Description:
Children develop through different stages. Two of the biggest contributors to developmental psychology are Piaget and Vygotsky (Slavin 23). While the two theories differ slightly, overall they believed that children progress through distinct stages of develop based on age. This chapter deals with details on their theories of development, further research that has been done in regard to these theories, and what it means for the classroom teacher.
Analysis:
Developmental psychologists have long debated the nature v. nurture argument of development. (Slavin 23). For the most part they now agree that you cannot isolate one without the other. That indeed nature and nurture play a part in a child's development.
One of the most influential developmental psychologist was Jean Piaget. He believed that children learned through interacting with their environment, that they have patterns of behavior that he referred to as schemes (Slavin 25). He also asserted that children continue to learn as they assimilate and accommodate based upon their interactions with their environment.
Piaget saw child development in four distinct stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Piaget believed that regardless of what you taught a child, they could no progress to the next stage of development thus explaining why the example teacher, Ms. Wing, should not expect her students to solve the problem regardless of what she had taught them. Development precedes learning. Developmentally, they weren't able to think abstractly to solve the problem (Slavin 27).
Psychologists now believe that children may be able to progress to further stages of development if they are taught specific traits and tasks.
Vygotsky on the other hand believed that learning precedes development. He believed that a child's learning and development was influenced by the input of others. Many of Vysgotsky's theories play a major role in the classroom today: zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and cooperative learning are used every single day in the classroom (Slavin 35).
Reflection:
Though we learn about Piaget and Vygotsky early on in our education degrees, it is learned out of context. Now that I am in the classroom, these theories of development make more sense.
I see value in both psychologists work. Piaget gave us a general blueprint for how humans develop. Though we now understand that his stages of development don't have as hard a line as he asserted, these stages help us as teachers understand where a child is at and what we could/should expect of them. It gives me guidelines as a teacher to know how to best meet the needs of my students. Too often have me and my team come across standardized tests or unit tests that are so developmentally in appropriate. Knowing where children are at developmentally is key to being an effective teacher.
I also value Vygotsky's theories as they play a huge role in my day to day practice as a teacher. Developing lesson plans that are within my students' zone of proximal development is essential in developing effective lesson plans. Though I might not use this language when I'm planning, I recognize that this theory plays into my planning. Scaffolding is also essential. It leads to meeting each student where they are at within a defined stage of development. While children are progressing through development at similar ages, they each develop differently. Therefore scaffolding allows me to meet each student where they are at.
Learning more about these theories equips me to become a better teacher as I can better understand where my students are at developmentally and I can have real, developmentally appropriate expectations for them.
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