2. How Young Children Think:
Piaget and Vygotsky
• Piaget—Swiss developmentalist
– believed young children were
limited by their egocentric
perspective
• egocentrism—Piaget’s term for
type of centration in which child
sees world solely from his/her
personal perspective
• Vygotsky—Russian
developmentalist
– recognized how child’s
social/cultural context helps
shape his/her cognitive
development
Piaget—biological
development
establishes readiness
for qualitative
change;
disequilibrium sets
up the need for
adaptation
Vygotsky—social
interaction establishes
the basis for learning;
social and cultural tools
and signs serve as
mediators for learning
3. Vygotsky’s View on Preschool
Cognitive Development
Lev Vygotsky proposed that the focus on
cognitive development should be on a
child’s social and cultural world, as
opposed to the Piagetian approach, which
concentrates on individual performance.
• Born in Russia to Jewish parents.
• 1924 started working on
developmental psychology,
education and psychopathology.
• In his work, drew on many concepts
in the work of anthropologists,
psychologists and sociologists.
• His work remained unknown in the
west for decades, until the Cold War
ended.
Lev Vygotsky developed the
sociocultural theory of
cognitive development.
4. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural
Perspective
• Sociocultural theory states that:
– Cognitive development occurs in a
sociocultural context that influences the form
it takes
– Most of a child’s cognitive skills evolve from
social interactions with parents, teachers,
and other more competent associates
5. An Overview of Vygotsky’sTheory
• Implications for Education: Vygotsky
– Lev Vygotsky was a Russian developmental
psychologist who thought that education needed
to meet children at their own level.
• He believed that the use of the symbolic system of language allowed
humans to influence others and control our own behavior.
• Education needs to utilize this feature of language and take into
account the child’s level of cognitive maturity.
• He proposed the existence of a zone of proximal
development, which is the distance between what a
child can do alone and what a child can do with
assistance from others.
6. Vygotsky: Children
as Apprentices
• One Theory
– theory-theory—Gopnik’s
term for the idea that
children attempt to
construct a theory to explain
everything they see and hear
His theory has its roots
in the Marxist theory of
dialectical materialism (i.
e., historical changes in
society and material life
produce changes in
human nature.)
7. 1. Social Cognition
• The social cognition model claims that
culture is the most important determinant of
individual development. Humans are the
only species with a culture and every human
child grows in the context of a culture.
Therefore, a child’s learning development is
affected by the culture in which he/she is
raised.
• Vygotsky believed that the lifelong process
of development was dependent on social
interaction and that social learning leads to
cognitive development.
8. 2. Sociocultural nature of
development
• Children's psychological
development happens
within social interactions.
• Culture makes 2
contributions to a child's
intellectual development:
– through culture children acquire
much of the content of their thinking
and their knowledge.
– the surrounding culture provides
children with the processes or
means of their thinking, the tools of
intellectual adaptation.
• According to this model, culture
teaches children both what to think
and how to think.
9. • Children do not strive alone; their
efforts are embedded in social context
– parents guide young children’s cognitive
growth in many ways
• present new challenges for learning
• offer assistance and instruction
• encourage interest and motivation
Vygotsky: Children as Apprentices, cont.
10. • Apprentice in thinking—child whose
intellectual growth is stimulated and
directed by older and more skilled members
of society
• Guided participation—process by which
young children, with the help of mentors,
learn to think by having social experiences
and by exploring their universe
Vygotsky: Children as Apprentices, cont.
11. Apprenticeship in Thinking and Guided
Participation:
– guided participation, adult-child interactions in
which children’s cognitions and modes of
thinking are shaped as they participate with or
observe adults engaged in culturally relevant
activities.
