Title: Delving into the Minds of Children: Comparing Piaget's and Vygotsky's Theories on Learning and Teaching

Question: Question 3 Jean Piaget Jean Piaget (1896-1980) studied the cognitive processes of children. He agreed with the eighteenth-century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that a child isnota miniature adult, and that the mind of a child is not the mind of an adult on a small scale. Instead, he held the view that a child’s behaviour is qualitatively different from that of an adult. Piaget's contribution gave insight into the unique and self-important character of children’s thought. The next section provides a brief outline of Piaget's theory of learning. The nature of structures Plaget was a biologist who began his research with sea creatures. He believed that the organism is actively involved in determining its own development. He then carried on his research on the nature of structures by applying it to children. Young children tend to order their actions or thinking into systems or structures called schemes (sometimes referred to as schemata). The scheme then becomes internalised as a mental representation of objects and events from experiences in the external world. The mental representation of a scheme is termed a mental operation, which is now a more complex structure that obeys certain logical laws or rules. An example of a child’s scheme for animals could be a mental picture of a furry four-legged creature that is not yet clearly defined. When the child reaches the stage of being able to classify animals into groups according to certain rules he or she is performing the mental operation of classification or categorisation. in developing psychological structures, children also tend to adapt to their environment. The two basic adaptation processes are termed assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation involves trying to understand something new by fitting it into our existing schemes. Children who see a cat for the first time will try to match it to what they already know, and may call it a doggie. Accommodation occurs when they change their existing schemes because something doesn't fit. An example is when a child learns to distinguish the category cat from that of dog and can see the similarities and differences between the two. Changes in thinking take place through a process of equilibration, which is the act of searching for a balance between assimilation and accommodation. Each new learning experience causes an imbalance or disequilibrium. This cognitive conflict is corrected by forming new and more complex schemes through assimilation and accommodation in a dynamic process of adaptation to attain equilibrium. Piaget believed that the development of thinking operations, such as the ability to compare and categorise, is the supreme characteristic of intelligence. He saw this development as unfolding in a series of stages from infancy to adolescence, evolving from automatic, or reflexive behaviour to logical, abstract thinking. He argued that the specific timing of the stages may vary between children, but that all children move through them in the same order. The underlying cognitive structures are distinct for each stage. Piaget identified four developmental stages of cognitive growth (Woolfolk, 2016): Sensori-motor stage (0-2 years): This stage is at the level of actions and language development. Intelligence takes the form of motor actions, and children experience schemata through movement and activity. Object permanence develops when they realise that an object exists even when they cannot see it. Pre-operational stage (2-7 years): This is known as the intuitive stage because children reach conclusions based on vague impressions and perceptual judgements. «They cannot think logically, and experience conflict between perception and mental processes. Thinking is still self-centred, and children can only see things from their own point of view. For example, while driving in a car they may ask why the moon is following them. Concrete operational stage (7-12 years): At the age of about seven, children arrive at the threshold of logical thinking and become able to compare, categorise and reverse their thinking. They can, for example, understand that 3 + 5 is the same as 5 + 3. Thinking is still linked to direct experience. Intelligence becomes logical but depends on concrete activities; they still cannot think in abstracts or hypotheses. Formal operational stage (12-15 years): This is the period where thinking becomes abstract. Children can organise information in many different ways and engage in hypothetical ‘if-then’ thinking. In Piaget's view, children’s learning is not dependent on interaction with an adult. He believed that children should be in stimulating environments to interact with objects and the social world and develop mature forms of reasoning, as described in formal operations. Piaget's notion of developmental stages with qualitative changes in intelligence resulted in a new picture of how learning happens. Instead of a stimulus—response approach to learning, Piaget stressed that mental processes are the key ingredients of development and that in order to learn, children have to understand (Stainthorp, 1989), The focus fell on how children solved problems, rather than merely on the content they produced (Lomofsky, 1994). Piaget's theory has a number of implications for teaching: > * * It facilitates teachers’ understanding of the maturing of cognitive development. The teacher is in a better position to know what to expect from learners and how to structure learning tasks appropriate to their level. The theory views learners as actively engaged in their own learning as they develop cognitive concepts. There has, however, been criticism of Piaget's stage theory, indicating that certain aspects, such as the sequence and ages, should be treated with caution (Donald, Lazarus and Lolwana, 2007: 84-85). Piaget developed his theory in a social context that is very different from our South African society. Thus, there may well be much variability in the way in which children/learners move through the different stages. On the other hand, Mwamwenda (1994: 84), who investigated research on children in different settings across Africa, concluded that Piaget's theory can be validated cross-culturally. He refers, in particular, to the contribution of formal schooling to cognitive development. Lev Vygotsky a While Piaget focused on the inner restructuring of a child’s thoughts, Vygotsky (1896-1934) emphasised the social context