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Summary of Vygotsky's theory of early childhood
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Abstract
Nature versus nurture is an argument in psychology over whether a person’s innate qualities and behaviors are caused from their environment or if they’re born with it. Vygotsky places more emphasis on the social factors that contribute to cognitive development, in other words he is in favor of the nurture argument. He believes that everyone learns from their culture, environment, and social interactions. He talks about a few of his theories like the zone of proximal development, and a more knowledgeable other. He also expresses his thoughts on developmental tools and the importance of language to cognitive development. All of these factors together support his idea that children’s behavior is learned.
Zone of Proximal
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Vygotsky refers to these as tools of intellectual adaptation, which allow children to use basic mental functions more effectively, and these are culturally determined (McLeod, 2007). Vygotsky sees cognitive functions as things that are affected by beliefs, values, and these tools of adaptation of the culture in which a person develops. These tools vary culture to culture, but all play a large role in development. Even personal thoughts, the decisions that someone makes alone, are all effected by socio-cultural actions (Balakrishnan & Claiborne, 2012). Vygotsky also insists that emotion is an important part of understanding consciousness. He emphasized the development and cultural construction not only of meaning, but of emotion and directivity. It is hoped that through these two domains, the moral actions of children become acceptable and guide them into becoming moral citizens. (Balakrishnan & Claiborne, …show more content…
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This reading reminded me about how Vygotsky’s theory is mostly based on the interactions and influences help children to learn. I really do believe this theory is very accurate, because students can learn from each other. If a teacher is having trouble explaining a complex topic to a student, another student can explain it in more relatable way. Also, I was fascinated when I read about what cultural tools, were and how they related to Vygotsky’s beliefs. Learning about what cultural tools were, helped me to broaden my understanding of how crucial cultural tools are to student’s learning process. Also, the chapter did a great job of elaborating on how these tools can help to advance and grow in the understanding of student’s thinking process. Another aspect of this reading that interested me was the elaboration on private speech and the Zone of Proximal Development. Each of the definitions displayed help me to advance my own thinking on what it was and how it is used in regards to the education of students. The description of what private speech and how it is basically the inner narration of their thinking process helped me to understand how this aspect can help with students learning. Also, the Zone of Proximal Development helped me to make a connection to both what is and how it relates to private speech as well. The Zone of proximal development plays a crucial role in the
“The term “nature versus nurture” is used to refer to a long-running scientific debate. The source of debate is the question of which has a greater influence on development: someone's innate characteristics provided by genetics, or someone's environment. In fact, the nature versus nurture debate has been largely termed obsolete by many researchers, because both innate characteristics and environment play a huge role in development, and they often intersect”. (Smith, 2010 p. 1)
Vygotsky believes that a child’s cognitive development originates in socialization activities, and then goes through a process of increasing individuation. He argued that self-directed speech did not show any cognitive immaturity, but did show some form of development. He claims that private speech represents a functional differentiation in the speech of a child, or that a child begins to differentiate between speech that is directed towards the others and speech that is self-directed.
The biological theory refers to the focus of genetic factors that assist the child in adjusting to their environment. The theory highlights the importance of maturation of children’s bodies and their motor skills. The restriction of the biological theory however, is that it discounts the impact of children’s experiences. Behaviorism theory concentrates on children’s behavioral and emotional responses to changes in the environment. The argument against behaviorism is that it focuses on children’s visible behavior and ignores their thought process. The social learning theory interprets children’s beliefs and goals as affecting their behavior by what they learn when they observe others. In the psychodynamic theory, emphasis is on the interaction between internal conflict, early childhood experiences and the environment. Theorists focus on the personality development and how these early experiences play a role later in life. In cognitive-development theories, the concentration is on how the thinking process changes over time. Although it promotes adults to recognize children as curious minds trying to make sense of their environment, the theories lack clear stages that a child’s thought process goes through. Cognitive process theories similarly, also focus on thought process but more so on how people decipher information they see and hear. Sociocultural theories emphasize the affect of social
Vygotsky placed much more emphasis on language that Piaget (book). Vygotsky’s theory focuses on the role of interpersonal processes and the role of the child’s community and culture which provide a framework from which the child’s construction of meaning develops (book). Although Vygotsky stressed that the process must be in in the context of the child’s culture and the tools available within that culture. Vygotsky was always especially interested in cognitive processes which underline understanding which has led to the concept of shared understandings that occur when people communicate with each other. Vygotsky argued that through the use of language formed through social interaction a child can develop as a thinker and a learner (book). As a conscious individual people could not accomplish very much without the aids and tools within their culture such as language (book). Piaget argued that language was strongly influenced by the underlying cognitive structures within the individual child (book). They also disagreed on the egocentric speech of children. When observing children Piaget concluded that half of the mistakes children made was down to egocentric speech which he argued showed that children have not tried to communicate with another or adapted so others can understand them he also argued that young children did not seem to care if anyone else could understand them and
Vygotsky believed that children developed by what belief and culture they brought up in. He strongly believed that children would learn more from hand on experience and that children would develop better with people around them so they were continuously socialising and communicating.
