Written Response

Swiss philosopher Jean Piaget and Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky each developed their own theories on child development. Their theories help us understand how children learn and how we, as teachers should teach children.

Both Piaget and Vygotsky's theories can be incorporated in teaching and learning. From my experience working with children, I see that culture and language plays a very important role in a child’s acquisition of knowledge, and with the right tools and help, a child can progress mentally far beyond his chronological age. I have also seen children, whose mental ability falls far behind their chronological years, due to their cultural environment.

Scaffolding : Piaget assumes that students in the preoperational stage does not yet have the mental structures to solve the problem involving the liquid volume experiment. On the other hand Vygotsky's use of scaffolding provides hints/ clues for problem solving which would allow the students to better approach the problem in the future. (Woolfolk, A., 2004). Moreover the child would be offered encouragement or strategies in the form of scaffolding to attempt the problem.

Private speech: As children are involved in solitary play they speak to themselves to try to figure out a problem. Quite contrarily, Vygotsky posits that children must be involved in collaborative play with each other. This leads to opportunity for social interaction and learning. Vygotsky (MKO) More Knowledge Other is applicable here, because the child through social interaction with his peer may have greater knowledge in the problem solving, or a higher ability level than he may be able to assist him in figuring out the problem and solving it.

Additionally, Piaget describes his language development as private speech (Self-talk). Accordingly, children and adults may use this to guide actions and aid thinking. Piaget views it as egocentric/ immature. Quite the contrary, Vygotsky said that self-directed speech enhances regulation and communication with the self. It then becomes internalized after 9 years (Woolfolk, A., 2004) this, he acknowledges, is necessary for children to regulate their own internal and external behavior. He encouraged children to share what they are experiencing through drawing, writing, talking with others and talking with themselves. He figured that this would enable them to move to becoming independent learners.

Cognitive Development: As part of their cognitive development children must develop schemes mental representations of people, objects/ principles. These schemes can be altered through assimilation, accommodation and organization. On the other hand Vygotsky in his social interaction theory argues that social interactions precedes development, consciousness and cognition, and are the end product of socialization and social behavior. Further, through dialogues, we socially interact with others to learn the cultural values and our society. Human activities take place in settings, and cannot be understood apart from these settings (WOOLFOLK, a., 45) Therefore our cultures shape our cognition. Through these social interactions we moved toward individualized.

Woolfolk, Anita. (2004). Educational Psychology. (9th ed). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.