of learning. He attributed to the social environment special role in cognitive development. As the child acquires habits of thought and judgement largely through interacting with others, the interactions with people in one’s own culture are specifically important to a child’s development. According to Vygotsky, all psychological processes are initially shared between the child and an adult or a significant other. Cognitive activities, such as problem solving, are first learned in interpersonal settings, and then become internalised, self-regulated skills, so that the child can think and work more independently and no longer needs assistance from others. Minick (1987: 124) explains that the basis of Vygotsky's theory is the idea that “advanced mental processes have their origin in collaborative activity that is mediated by verbal interaction”. What children need help to do today they will be able to do by themselves later. The adult, or significant other primary caretaker, determines two things: (1) the learners’ actual developmental level of problem solving without adult help, and (2) what they can do with adult guidance. When children work at their own level, we see the actual developmental level of the learner. When they work in collaboration with an adult, we see their potential development as they learn with a competent, nurturing mediator. The difference between these two levels of functioning 's called the zone of proximal development (ZPD). (Vygotsky, 1978: 86-87) The process of instruction during which learners move from their actual to their potential level of development is called mediation, Since the 1970s, educationists have also developed the term scaffolding to describe the activities the teacher constructs to help learners learn. Although mediated learning is central to Vygotsky's theory, he did not fully elaborate on the role of the human mediator. Feuerstein’s theory and practice of the mediated learning experience (MLE) fills this gap by assigning the major role to a human mediator, such as a teacher. * It Vygotsky's notion of the social context of learning has a number of implications for education: emphasises working together with others in collaborative learning. + * |t It attributes a significant role to the parent, teacher or other educator. shows how learners can learn and progress to new levels with guidance from others. Vasily Davydov further developed Vygotsky's ideas into a theory of learning known as activity theory (1986, in Kozulin, 1990). Activity theory understands activity as the interaction between people and the world via symbolic psychological tools, such as writing. Activity theory argues that people behave actively towards the different aspects of lo their world, thereby changing these aspects and changing themselves in the process. explain how higher mental processes develop, Vygotsky divided the concepts learners acquire into two types, namely spontaneous and scientific. Spontaneous concepts emerge from the child’s everyday experiences, and are empirical and unsystematic. Scientific concepts are theoretical ideas that are systematic, logical and rule-bound. These develop through structured activity in the classroom. It is scientific learning that promotes cognitive development. Scientific concepts are not limited to scientific learning areas but include literature, art, history and languages. The purpose of formal schooling is to provide opportunities for cognitive development through systematic scientific learning (Kozulin, 1995). The ZPD can be viewed as a zone in which scientific concepts introduced by the teacher interact with the existing spontaneous concepts in the child, For example, children in Grade 5 have some everyday spontaneous Knowledge of the animal and plant world. They receive instruction in biological classification about differences between plants, animals, vertebrates and invertebrates. They then may go on an outing to a nature reserve where they may be given a problem to solve by observing plants and animals and by applying their knowledge to create their own Classification table, In doing this, they move from theoretical scientific concepts to spontaneous concepts that are a necessary basis for a higher type of learning at school (Karpov and Bransford, 1995). We can see in the above example how the teacher has offered guided discovery learning as opposed to unguided discovery learning. Using Vygotsky's idea of a zone of proximal development, we can see that the teacher is moving learners between different developmental zones. The following steps apply (Giest and Lompscher, 2003: 272): * * * The teacher creates conditions for learning in the zone of actual performance by stimulating a problem situation, or cognitive conflict, to find out what the learners do not yet know or cannot yet do, what they can do well, and why, Guided application and systematic learning in the ZPD helps learners acquire what they need to know and be able to do in order to solve the problem and reach the learning goal. Inthe third phase of developmental teaching the ZPD becomes a new zone of actual performance. The new phase of teaching starts at a higher level and a new ZPD opens. Guided learning can teach people new ways to move beyond their taken-for-granted way of looking at the world around them, and open them to new possibilities. Guided learning may at times also include an element of conflict as people face new or difficult situations. De Beer and Henning (2011) described the learning that took place when student-teachers spent time together in the mountains, away from their usual peer group, where they learned more about the values and languages of different groups in the country and got to know their fellow South African citizens and university peers a little better, Through this interaction, student-teachers became exposed to issues they may not have experienced before, such as racial bias, HIV and Aids, and the poverty and marginalisation experienced by some of their fellow students. In learning to appreciate the lives of others, student-teachers were taken out of their comfort zone into a zone of development. The discomfort that they experience becomes part of their personal growth as future teachers. Use the text below to answer the question: 3.1. Learning theories are important in the process of learning and teaching. In the light of the above statement compare Jean Piaget’s (1860–1980) Cognitive Development Theory and Lev Vygotsky’s theory (1986–1934) in terms of their focus and contribution to the teaching and learning process.