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory was his main focus and it helped him make sense of a person’s cognitive development through the way they interaced with others and emphasised on one’s social interaction (blabla). Vygotsky focused on how learning consisted of gathering knowledge and skills from the social community and the different attractions a person observes (v2); a process known as internationalization. His theory was based on two key concepts, first that knowledge can be developed through the experiences a child lives (v1), and an example would be a child seeing his parents arguing over their beliefs; he’d learn how he should have his own belief...
Lastly, there is a zone of proximity that Vygotsky believes in. This goes along with his group aspect of learning. He believes that one learns better through life interactions. (Woolfolk, 2004) Similarities in Piaget and Vygotsky In the article we were supposed to read for class this week it says “there are seven similarities: 1) a genetic, i.e., developmental, perspective; 2) a dialectical approach; 3) a non-reductionist view; 4) anon-dualistic thesis; 5) an emphasis on action; 6) a primacy of processes over external contents or outcomes; and 7) a focus on the qualitative changes over the quantitative ones.”
To understand how we are able to become such complex and multifaceted individuals, we must grasp the idea of cognitive development. Cognitive development is defined as “the ability to think and reason” (University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, 2006). The two main contributors of this topic within psychology, are Piaget and Vygotsky. They are also both the main competitors in terms of contrasting theories, however, do still have many similarities between them. Piaget’s main theories include stages of development; sensorimotor (senses, reflexes and object permanence) preoperational egocentric speech, use of
Undoubtedly, humans are unique and intricate creatures and their development is a complex process. It is this process that leads people to question, is a child’s development influenced by genetics or their environment? This long debate has been at the forefront of psychology for countless decades now and is better known as “Nature versus Nurture”. The continuous controversy over whether or not children develop their psychological attributes based on genetics (nature) or the way in which they have been raised (nurture) has occupied the minds of psychologists for years. Through thorough reading of experiments, studies, and discussions however, it is easy to be convinced that nurture does play a far more important in the development of a human than nature.
Russian psychologist, Lev Semionovich Vygotsky, had a powerful influence in the area of development. His work consisted of two main ideas: a) development depends on signs, b) development is measured based upon the outlook of a problem. "Intellectual development can be understood only in terms of the historical and cultural contexts of children experience." (Slavin, 2015) Two followers of Vygotsky, Margaret Gredler and Carol Shield, explained Vygotsky's theory more in depth in their article Does No One Read Vygotsky's Words? "[He]...defined the instrumental act as including (a) the problem to be solved, (b) one's
Vygotsky Ideas: One of his ideas on child cognition is that it is social as well as language centered. The growth of language is directly related to the child’s change in thinking. He also says the infants share the same perceptions, memory capacities as well as attention to animals, which get enhanced through their interaction with the surroundings. He also opposes the individualistic understanding in the growth of the infants and advocates for social development (Berk,
Lawrence Kohlberg conducted research on the moral development of children. He wanted to understand how they develop a sense of right or wrong and how justice is served. Kohlberg used surveys in which he included moral dilemmas where he asked the subjects to evaluate a moral conflict. Through his studies, Kohlberg observed that moral growth and development precedes through stages such as those of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. He theorized that moral growth begins at the beginning of life and continues until the day one dies. He believed that people proceed through each stage of moral development consecutively without skipping or going back to a previous stage. The stages of thought processing, implying qualitatively different modes of thinking and of problem solving are included in the three levels of pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional development. (2)
“Vygotsky states cognitive development stem from social interactions from guided learning as children and their partner’s co-construct knowledge. In contrast Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge of their own. For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and what they think about”. Although I do believe children learn through experiences and exploring, its Vygotsky’s thought of them learning most from guidance is what I agree with most. They can explore new surroundings but it will be an adult that will help guide them and teach them not to do certain things or avoid an injury or accident to occur to the
Psychologists have debated the argument of nature vs. nurture for years on end. Although more evidence is being discovered, the topic is still very arguable. The debate started back in 1869, when Francis Galton was the first to use the phrase, “Nature vs. Nurture” (ORIGINS). The debate circles around whether people are who they are from their genes, or if their environment impacts their actions and personality. Most psychologists believe it is a one or the other decision, however there are still a few who believe both are right.