Comparing Piaget with Vygotsky

Please write a one page comparison documenting similarities and differences between Piaget and Vygotsky in terms of cognitive development. Please post by Sunday Oct. 12th.

4 Responses to Comparing Piaget with Vygotsky

  1. edpsych294 says:

    Compare and Contrast: Vygotsky and Piaget

    While reading chapter 2 in Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk, I found the following similarites and differences between Vygotsky and Piaget.

    What Vygotsky and Piaget had most in common was the study of cognitive development. How they viewed the importance of varying factors is where they differed.

    Although both Vygotsky and Piaget recognized the importance of social interactions in cognitive development, it was Vygostsky who believed the most helpful interactions where those with peers. Piaget thought that interaction with peers encouraged disequilibrium or cognitive conflict forcing change or “development.” Vygotsky theorized that language was the most important tool for development. Piaget, however, didn’t think that language played a huge role.

    One area that Vygotsky and Piaget disagreed upon the most was in the area of private speech. Piaget called the child’s self-directed talk “egocentric speech.” he thought this was another display of children’s egocentrism, demonstrating that the child only experiences through his or her self. Vygotsky, on the other hand, believed this was an important part of development encouraging the child toward self-regulation- “the ability to plan, monitor, and guide one’s own thinking and problem solving.”

    Adrianne Blazevic

  2. edpsych294 says:

    Compare and contrast of Vygotsky and Piaget:

    Some differences that I had found are that Piaget believed that development a child starts from the individual to the social world. Piaget thought that the child is self-centered and unable to consider the point of view of others because of the use of egocentric speech.

    Vygotsky believed that development begins at a social level and than a child moves towards individualism. Vygotsky viewed egocentric speech as exteranlixed thought. Its is used for self guildence and direction and eventually becomes thoughts.

    Both agree that development may be initiated by cognitive conflict.
    They both believ that egocentric speech is important to a childs development.
    Lori Wall

  3. edpsych294 says:

    Adrianne, who do you agree with more. I tend to lean more towards Vygotsky more because he believes that culture plays an important role. Otherwise they both have valid ideas.
    Lori Wall

  4. edpsych294 says:

    Reading the summaries of Piaget and Vygotsky, I was struck by the differences in their approach to learning.

    Piaget saw learning as a passive formation of associations. He felt that the child must have reached a defined level of cognitive development before learning can occur. The child must be ready to learn. For example, a toddler may only be able to classify people in a certain dimension (boy/girl), and must reach a new stage of development to understand different classifications (sister, aunt, cousin).

    Vygotsky saw learning as a much more active process, with the chil’s learning not having to wait for readiness. He saw learning as a tool that helps to drive development. In this view, the child who is learning classifications will learn the relationship of aunt, and will apply this knowledge to learn and develop understandings of other relationships.

    These views help to shape Piagets’ and Vygotskys’ view of teaching. Piaget saw teachers main job as not directly teaching, but to teach the child how to learn. This means understanding the child’s way of thinking. Vygotsky would have been more in favor of a more direct, structuring and assisting role for the teacher.

    Even coming from different places regarding learning and development, both Piaget and Vygotsky would have supported teachers in a search for a “magic middle” for each student. This is a level of work that is neither too challenging nor too easy for the student. The teacher needs to find this area for each of their students. For Piaget, this means that the child’s idsequillibrium is just right, and will allow the child to develop. For Vygotsky, this means setting up situations where the de and assist the student through learning at a comfortable level.

    Mike Burke

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: