This is an essay I will write down my own comprehension of two theories pertaining to learners and learning and I will also compare and contrast the core of these two theories. One theory is Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory, another theory is Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Piaget believes that children are active thinkers and can form a series of opinions about the world. He divided cognitive development into four stages, they are sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), preoperational stage (2-7 years), concrete operations stage (7-11years) and formal operations stage (after 11 years old) In sensorimotor stage, children's mental representations start to emerge, they start do some goal-directed actions and begin to have a sense of logical thinking. At the age of one year, the concept of the object's constant existence was developed, and the function of the basic model was realized by feeling movement. From instinctive reflexes to targeted activities (Taylor,2016). …show more content…
Children also start to have symbolic thought, which is means they can use some symbols and forms like words, images and gestures to express meaning. However, their thinking is irreversible and inability to see the comprehensiveness of things. In concrete operations stage, children’s cognitive structure has undergone restructuring and improvement. They have abstract concepts and can reason logically. However, children's calculations at this time still need the support of concrete things, and they cannot think about things that do not exist or have never happened before. In operations stage, children can use logical reasoning to solve problems and understand the meaning of symbols. At this stage, children are no longer rigidly obeying the rules, they often refuse rules because of the inconsistency between the rules and the