Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ED 333
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
BY
ALLISON MILLER
DECEMBER 7, 2009
Introduction
I suppose a person could say that my interest in the different development and
learning theories and implications focuses on those that are flexible for individual
situations and student needs. Of course it’s beneficial to have a pervasive knowledge of
all of Piaget’s cognitive development stages and Erikson’s psychosocial stages, as well as
Kohlberg’s moral development stages, but I hold more to considering the child and his or
her individuality than attempting to place that individuality into a prescribed
developmental category. Grouping children into developmental stages or blocks of
common characteristics is more beneficial to educators communicating amongst one
another; in practice there seems to be so much overlapping of these progressive stages
that I would rather look at individual needs as a means of implementing instructional
strategy, referring to common characteristics of developmental stages when it is truly
reflective of the case.
I appreciate Vygotsky’s belief that learning precedes development (Slavin, p. 43),
as I can see in this thought a recognition of cultural and historical contexts that are
important influences to a learner’s acquisition of what Vygotsky calls sign systems. I also
value his theory of the zone of proximal development as a basic focus for teachers.
Perhaps what I like best about Vygotsky, though, is the importance he places on self-
regulation while also realizing the intense influence that cooperative situations have on
learning. The relative concepts of private speech and scaffolding, respectively, are vital to
this theory. It’s important to me that this theory is more descriptive than prescriptive of
the learning process and doesn’t attempt to create distinct categories into which we place
children based on comparisons.
At this point, I feel it’s important that I reiterate that I do value the research that
has been done on development and the interpretive formation of stages as general
guidelines to groups of learners. I’m not indicating that we throw away the findings of
what research has shown due to the stages being too constrictive, I’d just stress the
importance of a full consideration of any exceptions and variations individuality may
cause, as well as altering teaching methods, techniques, and material accordingly.
Conclusion