Children should also be able to demonstrate and apply these thinking techniques and strategies to everyday learning and living. Bodrova and Leong adds, “The problem is that their thinking, attention, and memory are very reactive; what ends up holding their attention may or may not have anything to do with the task they are expected to perform” (Bodrova and Leong, 2007, pg.5). The ability to focus and maintain attention can be difficult for some children. The ability to stay engaged in a given task requires the development of mental tools that are taught with the implementation of highly- engaging instruction. Many
In the “Study of the Child: Theories of Development I” (Learning Seed, 1997), according to Vygotsky, the cognitive development in children is in direct relationship, and dependent on interaction with others. (Feldman 2010, pg. 20). Vygotsky believed to truly understand cognitive development; a child’s social and cultural experiences must be considered.
Vygotsky may have overplayed importance on social influences because he suggests that child’s cognitive development occurs through social interactions, for example children do internalisation of problem solving via mutual interactions. However, if social learning is the essence of cognitive development then learning would be a lot faster than it is. Thus Vygotsky ignores the biological aspects that aid or restricts the cognitive development such as the development of brain and maturation. Therefore Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is different to
As a problem presents itself, children will verbally work through the steps to solve it. This ‘private speech’ is a vital part to cognitive development, according to Vygotsky. This private speech gradually progresses into thinking as children become more proficient. He was also a proponent for scaffolding which is a process in which a new task is given and direct instruction is given then gradually taken away as the child learns. Both psychologists believed that children learn and develop through action but in different ways; Piaget felt it was through personal, self action while Vygotsky felt is was through social interaction, internalization and vocalization. Vygotsky and Piaget realized that social factors play a part in cognitive development but in different ways; According Piaget, self processing within a child leads to social processing while Vygotsky felt the opposite- social processing leads to self processing. Lastly, both came to the conclusion that by internalizing information, children transform it into knowledge and mental growth.
Lev Vygotsky believed that social and cognitive development work simultaneously to build and evolve on one another. He believed that social, cultural and personal experience cannot be detached from each other and many things influence the way children learn and develop, not just their own experiences, thus Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory. Vygotsky’s ideas were and remain controversial as he had no specific training in psychology or children’s development. His preeminent contribution to children’s development is his recognition of the value of progressing knowledge by means of interaction with educators, peers and family (Mooney, 2000, p. 83). The major ideas of Vygotsky’s theory are scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Scaffolding is a process Vygotsky described as the framework or temporary support for children’s learning. In order for scaffolding to be beneficial, it must be responsive to the child’s needs (Coon & Mitterer, 2013, pp. 106-107).
Year-End Progress Update - Describe the final results of your action plan and how successful you were in meeting your goal and impacting student achievement.
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 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.
There has been much controversy over understanding the social aspects of cognitive development in children. Some of this controversy is revealed through the differing views that Piaget and Vygotsky had on the topic of learning amongst children. Piaget theorized that collaboration between same aged children, who are equal in understanding, promotes cognitive development. He theorized that when children engage in disagreement during problem solving this promoted more understanding of the topics at hand. In contrast, Vygotsky reasoned that collaboration between novice and experts would lead to intellectual growth.
Learning, according to De Houwer, Barnes-Holmes, & Moors (2013), “has been defined functionally as changes in behavior that result from experience or mechanistically as changes in the organism that result from experience”. Throughout the years, a number of psychologists have come up with different theories to try and explain how young children develop and learn. Lev Vygotsky, a Russian theorist and psychologist that was born in 1896, constructed his own child development and learning theory that has strongly influenced the world of education (Nordlof, 2014; Dahms, Geonnotti, Passalacqua, Schilk, Wetzel, & Zulkoqsky, n.d.). His theory is created from concepts of both behaviorist and constructivist. Vygotsky’s theory suggests that learning and development occurs through social function as well as intentional teaching (DeVries, 2000; Nordlof, 2014; Slavin, 2015).
4. I relate most with cognitive theories of development. Piaget provides the foundation by explaining the distinct stages of development. His insights allow teachers and parents to have a basis of what children are capable of during each stage. If the child drastically strays from these stages, it allows the caring adults to take action to help the child to reach the appropriate stage. With an understanding of these stages, the theories of Vygotsky can then be successfully utilized. Vygotsky stresses that with the
Tools of mine teacher make sure throughout the day each child’s meets all the part of his or her development learning. Tools of the Mind gives teachers the tools to ensure every child becomes a successful learner, developing the underlying cognitive, social and emotional skills needed to reach his or her development appropriate practices. On the other hand, teachers focus on helping children become intentional and reflective learners, creating a classroom in which instruction in all development domains, and reflect children’s learning capacity, rather than age-level expectations. The teacher I interview he got involved with this approach because it is what used by the organization he works at. As he learned about the curriculum, he grew to really like its approach, especially
Justification of this critique was also provided by Vygotsky theory of development .Vygotsky (1929) believes that adults and child’s peers are involved in shaping cognitive development of the
In order to help children’s cognitive development, the application of Piaget and Vygotsky theories are highly positive and critical. As Woolfolk and Margetts (2010) mentioned, teachers can extend children’s knowlegde by using children’s disequilibration as the motivation. The use of cultural tools in classroom can also benefit children, because they
In this theory, Vygotsky suggests the idea of scaffolding from external influences, including parents and teachers. To scaffold is “to use language and social interaction to guide children’s thinking” (Trawick-Smith, 2010, p.53). The key to do this properly, is to know how much or how little guidance to give the children.
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.