Analysis of Vygotsky's Theory

One fault with Vygotsky's theory is that often he didn't mention specific ages that the abilities would occur.  His emphasis on culture makes his theory important as the culture shapes a child's development.  As mentioned before in Vygotsky's theory, social interaction is important and adults attach meaning to objects and events for them.  But it should be noted what I learned in my first blog post.  Remember this in the survey?

"4. Although students initially have many misconceptions about the world, they quickly revise their thinking once their parents present information that contradicts their existing beliefs.
This is too good to be true.  Actually students hold strong to their misconceptions even with contradictory truth.  One of the biggest challenges of teachers is to help discard their erroneous beliefs.''

So whenever the adults attach meaning it may not stick with them.  Adults help students through a process called scaffolding.  Think of how a scaffold holds a person up when they're working on a building.  As the building is becoming closer to being constructed the scaffold is needed less.  Scaffolding in terms of cognitive development is when a person provides needed assistance for a task.  Some ways to provide a scaffold is to help students develop a plan for dealing with a new task, demonstrate the proper performance of the task in a way that students can easily imitate and also divide a task into small steps.

                                    

                              (Real scaffolding on a building in Cincinnati.  

                         We need to remove the scaffolding from 

                 people so we can conquer a task!)

A teacher in the book Ms. McManus provides scaffolding to help her students write better.  She gave them graphic note-writing sheets that help with brainstorming and organize their thoughts before they write.  Plus she provided a variety of criteria that they should consider while writing.  Almost every cultural now involves children participating in adult activities so scaffolding and adults attaching meaning is important. An intensive form of guided participation is called apprenticeship. I think this word has been understood well by people.  Also there is cognitive apprenticeship which is not just about learning the task but thinking about it correctly.

Apprenticeships are clearly labor intensive and not usually used in the classroom.  However apprenticeships from an expert can be emulated by using the guidance they give.  For example, a student may use the same writing prompts that an expert would use.  Peer interaction is important for 4 reasons.  One is that by discussing the issue they can get a more complete view of it. Two is that by agreeing and disagreeing a child can see multiple perspectives.  Three is that they can provide scaffolding for each other.  And finally the children learn valuable social skills such as how to reach an agreement and coordinate different roles.  The group needs to be aware of groupthink. This is a vocabulary word that I heard through my classes at Marshall University.  I have two different definitions in my textbooks.  To me it is where a group reaches a decision that is not well thought out because people do not want to argue and make people feel uncomfortable. 

Piaget and Vygotsky have "a profound influence on contemporary views of learning, thinking and cognitive development."  They  may be said to compliment each other because Piaget's theory tells about how children reason on their own and Vygotsky's theory tells how children think through social interaction.  Many contemporary theorist agree with Piaget and Vygotsky that language is important and possibly the most important factor in cognitive development.

Vygotsky's Theory

Lev Vygotsky had a premature death so didn't fully develop his theory. Even so his ideas still have a significant impact in child development. Vygotsky has a sociocultural perspective which is a perspective that emphasizes society and the culture of cognitive development. Seeing socio and cultural makes that obvious but sometimes it's tough to articulate the obvious. Piaget didn't emphasize social interaction to be important but Vygotsky does. Adults attach the meanings of objects and events by social interaction. This doesn't need to be done just by conversation but also through art, mathematical symbols, music and literature. An adult could convey what war meant by a picture of people getting fired at and dirty faces and bodies.

 

 (Mr. Vygotsky)

Language evolves from self-talk to inner speech. By around age 2, thought and language becomes intertwined as children start to speak what they think. Children use self-talk, where a child talks to their self verbally to guide them through a task. Eventually self-talk evolves into inner speech, where a child speaks to their self mentally instead of verbally through a task. Research has supported the progression from self-talk to inner speech. As mentioned before, children learn through social interaction. This social interaction causes complex thinking that eventually can be done independently.

Actual development level is the upper limit of tasks that a child can perform by their self. A child's level of potential development is the upper limit of tasks that a child can do with the assistance of a more competent individual. To measure a child's cognitive development we should consider both development levels. Performing tasks at the upper limits of a child's abilities maximizes cognitive growth. The zone of proximal development or ZPD is the range of tasks that a child can perform with assistance and help. Play is another way to boost cognitive growth. It is not a waste of time because it provides valuable training for the adult world. The author talks about her son and his friend playing with a fake restaurant kitchen. The adult roles such as restaurant manager, waiter and cook prepares them for these roles when they grow older.

Analysis of Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

That children construct their own knowledge, relate new experiences with previous ones and challenging circumstances trigger children to change their views "...have stood the test of time".    Physical environment interaction is not as important as physically disabled children are able to learn simply by observation.  Social interaction has shown to be more important than Piaget states and the 4 steps of cognitive development sequences have proven to be true.

An adolescent may show concrete reasoning in some areas while in others they are able to think abstractly.  Training and experience may cause a child to ascend quicker.  For example, a child could have manipulated task materials often and had someone to talk to about how conservation works.  If so then the child may show conservation in the preoperational stage.  Some contemporary theorists believe that there shouldn't be stages but trends.  They further suggest that theses stages tell what children can think not actually what they will think because of different contexts, content areas and culture.