I was shown this powerpoint about Piaget and Vygotsky in my EDU 280: Introduction to Adolescent Education class. I find their theories to be very helpful and thought-provoking.

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Piaget & Vygotsky
The Emergence of Thought and
Language - Cognitive Development in
Childhood

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Learning Objectives
– According to Piaget, how do assimilation, accommodation,
and organization provide the foundation for cognitive
development throughout the life span?
– How do schemes become more advanced as infants
progress through the six stages of sensorimotor thinking?
– What are the distinguishing characteristics of thinking during
the preoperational stage?
– What are some of the shortcomings of Piaget’s account of
cognitive developments?

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Basic Principles of Cognitive Development
Children make sense of world through categories of
related events, objects, and knowledge, called
schemes.
Children adapt to their environment as they develop
by adding and refining their schemes.
Schemes change from physical, to functional,
conceptual, and abstract as the child develops.

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Assimilation and Accommodation
When new experiences fit into existing
schemes it is called assimilation.
When schemes have to be modified as a
consequence of new experiences, it is called
accommodation.
– Assimilation > required to benefit from experience.
– Accommodation > for dealing with completely new
data or experience.

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Equilibration & Stages of Cognitive Development
Equilibrium exists when there is a balance between
assimilation and accommodation.
Disequilibrium exists when more accommodation is
occurring than assimilation.
Equilibration takes place when inadequate schemes
are replaced with more advanced and mature
schemes.
Equilibration occurs three times during development,
resulting in 4 stages of cognitive development.

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Periods of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor Period (0-2 years)
– Infancy
Preoperational Period (2-7 years)
– Preschool and early elementary school
Concrete Operational Period (7-11 years)
– Middle and late elementary school
Formal Operational Period (11 years & up)
– Adolescence and adulthood

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Where are your students?
Key indicators of
– Concrete Operations
– Seriation— can arrange objects in an order (size, shape, etc).
– Classification— can name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size
or other characteristic, including idea that one set of objects can include another.
– Decentering—child takes into account multiple aspects of problem to solve it.
Example: child no longer perceives exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less
than a normally-wide, taller cup.
– Reversibility— child understands numbers or objects can be changed, then returned
to original state. So, child can rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals 8, 8−4 will equal 4,
the original quantity.
– Conservation—understands quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to
arrangement or appearance of the object or items.
– Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective
(even if they think incorrectly). Example: show child a comic where Jane puts a doll
under a box, leaves the room, and then another moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane
returns. Child in concrete operations will say Jane will still think it's under the box,
though child knows it’s in the drawer.

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Where are your students?
Key indicators of Formal Operations
– Think abstractly
– Reason logically
– Draw conclusions from available information
May only reach FO in particular tasks (esp. areas of
expertise)

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The Onset of Thinking:
Piaget’s Account
Preoperational Thinking
Egocentrism
– The child is unable to see the world from any viewpoint other
than their own.
Centration
– Children concentrate on only one dimension or aspect of a
problem, ignoring other equally relevant aspects.
Appearance is Reality
– Inability to understand that appearances can be misleading
(e.g. magic acts are real events).

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Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
Implications for Teaching
Teachers should provide materials and
conditions for students to discover
knowledge.
Students learn better when they can apply
something they already know to the material.
Large gains are made when students
discover their own errors and inconsistencies.

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Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
Consistency in Performance
Children do not perform consistently in other
tasks that should utilize the same ability.
Piaget’s theory would suggest that these
abilities should affect all aspects of
performance.

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Mind & Culture:
Vygotsky’s Theory
Learning Objectives
– What is the zone of proximal development? How
does it help explain how children accomplish more
when they collaborate with others?
– What is a particularly effective way of teaching
youngsters new tasks?
– When and why do children talk to themselves as
they solve problems?

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Mind & Culture:
Vygotsky’s Theory
Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
A Russian psychologist.
Saw cognitive development as an
apprenticeship in which children advance by
interaction with others more mature.
Vygotsky died young (37) and did not fully
develop his theory beyond childhood.

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Mind & Culture:
Vygotsky’s Theory
2 Major Contributions:
Zone of Proximal Development
– Difference betw. what child can do with & without help from
more experienced guide.
– Teachers > keep students in zone to achieve maximally.
Scaffolding
– Giving just enough help to achieve understanding.
– Studies > students learn worse when:
• told everything to do
• or when left alone to discover on their own.

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Zone of Proximal Development
Learner
Knows
Zone
‘Challenge’
Threat
Threat

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Mind & Culture:
Vygotsky’s Theory
Major Contributions (cont.)
Private Speech
– Children talk to themselves as they go about
difficult tasks.
– This speech is not intended for others, but for self
guidance and regulation.
– Eventually this private speech becomes
internalized and becomes inner speech…which
was Vygotsky’s term for thought.

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First Words & More
Encouraging Language Growth
Parents assist in learning language by:
– Speaking to children frequently.
– Naming objects of children’s attention.
– Using speech that is more grammatically
sophisticated.
– Reading to them.
– Encouraging watching programs with an emphasis
on learning new words, such as Sesame Street.

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Language
Communicating With Others
Effective communication requires:
– Taking turns as speaker and listener.
– Making sure to speak in language the listener
understands.
– Paying attention while listening and making sure
the speaker knows if he/she is being understood.