– Our culture is one that uses what Vygotsky
termed context-independent learning
12. How to Solve a Puzzle
• Guidance and motivation
– structure task to make solution more
attainable
– provide motivation
• Guided participation
– partners (tutor and child) interact
– tutor sensitive and responsive to
needs of child
– eventually, because of such mutuality,
child able to succeed independently
ABA
Scaffolding:
changing level of
support by
adjusting amount of
guidance given
13. Scaffolding
• Scaffolding—sensitive structuring of child’s
participation in learning encounters
• Zone of proximal development (ZPD)— skills
too difficult for child to perform alone but
that can be performed with guidance and
assistance of adults or more skilled children
– lower limit of ZPD can be reached independently
– upper limit of ZPD can be reached with assistance
– ZPD is a measure of learning potential
The ZPD bridges the
The ZPD bridges the
gap between
gap between what is
what is
known
known and
and what can
what can
be known
be known.
.
14. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
The level at which a child can almost, but
not fully, comprehend or perform a task
without assistance.
Zone of Proximal
Development: range of
tasks too difficult to master
alone-but can be learned
with guidance
15. Zzzzzo
zzo
cc
cccccc CHILD DOES ALONE
CHILD CANNOT DO
Scaffolding
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
CHILD DOES WITH GUIDANCE
teachers
technology
parents
child care workers
media
peers
16. THEREFORE
The job of the teacher is….
to provide activities within
each child’s Zone of Proximal
Development.
17. Scaffolding, cont.
• Private speech —internal dialogue
when people talk to themselves
through which new ideas are
developed and reinforced
– verbal interaction is a cognitive tool
• Social mediation —use of speech to
bridge gap between child’s current
understanding and what is almost
understood
18.
19. • Implications for Education: Vygotsky
– Vygotsky proposed the existence of a zone of
proximal development, which is the distance between
what a child can do alone and what a child can do with
assistance from others.
– Instruction should occur within the zone, but
appropriate guidance should be given whenever
possible to bring the child to understanding of more
sophisticated concepts.
– He compared this process to scaffolding, temporary
supports used to construct a new building. These are
temporary supports for the child’s cognitive processes.
20. 1. Comparison of Piaget and
Vygotsky
Self-discovery where
children discover for
themselves through
interaction with the
environment. Constructi-
on by child only.
Assisted discovery
through teacher-child and
child-child interaction.
Construction by child
and adult.
Vygotsky approached
cognitive development from a
process orientation. Rather
than looking at the endpoint of
developmental processes, he
looked at the process itself
and analyzed the subject's
participation in social
activities.
21. 2. Comparison of Piaget and
Vygotsky
Teacher watch and
listen to students,
introducing experiences
that encourages the
practice of new schemes
and challenges incorrect
ways of viewing the
world.
Teachers guide
student’s learning with
explanations,
demonstrations and
verbal prompts.
Rather than looking at the
endpoint of developmental
processes, Vygotsky looked
at the process itself and
analyzed the child's
participation in social
activities.
22. 3. Comparison of Piaget and
Vygotsky
Hands-on-learning
provided rather than
presenting ready-made
verbal knowledge.
Using of language for
student learning is
emphasized. Children
are encouraged to talk.
He proposed that
development does not
precede socialization.
Rather, social structures
and social relations lead to
the development of mental
functions.
23. 4. Comparison of Piaget and
Vygotsky
Students at the same
cognitive development
level get the same task
and work in a group.
Students with different
abilities work and
collaborate in groups,
helping and teaching one
another.
24. 5. Comparison of Piaget and
Vygotsky
Scientific concepts
grow spontaneously –
from down upwards.
Scientific concepts
have to be introduced
and implemented - do
not grow from down
upwards.
25. The role of language in cognitive
development cont’d
• According to Vygotsky:
– Thought and language eventually emerge
– A child’s nonsocial utterances, which he termed
private speech, illustrate the transition from
paralinguistic to verbal reasoning
– Private speech plays a major role in cognitive
development by serving as a cognitive self-guidance
system, allowing children to become more organized
and good problem solvers
– As individuals develop, private speech becomes inner
speech
26. LANGUAGE
For Vygotsky learning language facilitates
development. It allows children to receive ideas,
culture, and thinking from those around them.
