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 Contents
Unit 1: Role of educational psychology 4
Unit 1: Holistic approach 7
Unit 1: Inclusive education 11
Unit 1: Theoretical perspectives 12
Unit 2: What is learning? 17
Unit 2: Learning theories 21
Unit 2: Neurological theory 30
Unit 2: Constructivism - Piaget 33
Unit 2: Vygotsky 37

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 Unit 1: Role of educational psychology

Contextualisation of child and adolescent development

• Development > continuous process > studied simultaneously in terms of the
dimensions of development.
• Dimensions within one phase are relevant to the next phase.
• Holistic picture of the child as learner within the school context (and other)> theoretical
perspectives underlying child and adolescent development.
• SA = a holistic, inclusive approach.

What is good teaching?

• Practice based on research based theories or creative invention of speci c practices
• Expert explainer “sage on the stage”
• Great coach “guide by the side”
• Knowledgeable and inventive
• Able to use a range of strategies as well as being capable of inventing new strategies…
• Committed to students
• Deal with wide range of abilities and challenges
• Adapt instruction and assessment to student needs
• Emotional needs
• Sagging self-esteem
• Encourage responsibility

Re ective teachers
• Being thoughtful and inventive/creative
• Able to differentiate – tting the teaching to the students
• Constantly think about issues such as goals they want to achieve, the teaching
methods they use and how effective those methods are, and the extent to which their
goals and methods are supported by scienti c evidence.

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The role of Educational Psychology

Plato & Aristotle

• Role of the teacher
• Relationship between
◦ teacher and student
◦ teaching methods
◦ nature and order of learning
• Role of emotions in learning

The Beginning
• 1940s-1950s-Individual differences, testing, learning behaviour
• 1960s-1970s-Cognitive development and learning > emphasis on how students learn
and remember
• After 1980’s - Effect of culture and social factors on learning and development

What is Educational Psychology?

• Distinct discipline
• Own theories
• Own research methods,
• Problems & techniques
• Research in learning & teaching practice

What do they do?

• Study child & adolescent development
• Learning & motivation
• Links with other subjects

Purpose: Educational Psychology

• Understand and improve the learning process
• Develop knowledge and methods and use it to study learning and teaching in
everyday situations
• “The main purpose of educational psychology is to understand what happens when
someone teaches something to someone else in some setting"

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The Link in SA Context
POLICY- AND POLICY INFORMING DOCUMENTS
• 1995 – White Paper 1 on Education and Training and South African Schools Act (1996)
• 1996 – Constitution of South Africa
• 1997 - White Paper for an Integrated National Disability Strategy
- Rejects traditional “medical model” of disability and argues for a social model
which recognises disability as a human rights and development issue
• 2001 - Education White Paper 6 on Special Needs Education
• Provides a framework for the building of an Inclusive Education and Training system.
• Conceptual and operational guidelines for the implementation of inclusive education.

Role of knowledge development and learning

• HOW? Research
• Descriptive
• Correlation studies
• Experimental studies

Theories for teaching

• Theory = Integrated statement of principles that attempts to explain a phenomenon
and make predictions (p.18)
• Preview…..
• Stages: Piaget, Freud, Erikson
• Learning and motivation theories: Behaviourism, Information processing and social
cognitive theory
• Contextual: Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner

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Unit 1: Holistic approach

Purpose:

“The main purpose of educational psychology is to understand what happens when

someone teaches something to someone else in some setting"

Ecosystemic Approach

- Ecological theory:
- Interdependence and relationships between organisms and their environment
- These relationships = whole
- Each part is important for the whole
- NB variables:
• Time and space
• Role of the specie
• Flow of energy
- System theory:
• Systems are organising patterns which is more than the sum of the parts.
• Process in and between systems
• Insight into family systems, classrooms and in schools
• Different levels and groupings of social context is seen as systems where the functioning
of the while is dependent on the interaction of the interaction of all the parts
• E.g. school and all the subsystems

