Constructivist Theories of Cognitive Development
n Individual and Social Constructivism
n Piaget’s Theory
n Vygotsky’s Theory
n Evaluating Constructivist Theories of Development
Applications: Principles for Effective Teaching
Summary Key Concepts Case Studies: Reflect and Evaluate
1. Contrast individual and social constructivism.
2. Describe cognitive development through Piaget’s stages, and identify what causes changes in our thinking.
3. Describe intersubjectivity, internalization, and scaffolding within the Zone of Proximal Development.
Issues in Cognitive Development: Piaget and Vygotsky
n What Comes First: Development or Learning?
n Role of Language in Cognitive Development
n Role of Play in Cognitive Development
4. Compare and contrast the views of Piaget and Vygotsky on issues in cognitive development.
5. Discuss five principles of effective instruction based on constructivist theories.
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Behavioral learning theories: See page 160.
Constructivism is a model in psychology that characterizes learning as a process of actively constructing knowledge. Individuals create meaning for themselves or make sense of new information by selecting, organizing, and integrating information with other knowledge, often in the context of social interactions (Bruning, Schraw, Norby, & Ronning, 2004; Mayer, 2003). Constructivist ideas about intellectual development can be traced back to the early 1900s and two notable theorists: Jean Piaget, a Swiss scientist and philosopher, and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a Russian educational psychologist. Their work has significantly influenced U.S. educational practices. Many constructivist approaches continue to be studied by psychologists and used by teachers in today’s classrooms.
During the 1940s and 1950s, schools typically used teacher-centered instructional approaches based on behavioral learning theories. Teachers were dispensers of information, and learning involved breaking down complex skills into subskills, learning those subskills in isolation, memorizing, and practicing. In the 1970s and 1980s, educational thinking began to shift toward teaching approaches that emphasized the teacher as facilitator and involved knowledge construction (rather than memorization) and peer interaction.
Individual and Social Constructivism
Constructivism is often defined as individual or social. In individual constructivism, a person constructs knowledge by using cognitive processes to gain knowledge from experience rather than by memorizing facts provided by others. In social constructivism, individuals construct knowledge through an interaction between the knowledge they bring to a situation and social/cultural exchanges within that context.
While Piaget often is considered an individual constructivist and Vygotsky a social constructivist, the line between individual and social constructivism can easily become blurred:
n Even though Piaget was interested primarily in how meaning is individually constructed, he acknowledged social experiences as an important factor in cognitive development (Lourenço & Machado, 1996; Paris, Byrnes, & Paris, 2001).
n While Vygotsky was interested primarily in social and cultural interactions as triggers of cognitive change, his theory actually emphasizes knowledge construction as both socially mediated and individually constructed (Moshman, 1997; Palincsar, 1998; Windschitl, 2002).
Let’s further explore Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s views on knowledge construction.
Piaget’s Theory
BASIC TENETS
Piaget’s first intellectual interests were the study of nature and epistemology, a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the origins of knowledge. These interests shaped his views of cognitive development, leading him to propose a theory of genetic epistemology—the idea that knowledge develops from an interaction between nature and nurture. He proposed that all children’s thinking evolves as a result of four factors (Piaget, 1970):
1. Biological maturation (nature).
2. Active exploration of the physical environment (nurture). 3. Social experiences (nurture).
4. Equilibration (or self-regulation).
Biological maturation. Maturation implies a biological “readiness” to learn, opening the door for a person to profit intellectually from social experiences and active exploration. Our current level of cognitive functioning determines what knowledge we are able to construct from our experiences. On a trip to an aquarium, knowledge construction for a toddler or preschooler might be limited to acquisition of concepts (e.g., dolphin, whale, turtle), whereas an older child might be able to classify aquatic life and an adolescent can engage in discussions about how aquatic life evolved.
Active exploration of the physical environment. Individuals construct new knowledge when they engage in active self-discovery, as they interact with objects in their environment. In infancy, the acquisition of schemes—organized patterns of physical action—is the basis of all further development. Infants’ schemes, such as grasping and sucking or filling and emptying containers, allow them
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Module 7:
Cognitive
Development
Constructivist teaching approaches: See page 364.
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to learn about the world. Schemes in preschoolers, older children, and adolescents are performed mentally and are called operations (Zigler & Gilman, 1998). For example, figuring out 2 + 2 = 4 is an operation that involves mentally combining two objects and two more objects to get four.
Social experiences. Social interaction is necessary for the development of logic in older children and adolescents. Here the process (interactions) as well as the product (solution) are stored mentally (Piaget, 1976a). To be effective, the exchange of ideas and cooperation with others should occur between peers instead of between adults and children, because peers are more likely to cooperate as equals, can more easily see each other’s point of view, and can more easily challenge each other (Damon, 1984; Piaget, 1976b). In discussing opposing points of view, students are able to see multiple perspectives and may change their existing way of thinking (Brown & Palincsar, 1989). However, social interactions alone are not sufficient for intellectual development (Lourenço & Machado, 1996; Piaget, 1950).
