DEVELOPMENT
PIAGET'S THEORY
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is composed of four stages. Within each stage, the child displays certain characteristics or traits specific to that stage.
SENSORIMOTOR
From birth to age two, children in the sensorimotor stage learn about the world around them primarily through their senses of touch and taste. They lack an understanding of object permanence and, thus, believe that when an object has disappeared from view that it no longer exists.
PRE-OPERATIONAL
Applicable to lower grades, stage 2 includes children from age two to seven. The primary characteristics of children in this stage is that they are egocentric and unable to perceive the law of conservation of matter. Egocentric refers to the inability to understand another's perspective. This makes it difficult for these individuals to be empathetic towards others. However, this stage also involves an immense amount of creativity. If your classroom is full of this age group of students, be sure to have many outlets through which they can let their imaginative ideas run wild!
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL
This stage is composed of children from ages seven to eleven. Activities with this age group can be some of the most fun! At this level of cognitive development, students are just starting to develop skills of simple mental manipulations, systematic organizing, and logical operations. They are very hands on and need a lot of physical and visual aids to solidify complex concepts.
FORMAL OPERATIONAL
This is the final stage of cognitive development, reached at age 11. If and when children reach this stage, they are able to engage in complex planning, thinking logically about more abstract concepts, and they can consider the effect of the past and present on the future. Piaget claims that only about half of the population reaches this stage of development.
VYGOTSKY'S THEORY
Vygotsky's theory of social and emotional development stressed the importance of teachers and their impact on a child's learning. Each student has tasks which he or she can do independently without help. There are also mental tasks which the individual cannot complete or comprehend.
However, Vygotsky states that there is a very important in-between phase called the zone of proximal development. In this area, the child is able to understand or complete tasks with the help and instruction another.
VYGOTSKY AND PIAGET COMPARED
While both Vygotsky and Piaget have very helpful and important insights into development, keep in mind that these are both theories, not fact. One main difference between the two is that Piaget views development as a discontinuous succession of events in which a person cannot comprehend something one day, and then can the next. Vygotsky, on the other hand, claims that learning and development is less dependent or fixed on certain stages of brain development and more influenced by a teacher focusing on furthering the ZPD of the student.
OTHER THEORIES
1. Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Theory: claims that there are eight stages of human development. At each stage, the individual either achieves a good quality (such as trust, initiative, or identity), or takes on a negative quality (such as mistrust, guilt, or role confusion). If one reaches a stage where they do not achieve the positive, Erikson claims the person will be stuck at that stage of social development.
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2. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory: focuses on the influence of peers, the family unit, society as a whole, major historical events within a time period, and how all of the above effect the development of the child.