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School as a system

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Bronfenbrenner’s Bio-Ecological Systems Theory
- Recognise that physical and social contexts in which we develop are ecosystems as they
are constantly interacting with and in uencing each other
- Describes the nested social and cultural contexts that shape development

The bio-ecological perspective

- Development of child in context of systems and relationships
- Complex layers of environment – different effects on development
- Impact of interactions on learning and development
- Changes or con ict → effect on other levels
- Holistic view of child

4 Dimensions of Human Development

• Proximal processes
• Person characteristics
• Systems/Contexts
• Time

• “person-process-context-time” [PPCT] Model

- Microsystem
• Immediate environment (Physical, social, psychological,…) – proximal relations, roles and
activities
• Family, school, neighbourhood, etc…
• Reciprocal relations – from child and to the child
• E.g. Child’s parents in uence religion and behaviour – child can affect parents’ faith and
behaviour → Bi-directional in uences
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 • In uence in this system= strongest and biggest impact on child
• Other systems can also impact internal structures
- Mesosystem
• Refers to relationships and interactions between 2 or more microsystems

- Exosystem
• Wider social system – not directly involved in but affected….
• E.g. Education system, healthcare services, parents’ workplace….
- Macrosystem
• Dominant social and economic structures, attitudes, values and ideologies that is part of
society
• Democracy, social justice, equity, etc.
• Impact reciprocal interactions in all other systems

- Chronosystem
• Dimension of time and how it relates to the interaction between systems and effect
thereof on development of a person.

Bronfenbrenner's theory
- Important for Inclusive Education
- Points to interaction and interdependence of systems that have an impact on child’s
learning and development
- Whole is related to parts in the system…
- Provides holistic view of individual functioning

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Relevance of Eco-systemic perspective
- Understanding the development of children in more holistic and contextually interactive
terms
- Understanding classrooms and schools by viewing these as systems in themselves and in
their interaction with the broader social context
- Understanding how the origins, maintenance, and solutions to social issues cannot be
separated from the broader social context and the systems within it, connections between
things.
- Problem behaviour is not to be perceived as residing only within learners, but equally, if not
more, within other systems including the education system.

Unit 1: Inclusive education

Inclusive Learning is when all students, regardless of their background, differences, race,
gender or age, are included in a lesson. It focuses on including each individual child in each
lesson. It encourages diversity amongst teachers and learners. Inclusive learning accepts all
students no matter what disadvantage or challenges they may face.

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Unit 1: Theoretical perspectives

Theorists and their theories

What is a theory?
- Generally used to denote a model or set of concepts or propositions that pertains to some
actual phenomena.
- A theory can provide an understanding of the phenomena or form the basis for action with
respect to them

A more scienti c de nition:

- An interrelated set of concepts that are used to explain a body of data and to make
decisions

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Major perspectives in child development

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Three Perspectives:

Learning and Motivational Theories:

- Behaviourism: reinforcement; punishment; conditioning
- Information processing: perception; working memory; long-term memory
- Social cognitive theory: beliefs, self perceptions and expectations to social learning
- Changes in cognitive and emotional/social development, knowledge, motivation and skills
is the result of learning.
- Systematic and scienti c

Contextual Theories:
- Vygotsky (Social constructivist) - cultural tools; zone of proximal development (ZPD)
- Bronfenbrenner (Bio-ecological Model) - nested interacting systems
- Contextual and social context has an effect on human development and learnin
- Determines what and how they will learn

Piaget's Stages of Development

- Sensory motor (0-2): Imitation; memory; symbolic thinking; object permanence; re exive
actions -> intentional activity
- Preoperational (2-7): language development; thinking - symbolic; logically; egocentric
- Concrete operational (7-11): think logically about concrete problems; classi cation,
organisation; order; reverse thinking; understand past present and future
- Formal operations (12+): abstract logical problem solving; scienti c thinking; consider
multiple perspectives and develop concerns about social issues, identity and justice

