Spring Break

So I get a break for a week to relax, well I can't relax the whole time because there are papers due in about a month. I have some interesting information to post about three theories: Piaget, Vygotsky/sociocultural, and Information Processing.

(nature) Piaget’s theory focuses on where knowledge comes from and how it evolves. There are four stages of development: sensorimotor (Birth- 2 years, The ability to act on the world), preoperational (2-6or7 years, in which children have the ability to form internal mental representations), concrete operational (about ages 6 or 7 – 11 or 12 years old, Children in this stage are able perform operations), and formal operational (11 or 12 years and onward. Now have the ability to perform abstract thought, reason abstractly, do systematic problem solving, see own particular reality as one of many imaginable). Three processes are assimilation (the way in which people transform incoming information so that if fits their existing way of thinking), accommodation (the ways in which people adapt their thinking to new experiences), and equilibration (process by which children integrate their many particular pieces of knowledge of the world into a unified whole= Balancing assimilation and accommodation). There are three steps in equilibration: equilibration, disequilibration, and new equilibration, with disequilibration being the time in which you have not yet accommodated new information. It makes the assumption that children actively construct their own reality, are scientific problem solvers, and that development happens in a particular order.

(nurture) Vygotsky’s theory Focuses on how change occurs based on the social world. States that development happens through social interaction. Says that psychological functions happen twice: first in the social arena (intermental) and second within individual (intramental). Also focuses on internalization of socially shared processes, this is what gets the person from step one to step two. Says that cultural tools (traditional and psychological) help form our development. Traditional tools are tools for acting on the environment, like hammers and cups, and psychological tools are used for thinking, remembering and organizing, like language and dictionaries. It makes the assumption that thinking is mediated by cultural tools.

(Mechanics) Information Processing focuses on what develops, how, and at what ages. States that cognition= processing information. It is a gradual change in development, not by stages which contradicts Piaget's theory. Children's’ thinking is like adult thinking. Focuses on how much attention is needed to process information, which can be processed in two ways: automatic and controlled. automatic processes take very little attention while controlled processes take a lot of attention. Controlled has four components 1) mnemonics (memory aids) 2) rehearsal (repeating information) 3)organization (chunking information into 3-7 chunks) and 4) elaboration (schema). Automatization is the process by which we change from controlled to automatic. There are three types of memory: sensory, working, and long-term. It makes the assumption that we have limits on speed and capacity, but we are flexible and adaptable in changing world.