After reading this chapter, I found that the big ideas were centered around Piaget's basic tenets. First, he says that biological maturation says there is a biological want to learn. This is necessary in order to progress with learning and development. Next, is the active exploration of the physical environment. This means that the child is exploring the environment and socially interacting with the environment around them. They organize their experiences into schemes, initially, and then later in life, mentally organize encountered information into categories. Next, is social interaction. It is important for learners to interact and collaborate with peers in order to broaden his/her understanding and to gain ideas from others, as well as, question his/her own ideas. Lastly, is equilibrium, where one has reached an understanding of a topic.
Another big idea was Vygotsky's Theory. Similarly to Piaget's theory, Vygotsky agrees that social interaction is essential for learning to occur. He also agrees that there is a balance between hereditary factors and environmental factors. However, he focuses on cultural factors more than Piaget.
One question I had concerning this chapter is, I'm not really clear on how knowledge evolves through the four stages. In class today, we discussed how it is a biological process. Is there no way that one could speed up the process through more extensive thinking?
Another question I have, is in Piaget's basic tenets, does one reach equilibrium once in one's life, or is it something that one encounters time after time of learning a new topic?
According to Piaget, the difference between development and learning is that development is a biological process, and learning is a "nurturing" process.
According to Piaget, critical thinking would not push development, because development is a biological process, not one that can be pushed along by extensive thinking.
Equilibrium is something that is supposed to happen every time a person encounters disequilibrium. Each time a student does not understand something they encounter the feeling of disequilibrium while they try to figure out what previous knowledge they could connect it to. Once they are able to connect it to previous knowledge or a schema the student reaches equilibrium again and this can happen multiple times in a day even.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, I don't think that there is any way to speed up knowledge or progression through the 4 stages according to Piaget. He says that you must be biologically ready for this new information, which is why he has the 4 stages. In each stage, new information is learned which is appropriate for that stage of knowledge. It's just a progression of moving through these stages as you learn and mature.
ReplyDeleteHow is biological maturation connecting to the drive to learn? I think this is interesting but the sentence is a little unclear.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Piaget, no, you can't 'speed up the process'. Of course, other theories say lots of different things about that (consider brain research). I think it would be confusing if you're thinking about how the same set of knowledge (schemas) 'evolve' through the stages--that's not quite what's happening. I think only the current thinking--conscious thought--of the child at the time is limited by the stage they're in. They can't comprehend something abstract when they're not developed to that stage. As they build their schemas through accomodation and assimilation throughout life, those don't suddenly shift as a new stage is reached--they may shift more and more as the child learns, because the schema is dynamic, but I think it would be easier to think about this as something separate and not constrained by stage.
Equilibrium happens lots of times--anytime you encounter a situation that makes sense to you (based on your current schema of the world). When something doesn't quite fit, you enter disequilibrium and must accomodate or assimilate.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean that learning is a nurturing process? It does have more to do with the environment than development, but I think the term is a little confusing....