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Erikson’s Stages

Bronfenbrenner - Contextual/Systems Theory & Ecosystemic Approach

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Stages:
• Piaget – Cognitive Development
• Freud - Psychosexual Development
• Erikson – Psychosocial Development

Learning theories
• Behaviourism – The focus of this theory is systemic analysis and the consequences of
behaviourism.
• Information processing – Focuses on how individuals process and remember
information.
• Social cognitive theory – This theory has to do with the interactive effects of
behaviourism and environment.

Contextual theories
• Vygotsky’s Cognitive Development theory states that social interaction is fundamental
to cognitive development.
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory de nes the different layers of environment
and how each of these environments have an effect on the child’s development.
Unit 2: What is learning?

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Unit 2: What is learning?

Outcome:
- To gain a broad understanding of what learning is and what it entails
- Concepts regarding the learning process: Cognition and learning

Learning is de ned as:

“The proce through which experience lead to relative permanent change in

knowledge or behaviour”
“learning is an enduring change in behaviour, or in the capacity to behave in a given fashion,
which results from practice or other forms of experience”(Schunk, 2012:3)

3 Key points to remember:

- Learning is a change in:
• knowledge,
• skills
• and behaviour
- resulting from experience

Criteria for learning

- Involves Change
- Endures over time
- Occurs through experience

Aristotle (383-322 BC)

p.208/p.200/p.248 / 270
People remember things together when they
1) Are similar
2) They contrast
3) Are contiguous
Learning as result of association

Contiguity
• When 2 or more sensations occurring together often enough, they become associated.

Stimulus → Response

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 Three views of Learning
- Behavioural view:
• Assumes that the outcome of learning bring a change in behaviour – emphasise effect of
external activity on the individual

Behaviourism
What is this? Learning happens as a result of a stimulus and a learner obtain a new or
changed behaviour.
Teacher Teacher must condition learners through reward and punishment in order
to reinforce behaviour.
Learner Learners respond to stimulus provided
Teaching Flash cards or games for independent practice or with the teacher in
materials reinforseable interactions
Teaching Teacher need to foster repetitive knowledge, objectives should be clear
and steps are essential.
Consequences must be given to guide students toward desired
behaviour
Results Learners are programmed
Theorists Skinner

- Cognitive view:
• A general approach that views learning as an active mental process of acquiring,
remembering, and using knowledge
• Changes in knowledge thus internal mental process that cannot be observed directly
• It involves sensory, working and long-term memory
• Theorists: Piaget & Information processing
• Cognition:
- Active mental process involving of acquiring, remembering and using knowledge
• Knowledge
• Learning
• Thinking
• Metacognition:
- De ned as: Knowledge about own thinking processes
- Literally means Knowledge about knowing and learning
- Cognition about cognition
• Thus to:
- Have knowledge about your knowing
- Think about your thinking
- Regulate thinking processes
- Involves both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity.
- 3 Metacognitive skills:
• Regulate thinking and learning
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 - planning
- monitoring
- evaluating
• Learning Strategies
- Planning and focusing attention
- Organising and remembering
- Comprehension
- Cognitive Monitoring
- Practice (evaluation also)
• Changes in knowledge and behaviour:
- Cognitive psychologists focus on knowledge:
- Learning is:
• an internal activity and can therefore not be observed directly
• an interaction with another person or environment
Cognitivism
What is this? Developed in response to behaviourism.
Learning happens when, as a result of brain processes knowledge
transfers from short to long term memory
Teacher Teacher is the attention getter, organiser, connector and repeater so that
the learners can properly store the information in the memory for later
recall.
Learner The learner’s brain must process, store, locate and produce responses to
the information thereby creating new and evolving schema.
Teaching Charts and diagrams within the context of well organised study guides,
materials centres and labs.
Teaching To facilitate best the learner must be immersed within a challenging,
fearless environment.
Results New information is linked to prior knowledge and information and
concepts are logically organised.
Theorists Information processing theorists

