Học thuyết Piaget and Vygotsky NEW

Constructivism and co-constructivism
The ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky
How do people learn?
Brain research: snapping synapses
Plato: ‘remembering’ previous existence - hence ‘Socratic questions’
Learning the same for adults as for children - rationality.
Mr Gradgrind/Mr Squeers: memorisation, punishment.
Pestalozzi: childhood, play as learning, focusing on the child.
Piaget
Biologist
Evolutionist
Structuralist - there is a logical structure to knowledge, it has a reference to the ‘real’ world, and the description has to accommodate change in data.
Based ideas on observation - empiricist.
How does knowledge grow?

genetic epistemology
progressive construction of logically embedded structures superseding one another by a process of inclusion of lower, less powerful logical means into higher and more powerful ones up to adulthood.
Therefore, children’s logic and modes of thinking are initially entirely different from those of adults (http://www.piaget.org).( Pam Silverthorn)
Some key terms
Development
Cognitive development
Maturation

Development of mind is linked to development of structures, which are based on experiences. Starts with perceptions, and becomes intellectual.
Tendencies in thinking:
Organisation
equilibration
Assimilation
Accommodation
Adaptation
Stages of cognitive development
The sensorimotor stage
The preoperational stage
The concrete operational stage
The formal operations stage
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
How do Piaget’s ideas inform teaching practice
Rigid notion of maturational stages
Association of stages with ages
Focus on mathematical/logical ways of thought
Focus on what students are ‘up to’.
Focus on student construction of ideas
Focus on providing rich environment/experience
A set of tools for gauging development
Acknowledges the importance of language in cognition
Lev Vygotsky
Social scientist
Marxist
Ran foul of the authorities of his day.
Human improvement
Attempted to use Piaget and Marx.
What causes social improvement, i.e. how does ‘history’ as a Marxist concept, work?
Humans live - and develop - in historical contexts
The engine of improvement is education within a context of culture

Culture
Since the individual lives within their own history, that is, within their culture, using the language which transmits that culture, education should take place, so far as possible, in that culture and that language.
Speech
Inner speech, or self-talk, is not just a peculiarity of early childhood: it persists into adulthood, in a silent form, as thought.

Therefore it is essential that we encourage talk, at all stages of development, in order to provide tools for thought.
Concept development
Concepts are the basis of thinking
They are more than just words: they encapsulate meaning in more complex ways
Adolescents have very different and more complex understanding of concepts than children do.
Zone of proximal development
What is important is not where the child is now, but where they can get to with the help of a sympathetic, informed teacher
You cannot really predict the zone
Children at the same current stage of achievement may/will have widely varying ZPDs
Scaffolding
‘Scaffolding’ is the process of support for development within this zone
‘teacher-based support,
group/peer based support,
written material but decoding the written word is far more difficult than other forms of support.
Implications for teaching
Focus is shifted to student talk/groups/experience
Learning fosters the development of concepts
Activities are ways of creating support for student learning
Challenge to ‘streaming’ in school and classroom organisation
Teacher does not have to teach to ‘the middle’: students will benefit from challenge to understand concepts.