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Chapter 2
Piaget and Vygotsky's Theories
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Organization | The tendency to systematize and combine processes into coherent general systems. |
| Adaptation | The process, described by Piaget, of creating a good fit or match between one's conception of reality and one's real-life experiences. |
| Schemes | An organized pattern of behavior or thought that children formulate as they interact with their environment, parents, teachers,and age-mates. |
| Assimilation | The process of fitting new experience into an existing scheme. |
| Accommodation | The process of creating of revising a scheme to fit a new experience. |
| Equilibration | A process where people organize their schemes in order to achieve the best possible adaptation to their environment. |
| Disequilibrium | A perceived discrepancy between an existing scheme and something new. |
| Learning | Occurs when people create new ideas, or knowledge from existing information. |
| Constructive Learning | Creating knowledge structures rather than merely transferring objective knowledge from one person to another. |
| Invariant functions | Thought processes (organization and adaptation) occur the same way no matter the age of the person. |
| Sensorimotor stage | (Birth-2 yrs) Develops schemes primarily through sense and motor activities. Recognizes permanence of objects not seen. |
| Preoperational | (2-7 yrs) Gradually acquires ability to conserve and decenter, but is not capable of operations or mentally reversing actions. |
| Concrete operational | (7-11 yrs) Capable of operations but solves problems by generalizing from concrete experiences. Is not able to manipulate conditions mentally unless they have been experienced. |
| Formal operational | (11+ yrs) Able to deal with abstractions, form hypotheses, solve problems systematically, and engage in mental manipulations. |
| Perceptual centration | The tendency to focus attention on only one characteristic of an object or aspect of a problem or event at a time. |
| Irreversibility | The inability of a young child to mentally reverse physical or mental processes. |
| Egocentrism | Difficulty in taking another person's point of view, typical of young children. |
| Conservation | The recognition that certain properties stay the same despite a change in appearance or positions. |
| Adolescent egocentrism | The introspective inward turning of a high school student's newly developed powers of thought, with a tendency to project one's self-analysis onto others. |
| Four component model to optimize scaffolding | 1. Model desired academic behaviors 2. Dialogue with the student 3. Practice 4. Confirmation |
| Psychological tools | These are the cognitive devices and procedures with which we communicate and explore the world around us. |
| Mediation | A process in which a more knowledgeable individual interprets a child's behavior and helps transform it into an internal and symbolic representation that means the same thing to the child as to others |
| Spontaneous concepts | Various facts, concepts, and rules that are learned as a by-product of other activities. |
| scientific concepts | Psychological tools, such as language, formulas, rules, and symbols, that allow one to manipulate one's environment consciously and systematically. |
| Empirical learning | The use of noticeable characteristics of objects and events to form spontaneous concepts. |
| theoretical learning | Learning how to use psychological tools across a range of settings and problem types to acquire new knowledge and skills. |
| zone of proximal development | The difference between what a child can do on his or her own and what the child can accomplish with some assistance. |
| scaffolding | Supporting learning during its early phases through such techniques as demonstrating how tasks should be accomplished, giving hints to the correct solution to a problem or answer to a question, and providing leading questions. |