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- Constructivist
• Learning theories linked to constructivism:
- Piaget (psychological constructivist)
- Vygotsky (social constructivist)
- Feuerstein (social constructivist)
• Emphasizes the active role of the learner in building understanding and making sense of
information
- Psychological/individual/cognitive constructivism by Piaget
• Individuals construct their own cognitive structures as they interpret their
experiences in their particular situations
- Social constructivism by Vygotsky
• Social interaction, cultural tools and activity shape individual development and
learning

Constructivism
What is this? Actively engage the learner.
Learning occurs when information is moved to long term memory while
learners are involved in the process of creating their own knowledge
based on experience
Teacher Teachers are models, guides and facilitators
Learner Learners pull from past experiences and connect to new ideas, usually
by collaborating with others
Teaching Best suited for creative output such as projects and presentations which
materials showcase the learners’ newly formed ideas
Teaching Constructivist teaching allows teachers to customise relevant
connections to students’ prior knowledge by using open-ended dialogue,
students are enabled to predict, analyse and interpret new discoveries.
Often done in group learning activities where the teacher may provide
modelling and guidance
Results Learners can solve realistic problems
Theorists Vygotsky, Piaget, Bruner, Dewey

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Unit 2: Learning theories

Behaviourism
Outcomes:
- To understand behaviourism as a theorectical perspective of how learning occurs
- Name and describe the basic assumptions and focus of behavioural theories
- Name and describe three behaviour theories

Behaviourism is de ned as:

“Explains learning in terms of external events as the cause of changes in

observable behaviours”

Behavioural theorists:
- Ivan Pavlov – 1920’s
- Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)
- John Watson (1878 -1958)
- Edwin Guthrie (1886-1959)
- BF Skinner (1904-1990)

Behavioural theories:
- Stress the role of the environment – speci cally, how stimuli are arranged and presented
and how responses are reinforced.
- Assign less importance to learner differences than do cognitive theories
- They consider two different variables:
1. Reinforcement history
2. Developmental status

Basic assumptions:
- Direct connection between environmental stimulus and overt behaviour of the organism
- Laws of learning universally apply to all animals and humans
- 2 main categories:
- Classical conditioning - involuntary behaviour
• 1st type of learning associated with behaviour
• Major theorist: Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
- Association of automatic responses with new stimuli
- Operant conditioning - voluntary behaviour
• Major theorist: Skinner
- Study of the impact of consequence on voluntary behaviour
- “children learn to ‘operate’ within or respond to their environment to obtain (or
avoid) particular consequences”
- Learning in which voluntary (goal directed) behaviour is strengthened or
weakened by consequences or antecedents
• Operants:
- People actively operate in their environments
- Deliberate action = operants
- Learning process in operant behaviour >>>operant conditioning
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• Conceptual relationship (A-B-C) (Skinner,1950)
- Antecedent
↓
- Behaviour
↓
- Consequence
• What are these consequences?
- Consequences determine to a great extent whether person will repeat the
behaviour
- Type and timing of consequence → Strengthen/Weaken

• What about reinforcement?

- The consequence is directly reinforced by behaviour, which results in strengthened or
repeated behaviour
- Reinforcer is any consequence that strengthens the behaviour
- So, basically: Behaviour → Reinforced → Strengthened or repeated behaviour
- This occurs through:
• Rewards: Concrete / Activity / Social
• Punishment: Deny privileges / Fines / Extra work

• There are 2 Types of Reinforcement:

1. Positive reinforcement:
- Strengthens behaviour through welcome stimulus
2. Negative reinforcement:
- Strengthens behaviour through taking away negative stimulus when it
happens

• What about punishment?

