Jean Piaget And Vygotsky

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Teaching as a discipline has a great importance in society, and two figures who have had arguably the greatest impact on teaching are Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and Lev Vygotsky (1986-1934). Piaget is a cognitive constructionist and Vygotsky is a socio-cultural constructivist whose theories about cognitive development of children are the foundations of the field (Duchesne, & McMaugh, 2016). This essay seeks to show the importance of Piaget and Vygotskian theories, and how they can be successfully employed through the scenario of Mrs Van and Mr Gino. Though each teacher comes from different areas of teaching, they are able to successfully employ an equal amount of Piaget and Vygotskian theories. Furthermore, it will be shown that even though Piaget and Vygotsky are considered the creators of the frameworks of child cognitive development, they can only make recommendations for application (Shayer, 2003) and are not without their problems.

Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories have both supporters and critics in modern scholarship. The supporters of Piaget included scholars such as Lourenco, & Machado in their article In Defense of Piaget 's Theory: A Reply to 10 Common Criticisms (1996). Vygotsky has supporters such as Karpov in the work The Neo-Vygotskian Approach to Child Development (2005). These are just examples of the scholarship surrounding Piaget and Vygotsky, and both being peer reviewed and acclaimed presents them as a reliable example of the continued importance of both