Human Growth and
Development
By: Ben, Zach, and Justin
Jean Piaget
Born in Switzerland, August 9, 1896 Piaget was a well-known Swiss
scholar , psychologist and philosopher, and one of the most
influential supporters of constructivism for his pedagogical studies.
Piaget was concerned primarily with cognitive development and the
formation of knowledge. His research led him to conclude that the
growth of knowledge is the result of individual constructions made
by the learner.
In 1955, he created the International Center for Genetic
Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until 1980.
Piaget’s career spanned over 50 years and his work has gained
varying levels of acceptance in American education circles.
Jean Piaget is considered "the great pioneer of the constructivist
theory of knowing.”
Piaget’s Concepts: Adaptation, Assimilation, Accommodation,
Classification, Class Inclusion, Conservation, Decantation,
Egocentrism, Operation, Schema, and Child Stages.
Active Learning
Piaget believed that children learn through
Active Learning. Active learning is the
process of discovering something about
your environment yourself. A child may
touch a pot of boiling water and actively
learn that boiling water is hot and
shouldn't be touched. Active learning
builds upon past experiences so that a
child can better understand the world
around them.
Example
When I was little I learned
that if something had steam
coming off of it, it would more
than likely burn the roof of my
mouth. I actively learned this
and I make sure I wait for my
food to cool down or blow on
it to cool it down faster.
Egocentrism
According to Piaget, egocentrism is the tendency of children to view the environment
only from their own point of view. Piaget theorized that the degree of egocentrism is
directly related to the child's level of cognitive development.
The infant stage (birth to age 2) children are just learning to recognize and interact with
the environment and are thus completely egocentric
The toddler and preschool stages (ages 2 to 6) children are able to represent the world
to themselves in symbols and images but are unable to distinguish their point of view from
that of others.
The middle childhood stage (ages 6 to 12) children develop greater cognitive abilities
and therefore have declining levels of egocentrism and are able to visualize a situation
from another's point of view.
The adolescent stage (ages 12 to 19) egocentrism further declines as individuals
develop the ability for fully abstract thought and are thus able to analyze a situation from
many perspectives.
Example
Egocentric thinking is when
you believe something and
think everyone else should
too, or you think because you
think or feel something,
everyone else does to.
When a child hides in plain
view under a blanket but
sincerely believes they are
missing, they think because
they can't see you, that you
can't see them.
Cognitive Structures
Cognitive structures are patterns of physical or mental action that underlie specific acts of intelligence and
correspond to stages of child development. According to Piaget there are four primary cognitive structures:
Sensorimotor stage from birth to age 2: intelligence takes the form of motor actions.Children experience
the world through movement and the 5 senses. During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely
egocentric, meaning they cannot perceive the world from others' viewpoints. The sensorimotor stage is
divided into six substages:
1. simple reflexes
2. first habits and primary circular reactions;
3. secondary circular reactions
4. coordination of secondary circular reactions
5. tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity
6. internalization of schemes.
Preoperational stage from ages 2 to 7: Intelligence is intutive in nature. Egocentrism begins strongly and
then weakens. Children cannot conserve or use logical thinking.
Concrete operational stage from ages 7 to 12: The cognitive structure during the concrete operational
stage is logical but depends upon concrete referents. Children can now conceive and think logically but only
with practical aids. They are no longer egocentric.
Formal operational stage from age 12 onwards: Thinking involves abstractions. Children develop abstract
thought and can easily conserve and think logically in their mind.
Example
With children in the sensorimotor
stage, teachers should try to
provide a rich and stimulating
environment with ample objects to
play with. On the other
hand, with children in the concrete
operational stage, learning
activities should involve problems
of classification, ordering, location,
conservation using concrete
objects.
Symbolic Thought
Symbolic thought is the representation of reality through the use of abstract
concepts such as words, gestures, and numbers. Symbolic thought is present in
most children by the age of eighteen months, when signs and symbols are used
reliably to refer to concrete objects, events, and behaviors.
The hallmark of symbolic thought is language, which uses words or symbols to
express concepts, abstract references to transcend concrete reality, and allows
intangibles to be manipulated.
According to Jean Piaget, imitation plays an important role in the development of
symbolic thought because the child is able to imagine behaviors observed in the
past and to recreate them as imitated behaviors. Thus, a repertoire of signifiers is
built that becomes connected to significates through assimilation of events and
actions to those signifiers. The development of language arises from symbolic
functions, which in turn facilitates development of symbolic thought.
Example
in preschool, kindergarten, 1st
grade... they would show us
flash cards with the a picture of
something next to the word of
that picture. so they would
have a drawing of a cat, with
the word cat next to it, a
picture of a dog next to the
word dog, showing us that the
picture represents the word,
and the word represents the
picture.