Equilibration. Because Piaget (1950, 1985) believed that nature and nurture were insufficient in themselves to explain changes in thinking, he proposed equilibration to regulate—or control—all the individual influences on development. Intellectual development involves continual adaptation whereby individuals construct new and more sophisticated cognitive structures (schemes or operations). Equilibration is a process of maintaining a cognitive balance between our existing knowledge and new experiences. When individuals are confronted with new experiences, they have a sense of disequilibrium, a discrepancy between their existing way of knowing and the new experiences. This motivates them to explore and to reach a conclusion that restores balance in their cognitive system (Piaget, 1985). For example, a student learning the commutative property may be confused by the assertion that 4 + 3 = 3 + 4, having learned these as separate and unrelated facts. This student’s disbelief may lead him to test the commutative property with several addends (e.g., 5 + 7 and 7 + 5, 8 + 9 and 9 + 8) in order to achieve a cognitive balance—knowledge that the commutative property “works.”
Cognitive adaptation can be achieved through assimilation and accommodation, which work together to help the individual maintain equilibration (Piaget, 1970; Sternberg, 2003):
n Assimilation involves integrating new information or a new experience into an existing cognitive structure. For example, on a trip to the grocery store, a young girl might see a Granny Smith apple and call it “apple” because it looks like the Macintosh apple that she eats. Sometimes new experiences can be incorrectly assimilated, as when a preschooler learning the alphabet mistakes the letter R for the letter P, which he already knows and easily recognizes.
n Accommodation involves any modification of an existing scheme or formation of a new cognitive structure when it is not possible to fit information into an existing structure. For example, after many repeated experiences, the preschooler will develop the correct concept for the letter R.
Think of some ways you could promote disequilibrium in your future students.
STAGE MODEL
In his book The Psychology of Intelligence (1950), Piaget explained how knowledge evolves through four stages, shown in Table 7.1. Stage theories often suggest distinct and abrupt changes from one stage to the next, with children shifting to a qualitatively different way of thinking than before. In contrast to this stage view, Piaget considered children’s progression from stage to stage as a continuous adaptation of cognitive structures, with each new capability growing out of the achievements of the previous stage. Each stage is defined by new cognitive abilities not evident in previous stages as well as cognitive limitations compared to later stages. While Piaget was not interested in the ages at which children acquire different levels of thinking, numerous studies indicate ages at which these cognitive abilities typically emerge.
Sensorimotor stage. Acquiring a capacity for internalized thinking is the central goal of the sensori-motor stage. During much of infancy, intelligence is external and behavioral, with infants constructing knowledge from sensory perceptions and motor actions (Brainerd, 2003). Infants initially do not realize that they exist as separate entities apart from objects and people in their environment or that objects and people exist independent of their perceptions (Zigler & Gilman, 1998). Throughout the first year of life, infants gradually develop knowledge of themselves as separate entities, and by 8 to 12 months, they begin to acquire object permanence—an awareness that objects and people continue to exist even when they are not visible. Acquiring object permanence gives infants the capacity to represent objects, people, and events as entities that exist mentally, an important ability for the next stage. Children’s acquisition and use of language allows them to progress cognitively from sensorimotor capabilities in infancy to mental representations in the pre-operational stage (Piaget, 1970).
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Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years) Pre-operational (2–7 years)
TA B L E 7.1
Cognitive Development
Infants explore their world using sensory and motor actions. Object permanence is a major attainment necessary for the next stage. If you distract an infant and remove a toy from his view as shown here, he will not look for it—“out of sight, out of mind”—while older infants will search for the toy.
One-way thinking is characteristic of this stage. Children at this stage typically show centration, sorting the blocks by color or size, but not by both.
Concrete operational (7–11 years) Formal operational (11 years to adult)
This student, who is testing a hypothesis about evaluating which combination of solutions causes a chemical reaction illustrates, the abstract, logico-mathematical thinking of this stage.
This student learning fractions illustrates the ability of children in this stage to think logically using concrete materials.
Pre-operational stage. In the pre-operational stage, children develop semiotic functions. Semiotic (or symbolic) function is an ability to represent an object or action with signs and symbols, such as language, imagery, drawing, symbolic games, and deferred imitation (mentally storing an action and reproducing it later). The development of concepts is a major task at this stage, and teachers can facilitate it using guidelines discussed in Box 7.1.
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BOX 7.1
A large part of lesson planning in K–12 classrooms involves figuring out how to teach concepts, abstract ideas generalized from specific examples (Klausmeir, 1992, 2004). Concept formation helps us organize large amounts of information into more manageable units. Promoting concept formation in the classroom can be challenging, because we tend to resist changing our existing understanding of concepts even though they sometimes are inaccurate (Chinn & Brewer, 1998). Teachers can use these guidelines to help them introduce concepts in ways students will understand and accept:
n Assess prior knowledge. Identifying inaccurate or incomplete conceptual understanding is the first step in promoting conceptual change. Based on this knowledge, a teacher can show students how new information contradicts what they currently believe and can motivate them to change their thinking.
n Initiate learning using a best exemplar or prototype of the concept. Using prototypes or best exemplars— common examples of a concept—capitalizes on students’ prior knowledge. When introducing a concept such as quadrilateral (a shape with four sides) to second graders, teachers might begin with examples such as ...
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