- Consequence:
• Behaviour → Punisher
- Effect:
• Weakened or decreased behaviour / suspension
- Types of punishment:
1. Presentation/Added stimulus – extra work…
2. Removal of stimulus - privileges

• Often, Negative reinforcement and Punishment gets confused with each other
- Reinforcement → increase behaviour
• i.e. a positive effect
- Punishment → decrease/suppress
• i.e. a negative effect

• Contiguity (Association) - association learning

- Basic principle:
• Any stimulus and response connected in time and/or space will tend to be
associated
- Major theorist: ER Guthrie
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 • Criticism:
- Unethical
- Decrease interest in learning by over emphasising rewards
- Negative impact on other students

Re ections for the classroom

• Think of ways to increase positive behaviour in your class.
• Negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment. How do they differ?

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 Cognitive theories: Information Processing Model
- Based on cognitive learning approach
- Major importance for education and learning psychology
- Emphasis on how children process information through attention, memory, thinking &
other cognitive processes

Information Processing Model is de ned as:

“Information proce ing is the proce by means of which the individual transforms/proce es
information and connects new information to existing knowledge.”
Human mind’s activity of taking in, storing and using information

- A person as an active processor of information.

- Seeking for information:
• Active observation, screening, reasoning and understanding, comparing with existing
knowledge, remembering and giving meaning to knowledge.

Information processing:
Information processing model of learning and memory
• Sensory register: receive and select information
↓
• Receive incoming information
↓
• Goes to short term memory
↓
• Stored as a long term memory
Note:
- Attention and concentration is NB
- Loss as result of weak attention or selection

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IPM Linear model:
- Emphasis on working memory
- Attention
- Interaction between elements:
• sensory memory
• short term memory
• long term memory

PIAGET VYGOTSKY
[Egocentric speech] [Private speech]

Represents the inability to take Represents external thought; it’s a function to

the perspective of another and communicate with the self for the purpose of self
engage in reciprocal guidance and self-direction
communication

Course of development Declines with age Increases at younger ages then gradually looses
its audible quality to become internal verbal
thought

Relationship to social It is Negative ; least socially Positive; private speech develops out of social
speech and cognitively mature children interaction with others
use more egosentric speech.

Relationship to Increases with task dif culty. Private speech

environmental contexts serves a helpful self-guiding function in situations
where more cognitive effort is needed to reach a
solution.

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 Memory:
- Sensory memory:
• holds information in its original form for less than 3 seconds
- Working memory:
• “workbench”
• new information held temporarily
• combine with prior knowledge from LT to solve problems or comprehend (limited)
- Temporary storage and processing.

Working Memory
- Workbench of the memory system ! Temporary storage and Active processing needed
- Repeat and/or connect to existing knowledge, organise data, etc.
- Limited capacity !overload, data loss, interference, inadequate repetition…
- Short term storage ! Processing = interaction between ST and LT memory
- Keep information in the working memory
• Stay active !remember/memory
• Attention needed or info lost, fade, forget
• Maintenance rehearsal – Keep info in working memory….
• Elaborative Rehearsal
• Chunking – HBOUSACIALOLATM HBO USA CIA LOL ATM

Di erence
- In development
- Individual variation in working memory

Memory
- Long-term memory: holds enormous amounts of information for long period of time,
relative permanent, loss due to fading, interference and suppression.
- Circular model: Working Memory = part of LT memory: works on currently activated
information

Long-term memory:
- Holds 2 kinds of knowledge:
• General
- Information useful in many kinds of tasks – applies to many situations
• Domain- speci c
- Information useful in a particular situation – applies to one speci c topic
- There are 3 types of LT memory:

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 • Declarative
- Verbal info; facts; knowing
• Procedural
- Knowledge demonstrated when performing a task; know how
• Self-regulatory
- Knowing how and when to use declarative & procedural knowledge

LTM can be:

- Explicit - intentional or intentional recall of information
• Episodes:
- own experience
• Semantics:
- general knowledge and facts
- Implicit - knowledge of which you are not aware that you are recalling
• in uences actions and behaviour
• Classical:
- conditioned and emotional reactions
• Procedural:
- motor skills
- habits
• Priming:
- implicit activation of concepts

Schemas
• Abstract knowledge structures that organise vast amounts of information
• Helps to form and understand concepts

Deeper levels of information processing

• The deeper the level of information processing the better the semantic or cognitive analysis
of the information will be.
• Processing on only a visual or auditory level implies lower level information processing

When does processing happen at deeper levels?

