Piaget and Vygotsky

"To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by rediscovery, and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition."

Jean Piaget

Piaget found that children have 4 stages of development where they learn about the world around them. He said that they have different understandings about their world according to their cognitive stage of development. He felt that play was not aimless but vitally important for the development of their understanding of the reality of their world. He said that repeated experiences helped the child to construct his own knowledge of the world, that learning should be made from within rather than be forced in from outside. Therefore curriculum should be developed to take into consideration the stage of development of the student and that teachers become facilitators who provide the students with the opportunity to construct their own knowledge - hence Constructivism.

Vygotsky argued that the child’s social culture is the basis for learning, that they learn through social interaction with peers and adults and that language is a vital part of development. He came up with the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development, the difference between what a child can do without help and what they can achieve with help from a friend or adult. Scaffolding, the support given to a child as it learns, needs to be constantly adjusted to accommodate the progress of ability. Curriculum should be developed to allow for careful progress of knowledge and every effort should be made for learning to be collaborative.

Both theories go hand in hand with good education. In this huge world teeming with people it is vital that students learn to work together and appreciate each other’s gifts and differences. How could we have school without peer influence? Students can affect each other's learning in positive ways. The careful scaffolding of new information geared for the individual’s stage of development ensures that students feel confident with their ability. Combine this with an understanding of age development , different intelligences and the possibility of students collaborating to construct new understandings together and we have a model of education that produces creative individuals who will have a lot to offer the world.