Vygotsky believed that learning language could
enhance thinking. Thinking reflects language.
Piaget believed that language reflects thinking.
27. Lev Vygotsky
A key assumption made by Vygotsky is that during the course of
development everything occurs twice.
• The child first makes contact with the social environment. This
occurs on an interpersonal level.
• Then a child makes contact within himself, on an intrapersonal
level.
28. Which Viewpoint Should We
Endorse?
• According to contemporary research:
– Children rely heavily on private speech when facing
difficult problems
– There is a correlation between “self-talk” and
competence
– Private speech does eventually become inner speech
and facilitates cognitive development
29. Lev Vygotsky
He believed that learning could occur through play, formal
instruction, or work between a learner and a more experienced
learner.
The basic process by which this occurs is mediation (the connection
of two structures, one social and one personally constructed, through
tools or signs.)
It is when the cultural signs become internalized that humans
acquire the capacity for higher order thinking.
30. The role of culture in intellectual
development:
• Vygotsky proposed that we should
evaluate human development from four
interrelated perspectives:
– Microgenetic-changes that occur over brief
periods of time-minutes and seconds
– Ontogenetic-development over a lifetime
– Phylogenetic-development over evolutionary
time
– Sociohistorical- changes that have occurred
in one's culture and the values, norms and
technologies such a history has generated
31. Tools of intellectual adaptation
• Vygotsky (1930-1935/1978) proposed
that infants are born with a few
elementary mental functions – attention,
sensation, perception and memory – that
are eventually transformed by the culture
into new and more sophisticated mental
processes he called higher mental
functions.
32. The Social Origins of Early Cognitive
Competencies:
• Zone of Proximal Development range of
tasks that are too complex to be
mastered alone but can be
accomplished with guidance and
encouragement from a more skillful
partner
– Scaffolding- the expert participant carefully
tailors their support to the novice learner to
assure their understanding
33. Implications for Education:
• Children are seen as active participants in their
education
• teachers in Vygotsky’s classroom would favor guided
participation in which they:
– structure the learning activity
– provide helpful hints or instructions that are
carefully tailored to the child’s current abilities
– monitor the learner’s progress
– gradually turning over more of the mental activity to
their pupils
– Promote cooperative learning exercises
34. Theories of Cognitive
Development:
Vygotsky vs. Piaget
Vygotsky’s sociocultural
Vygotsky’s sociocultural
theory
theory
Piaget’s cognitive
Piaget’s cognitive
developmental theory
developmental theory
Cognitive development varies
Cognitive development varies
across cultures
across cultures
Cognitive development is mostly
Cognitive development is mostly
universal across cultures
universal across cultures
Stems from social interactions
Stems from social interactions Stems from independent
Stems from independent
explorations
explorations
Social processes become
Social processes become
individual-physiological processes
individual-physiological processes
Individual (egocentric) processes
Individual (egocentric) processes
become social processes
become social processes
Adults are important as change
Adults are important as change
agents
agents
Peers are important as change
Peers are important as change
agents
agents
35. Piagetian Ideas:
Four discrete stages
Cognitive development is
limited by stages
Young children are
schematic
Motivation to maintain
cognitive equilibrium
Development occurs when
assimilation is not possible
(adaptation)
Vygotsky's ideas:
Continuous development
(no stages)
Zone of proximal
development
Socially transmitted
knowledge (cooperative
learning and Scaffolding)
Private speech helps
internalize knowledge
Both were
constructivists
Both believed
that social forces
set the limits of
development
Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky’s
Theories
36. Logic and Culture
• Piaget’s ideas still remain logical
– research shows that sometimes older
children may make mistakes when applying
new logic
• Vygotsky’s premise is that, added to
Piaget’s ideas, the social cultural
context of learning is important
37. Building on Piaget and Vygotsky
• Concrete Operational Thought
– Piaget’s 3rd stage
– children reason logically about the things
and events that they perceive
• Vygotsky did not believe the child was a
socially isolated learner
– instruction by others is crucial