Incoming data associate and integrate with relevant prior knowledge
- Coding:
• the processing of information in a form in which it can be stored in memory
- Encoding:
• transformation of incoming data
- Decoding:
• information from LT transformed into written words
- Interference:
• use and apply information, make deductions from given information
Factors that determine levels of information processing
- Presentation methods
- Meaning / relevance
- Goals and expectations
- Structure of information
- Connection with the learner’s prior knowledge
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 - Meaning making
- Why not understanding:
• Incoming information
• super cially processed
• Too little prior knowledge
• Unaware of relevant prior
• knowledge

Remember (recall) and forget

• After information has been encoded and represented in memory it might be retrieved or
forgotten

Forgetting
Explanations for forgetting:
- Insu cient or lack of attention
• info does not even reach sensory memory, not transferred to short-term memory
- Fading
• because of disuse
- Suppression
• unpleasant experiences are transferred to the subconscious
- Interference
• info interfere with other info
– Pro-active: existing knowledge interferes with new knowledge
– Retroactive: new knowledge interferes with existing knowledge
- Occurs when learning material includes similarities, is learnt super cially, is irrelevant or
when too much is learnt in too short time

Remembering
- Retrieval
• search store of memory to nd relevant information
- Recall
• retrieve previously learned information; information not lost, needs suf cient coding and
processing
- Recognition
• only identify learned information
- Understanding
• most important condition for remembering

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 - Improving remembering
• Teaching strategies that encourage student engagement, deeper processing of
information and higher levels of initial learning are associated with longer retention.
• Eg. Frequent reviews, tests, elaborated feedback, high standards, mastery learning,
active involvement in learning projects

- Attention in the classroom

• Bright colours
• Underline
• “High-light”
• Learner's names
• Surprise element
• Interesting questions
• Vary tasks, teaching styles and methods
- Implications for teachers
• Improve concentration
• Distinguish between essential and non-essential information.
• Link new knowledge with existing knowledge
• Provide for repetition and review of information
• Structured way of presenting
• Focus on meaning and not memorisation

NB PREP!
De nitions of types of learning; types of knowledge.
Sketch with … of the working memory.
Factors that in uence deep processing of information.
Factors that in uence understanding of learning material.
How do people remember?/ Why do people forget?
Circular model of information processing

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Unit 2: Neurological theory

Outcome:
- To gain a basic understanding of how learning occurs in the brain
- To understand the educational implications of the neurological perspective

The brain is de ned as:

“A jungle of layers and l ps, an interconnected and complex system”

(Edelman, 1992)
• A cognitive perspective of how learning happens
• Different areas have speci c functions

Neuron (Nerve cell)

- Capacity of a small computer
- Store and transfer information
- Dendrites
• storing and transmitting information

Cognitive development
- Birth=100-200bil neuron and increase …
- Age 2-3 most synapses !oversupply
- Needed 2 adapt to environment
- Only those used will survive
- Unused neurons will be pruned ! help with cognitive development

2 Types of overproduction and pruning

These are two extreme ends of the spectrum:
1. Experience expectant
- experience expectant plasticity re ects situations in which there is high overlap
in the input across individuals
2. Experience dependent
- experience dependent plasticity re ects situations in which there is little overlap
in the input across individuals.
SO, what is plasticity?
• Displayed in a young child but is needed for adult life
• Ability of the brain to remain adaptable or exible
• E.g. Brain damage

• Stimulation and caring conversation:

- This helps pruning process in early child development and may also increase the
development of synapses in adults.

