Piaget's Theory
This Swiss psychologist developed a theory explaining how children actively construct knowledge as they make sense of their world.
Who is Jean Piaget?
These are mental categories or frameworks that help us organize perceptions and experiences.
What are schemas (schemes)?
In this stage, children learn primarily through their senses and physical movements.
What is the sensorimotor stage?
Vygotsky's theory emphasizes that cognitive development is strongly shaped by these two things.
What are culture and social interaction?
The Zone of Proximal Development is the area between what a student can do independently and what the student can accomplish with this.
What is guidance/support from a more knowledgeable person?
This theorist emphasized active discovery and children constructing knowledge through interaction with their environment.
Who is Piaget?
According to Piaget, this process involves children actively exploring, observing, and organizing information.
What is activity?
A child sees a zebra for the first time and calls it a “horse” because it fits the child's existing understanding of horses.
What is assimilation?
Children in this stage begin using language and symbols to represent objects and actions, but their thinking is not yet fully logical.
What is the preoperational stage?
According to Vygotsky, knowledge is often developed through this process in which people interact and negotiate understanding.
What is co-construction of knowledge?
A teacher gives students clues, hints, and guidance while they learn a new skill, then gradually removes that support. This is called what?
What is scaffolding?
This theorist emphasized guided discovery and the important role of more knowledgeable others.
Who is Vygotsky?
Piaget believed cognitive development is influenced by four factors: maturation, activity, social transmission, and this process of seeking mental balance.
What is equilibration?
A child learns that a zebra is different from a horse and creates or changes a mental category to account for this new information.
What is accommodation?
A child understands that the amount of water remains the same even when it is poured into a taller, narrower glass. This ability is associated with which stage?
What is the concrete-operational stage?
Vygotsky believed that children sometimes talk to themselves while working through a difficult task. He called this what?
What is private speech?
Vygotsky's “magic middle” refers to instruction that is challenging enough to promote growth but does not leave students feeling this.
What are bored or frustrated?
Piaget believed cognitive development generally comes before learning, whereas this theorist argued that learning can set developmental processes in motion.
Who is Vygotsky?
A child encounters information that does not fit with what they already understand. Piaget would call this state of mental imbalance what?
What is disequilibrium?
According to Piaget, this is the tendency to arrange information and experiences into categories.
What is organization?
This stage involves abstract thinking, hypothetical reasoning, and the ability to systematically consider multiple possibilities.
What is the formal operational stage?
Vygotsky believed private speech eventually becomes this form of internal verbal thinking used to direct attention, solve problems, and plan.
What is inner speech?
A student cannot solve a math problem independently. With a few teacher prompts, however, the student successfully solves it. The problem was likely within the student's what?
What is Zone of Proximal Development?
Piaget saw social interaction primarily as a source of this, which motivates cognitive change.
What is disequilibrium?
A student believes that all four-legged animals are dogs. After seeing a horse, the student changes the mental category to distinguish dogs from horses. What Piagetian process is occurring?
What is accommodation?
A teacher introduces an unfamiliar concept. Students first try to fit it into what they already know, then modify their understanding when it doesn't quite fit. Name the two processes involved.
What are assimilation and accommodation?
A teacher asks students to design an experiment, identify all possible variables, and predict outcomes before testing their ideas. This activity is especially appropriate for students developing this type of Piagetian thinking.
What is formal operational thinking?
Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky viewed social interaction not merely as something that creates disequilibrium, but as something that helps create these.
What are cognitive structures?
A teacher initially models how to write a paragraph, then provides sentence starters, then asks guiding questions, and finally has the student write independently. What Vygotskian concept is illustrated?
What is scaffolding?
A teacher has students work together to solve a problem. The teacher provides hints when needed and gradually withdraws support as students become more capable. Which theorist—and which two major concepts—best explain this approach?
Who is Vygotsky? What are social interaction/co-construction and scaffolding (within the ZPD)?