Big Dudes

• cognition = all forms of knowing and awareness
• constructivism: learners construct or build meaning
• constructivism is an active process
• emprircism = the mind is filled with knowledge received purely from sensory experience - focuses on nurture
• behaviorism = learning is what occurs in response to external stimuli
• reality = defined by one's perception of experience and effort to make meaning of the experience
• assimilation = making small changes to the schema
• association = making major changes to the schema
• knowledge is personal and learning is in the mind and directly produced through effort - no rigid reality to be discovered
• Piaget's 1st stage = sensorimotor

  • focuses on object permanence: learning that just because an object is out of view does not mean that it no longer exists
  • 0-2yrs
• Piaget's 2nd stage = preoperational

  • egocentrism = child only seeing things from their POV
  • 2-7 yrs
  • animism = giving objects (stuffed animals and toys) feelings and intentions
  • symbolic function = learning that an object can stand for something else - this is shown through speech
• Piaget's 3rd stage = concrete operations

  • 7-11 yrs
  • logical rules for conservation
  • can seal with logic solving problems as long as they can manipulate it
  • no abstract thinking
  • begin to "decenter"
• Piaget's 4th stage:

  • 11-forever yrs
  • thinking abstractly and hypothetically
• criticisms of Piaget:

  • development was more continuous than stage-like
  • developmental change is less domain-general
  • children achieve important milestones at much earlier ages
  • depended too much on task demands
  • underemphasized the social nature of learning
• major contributions of Piaget:

  • children are different from adults
  • learning is an active process
  • cognitive processes underscore multiple domains of knowledge
  • account for fewer underlying processes
• vygotsky:

  • focused on constructivistm, specifically cultural and social factors and social interaction having an impact on how children develop mental faculties
  • children develop mental faculties based on social interaction with more knowledgable members of society (MKO)
  • zone of proximal development = the area of info that a child can reach with the assistance of an MKO
• scaffolding: staging instructional experiences and resources to help students reason effectively within their zone of proximal development
• vygotsky focused on the critical role of language
• social speech = what we use to talk to others
• private speech = speech that in some way is not intended for others to hear

  • talking to ourselves
  • age 3
• silent speech/internal speech = self-regulation and self guidance - speech that is inside our minds?
• thought and speech are seperate and becomes symbolic at age three when though aquires verbal meaning
• In Piaget’s conception

  The child is akin to a young scientist
• Effective tutoring of a child by an adult


  Occurs when a child is developmentally ready to learn a new skill
• In Kohlberg’s moral dilemma, the answers people give are more important than the reasoning processes used to arrive at these answers
• Respondents displaying Conventional Level Reasoning in Kohlberg’s scheme state that “Heinz should steal because otherwise people will think he is a bum for letting his wife die”
• For Sigmund Freud, the critical resolution of the Oedipus complex and/or Electra complex typically occurs through the process of identification with the same-sex parent
• Erikson focused on the relationship of the child to significant others in their immediate surroundings including parents, peers, and teachers
• Vygotsky emphasized


  How a child’s mind grows through interaction with the social/cultural environment
• According to Kohlberg, people rarely reach the post-conventional level of moral reasoning
• Vygotsky's view on tutoring

  Parents and teachers mentor/tutor children and supply them with crucial vocabulary to create a temporary scaffold for higher levels of thinking
• In Vygotsky’s view

  The child is likened to an apprentice
• Mentoring in procedural learning


  • Child learning to ride a bike with training wheels or the supporting hand of an adult
• The results of assessments using Kohlberg’s scheme show a very low actual correlation with actual observed behaviors
• The psychosocial crisis faced by adolescents is that of identity versus role confusion where teenagers must choose values and beliefs concerning spiritual belief/faith, career path, political outlook, moral/ethical belief system
• Piaget focused on

  How a child’s mind grows through interaction with the physical environment
• For Sigmund Freud, the central force that fuels the development of the mind through each psychosexual stage of the child is the unconscious mind
• Erik Erikson believed that social factors were critically more important in psychological development than Freud’s emphasis on sexual development
• The belief that there is often a discrepancy between a child’s outward cognitive abilities and their true/latent level of cognitive abilities is most closely associated with Jean Piaget
• Each of Erikson’s 8 stages involves a developmental crisis or challenge that must be successfully resolved for healthy psychological development to occur