HOW

CHILDREN LEARNING

THE THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
 HOW CHILDREN LEARN
...we discovered that education is not
something which the teacher does, but
that it is a natural process which
develops spontaneously in the human
being. It is not acquired by listening to
words, but in virtue of experiences in
which the child acts on his
environment. The teacher's task is not
to talk, but to prepare and arrange a
series of motives for cultural activity in
 Jean Piaget (1970)
• The child is seen as
Children are active
learners and
continuously interacting with
thinkers. the world around him/her,
solving problems that are
Children construct
knowledge from
presented by the environment.
actively interacting
with the physical • The child is an active learner
environment in and thinker, constructing his
developmental or her own knowledge from
stages. They learn working with objects or ideas
through their own alone.
individual actions
and exploration.
 Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
assimilation takes place without any
change to the child. It means that the
Assimilation child takes in the new experiences
without any transformation in the way
the information is processed.

accommodation involves the

Accommodation child’s adjusting to features of
the environment in some way.
 Assimilation Accommodation

Initially, assimilation and accommodation occur as

behavior, but they become process of thinking.
Accommodation is an important idea that has taken
into language learning under the label of
reconstructing used to refer to the re-organization of
mental representations of a language (McLaughlin
1992)
Stages of Child Development
Piaget points out that a child’s thinking develops as
gradual growth of knowledge and intellectual skills
toward a final stage of formal, logical thinking.
However, gradual growth is punctuated with certain
fundamental changes, which cause the child to pass
through a series of stages.
At each stage, the child is capable of some types of
thinking but still incapable of others.
 Piaget’s Stages of Child Development

1. Sensorimotor (birth – 2 years) Children interact physically with

the environment, developing ideas about how things work.

2. Pre-Operational (ages 2 – 7) children are not able to think

abstractly, but need concrete situations to process ideas.

3. Concrete Operation (ages 7 – 11) Children have enough

experiences to begin to conceptualize and do some abstract
problem solving, though they still learn best by doing.
4. Formal Operation (ages 11 – 15) Children are able to use
abstract thinking like adults.
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1962)

Vygotsky sees child’s learning as

developing through interaction with
Children learn more knowledgeable others, who
through social mediate learning by talking while
playing, reading stories and asking
interaction.
questions. With the help of adults,
children can do more than they can
do on their own.
 Through the assistance of a more
With the capable person, a child is able to
help of learn skills or aspects of a skill that
adults, go beyond the child’s actual
children developmental or maturational
can do level called Zone of Proximal
more Development (ZPD)
than they
can do on
 Child is an active learner in
Vygotskyan a world full of other people
theory is the (other children and adults).
central They (other children and
observation
adults) mediate the world
that
development for children and make it
and learning accessible for them.
take place in a
social context.
 Discussion
What is the main different between Piaget and Vygotsky on
the child cognitive development?
Answer:
Piagetian considers the child as an active
learner and thinker, constructing his or her
own knowledge from working with objects
or ideas alone while Vygotskyan believe
that child is an active learner in a world full
of other people (other children and
adults). They (other children and adults)
mediate the world for children and make it
Jerome Seymour
Bruner (1960) Like Vygotsky, Bruner
focused on the importance of
The adult’s language in a child’s
cognitive development.
role is very
important in
He shows how the adult uses
a child’s “scaffolding” to guide a
learning child’s language learning
process. through finely-tuned talk.
(Cameron, 2001)
 • Scaffolding is changing the level
of support in order to best meet
What is the cognitive potential of the
scaffoldin child.
g? • Over the course of a teaching
session, a more-skilled person
adjusts the amount of guidance
to fit the child’s potential level of
performance.
The teacher resources used should be focused
on that of encouragement, aiding and
allowing the student to uncover the main
principles on their own.
Communication between the learner
and teacher is the key concept.
Therefore, more support is offered when
a child is having difficulty with a
particular task, and over time, less
support is provided as the child makes
gains on the task. Ideally, scaffolding
works to maintain the child’s potential
 1. a predilection or fondness/liking
The four toward learning.
major 2. how a grouping of knowledge is able
principles of to be constructed to best be
Bruner's understood by the learner.
theory on 3. effective manners for the teacher to
constructivism present said material to the learner

4. being the progression of rewards as

well as punishments.
Effective Scaffolding (Bruner, 1983)
Parents/adults • created interest in the tasks
who scaffold • broke the task down into smaller steps
effectively:
• kept child “on task” by reminding him to
the purpose or goal
• controlled the child’s frustration during
the task
• modeled the task, including different
ways to do task
Good scaffolding was tuned to the needs of a child
and adjusted as the child become more competent.
 Thank
You for
Your
Attention