ED1120 Exam

How do the theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky complement each other to provide the underpinning for the Constructivist Theory of Education?

The core constructivist idea is that knowledge and ways of thinking are generated internally by each individual to give meaning to their world within their social context.

The immediate implication of this is that knowledge is not absolute truth that imposes itself onto the mind from outside, but rather that each individual has synthesised their own knowledge. All knowledge is therefore relative and falable (not always true).

The constructivist theory of education seems to be that desireable learning is accomplished when students encounter meaningful, interesting, playful and challenging situations that are appropriate for their age (stage), and are supported and guided by knowledgeable mentors (teachers, parents, peers), then they will be more likely to construct their own new knowledge building on the previous knowledge they have.

Piaget and Vygotsky complement each other because Piaget concentrates on the individual requirements for constructing knowledge, whereas Vygotsky stresses the necesity of social interaction for constructing knowledge.

Piaget argues that people move through distinct stages of cognitive development, and that this movement requires the overcoming of internal cognitive conflict by adaptation: assimilation and accommodation strategies.

By contrast Vygotsky insists that the internal world is constructed from interactions with other people:

"Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals."
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Piaget's emphasis for the teacher is to set tasks appropriate to the stage of cognitive development of the learner.

Vygotsky's emphasis is to encourage social interaction, and provide support ('scaffolding') around tasks in the form of knowledgeable adults or peers so the learner can build meaning onto the knowledge they already possess.


It is easy to imagine learning situations where to ignore one or the other of these approaches would lead to a failure to learn. For example: teaching algebra to a Piagetian 'pre-operational' child will never work despite having all of the social connections in the world. Conversely teaching algebra to a 'formal operational' child can still fail if there is no social 'scaffolding' to assist the learner to move beyond their existing knowledge.

Together they work well - stage appropriate tasks supported within a social network. This accounts for the structure within individual developing brains, and cognitive development that is dependent on our interactions with others.

Bruner and cognitive learning theory add weight to this by stating that for learning to be successful it has to have meaning/interest to the learner. Without meaning the attention of the learner is not engaged, and the amount of encoding/retrieval to and from long term memory will be significantly less. From the Vygotskian perspective we understand that meaning is often found by observing the response of others - ie it is dependent on social interactions.

So I understand that Piaget and Vygotsky are complementary, and their ideas underpin the constructivist educational enterprise. They and their followers advocate education that is full of fun, rich tasks in rich social settings, with the aim of facilitating deep learning and sponsoring independent, creative thinkers. Just remembering things is not enough, we need to be confident and able to go to the next level and analyze, evaluate and create.