Lev Vygotsky
Vygotsky was born in 1896 in Orsha in the
Russian Empire, and graduating from the
Moscow State University. then going to work for
the Institute for Psychology and other educational
research.
Most of his work involved watching the
development of children and Special Education
trying to teach people that every child has a
different learning curve
all of his work stayed mainly in the Russian area
of things later crossing the pacific and effecting
schools in the states.
Guided Participation
Vygotsky believed that children can solve problems
with guidance from an adult. Children vocalize their
thoughts and have conversations with themselves as a
way to solve problems. This is called "private speech".
If an adult participates with a child's "private speech"
the child will listen to the adult's advice and apply it to
solving the problem.
"Through these experiences, basic mental capacities
are transformed into uniquely human, higher cognitive
processes. These include, among others, controlled
attention, deliberate memorization and recall,
categorization, planning, problem-solving, abstract
reasoning, and self-regulation of thought and
behavior."
(Vygotsky, Lev)
Example
This is an example of a mother and her 4 year old
child solving a puzzle using guided participation:
Sammy: ‘I can’t get this one in.’ [Tries to insert a
piece in the wrong place]
Mother: ‘Which piece might go here?’ [Points to the
bottom of the puzzle]
Sammy: ‘His shoes.’ [Looks for a piece resembling
the clown’s shoes, but tries the wrong one]
Mother: ‘Well, what piece looks like this shape?’
[Pointing again to the bottom of the puzzle]
Sammy: ‘The brown one.’ [Tries it, and it fits; then
attempts another piece and looks at his mother]
Mother: ‘That’s it. Try turning that one just a little.’
Sammy: ‘There!’ [Puts in several more pieces while
commenting to himself, ‘Now a green piece to
match,’ ‘Turn it’ (the puzzle piece), as his mother
watches]
Apprenticeship in Thinking
Vygotsky believed that children learn from people
around them. Vygotsky did research on infants
and their mother's with multiple cultural groups
and documented the differences in development.
Who the child becomes is shaped by their
interactions with not only other people, but also
their culture and language.
Vygotsky called this everyday learning from
people around us "apprenticeship in thinking".
"The theory that proposes a continuous process
of interaction between persons and sociocultural
factors is used as a framework in “everyday
learning” or “apprenticeship” situations involving
“scaffolding” (i.e., temporary support and
guidance in problem solving) by an adult."
(Child Development and Culture)
Example
I used to watch my older brother
all of the time I was a child.
When he played video games
I'd watch him and would learn
how the game worked.
When it was my turn to play I'd
have a good sense on the rules
of the game and a general idea
on how to accomplish the goal.
Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a concept closely related to the idea of ZPD.
Scaffolding is changing the level of support. Over the course of
a teaching session, a more-skilled person adjusts the amount
of guidance to fit the child’s current performance. Dialogue is
an important tool of this process in the zone of proximal
development. In a dialogue unsystematic, disorganized, and
spontaneous concepts of a child are met with the more
systematic, logical and rational concepts of the skilled helper.
Example
in school, teachers usually call attention to a students parents,
or to the student saying that the they are not learning at the
same pace as the others. the teacher then discusses why they
are not learning at the classes pace, and try and fix the problem
by making a time management schedule, or just discussing
what problems need addressing.
Proximal Development
Vygotsky argued that advanced individuals use language in
social interactions to develop and redevelop thought by scaffolding less
advanced individuals through their Zone of Proximal Development
(ZPD). The ZPD is ‘‘the distance between the actual development level
as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’’; it enables
learners to develop higher cognitive phenomena during social
interactions.
Example
Kids, Teens and Adults all go through some sort of educational
program that teaches difficult concepts, that if they had to learn
on their own, would go to far above their heads to
understand.in these programs these concepts are
deconstructed to fit most types of learning levels and make it
easier for everyone to understand.
Bibliography
Vygotsky, Lev. (2005). In Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. Retrieved from
http://www.credoreference.com/entry/wileycs/vygotsky_lev
Child Development and Culture. (2004). In Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology. Retrieved from
http://www.credoreference.com/entry/estappliedpsyc/child_development_and_culture
Constructivist theories. (2005). In Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development. Retrieved from
http://www.credoreference.com/entry/cupchilddev/constructivist_theories
Vanderburg, R. (2006). Reviewing Research on Teaching Writing Based on Vygotsky's Theories: What We Can Learn. Reading &
Writing Quarterly, 22(4), 375-393. doi:10.1080/10573560500455778.
McDonald, L., & Stuart-Hamilton, I. (2003). EGOCENTRISM IN OLDER ADULTS: PIAGET'S THREE MOUNTAINS TASK
REVISITED. Educational Gerontology, 29(5), 417. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
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