Neurological theory
- Plays an important role in cognitive development
- Need it for Communication = hear, speak, read and write
- NB for learning

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 The brain
- Receives impulses through senses
↓
- Transformed into meaning and appropriate
reaction

- Cerebral Cortex:
• Largest part of the brain
- Has 2 hemispheres with corpus
callosum divided between.
• Outside layer of the brain – folds
• 85% of brain’s weight
• Responsible for complex problem solving and language
• Order of development:
- Physical motor development
- Areas that control complex senses (sight & hearing)
- Frontal lobes that control higher order thought processes
- Temporal lobes that play a role in emotions, judgements and language.
- [ only fully developed in high school or even later]

• Divided into 4 primary lobes:

• frontal,
- motor area, area for cognitive reasoning and problem solving
• pariental,
- sensory area, concerned with perception and sensation
• temporal,
- auditory area, language association area
• occipital
- area of vision

• Diencephalon:
- deeper lying part consisting out of grey matter - colours, thoughts and actions
with emotions

- Cerebellum:
• Consists of 2 primary hemispheres
- The primary concern is the:
• coordination of motor activities,
• maintenance of equilibrium,
• controls muscle tone and
• causes re ex reactions to light, sound, pressure and touch
- Spinal cord:
• Consists of grey matter surrounded by white matter.
- Channel lled with uid which connects 4 ventricles of the brain
- 31 pairs of spinal nerves causes movement & sensation

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Lateralization
- Each half of the brain controls the opposite side of the body
↓
- Damage to the right side of the brain will effect movement on the left side of the body.

- Laterality:
• Left side of brain:
- Language processing
• Right side of brain:
- Visual spacial information and emotions [non-verbal information]
• Relative
• One side only more effective in speci c tasks.
• Different but simultaneous.
• Working together:

Implications for Teaching

- To perform complex skills and abilities we need the participation of many different areas of
the brain >>> constant interaction and communication with each other
• Eg. Reading
- Neuroscienti c research shows that you cannot focus on one side of the brain - “teaching
to different sides of the brain”.

Myths about the brain

Myth Facts

- Use only 10% - Use whole brain -

- Listening to Mozart makes children - Playing an instrument uses both sides
smarter - Globally, often 2 languages are learnt
- Left or right brain dominance equally from birth
- Young child can only learn one language - It can change all the time
at a time - Most people recover well after brain
- Can't change brain damage
- Brain damage is permanent - Physical exercise reduces deterioration
- Games like Sudoku help brain against - Sperm whales 5x heavier
aging - Damaged dendrites from alcohol
- Human brain is the largest - Big difference between an adolescent and
- Alcohol kills brain cells an adult brain - “High horsepower - poor
- Adolescent's brain is the same as that of steering”
an adult

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 Unit 2: Constructivism - Piaget

Constructivism
- Learners are active in constructing their own knowledge
- Social interactions are important in this knowledge construction process
- Two forms:
1. Psychological/cognitive/ individual
2. Social

Psychological / Individual/ Cognitive Constructivism

“How individuals use information, resources and help from others to build and

improve their mental models and problem-solving strategies”

Social Constructivism

Learning as increasing our abilities to participate with others in

activities that are meaningful in the culture ……Vygotsky

Constructivism

Piaget
- Psychological Constructivist
- Focus on cognitive development and development through 4 stages

Four Factors
- In uence changes in thought

}
1. Biological maturity
2. Activities 1-3 work together to have an in uence on cognitive development
3. Social transmission
4. Equilibration
> Constantly in interaction to bring about changes in thinking

Cognitive processes
Invariant functions

adaptation organisation

assimilation accommodation co-ordination integration

Changes in existing More complex structure

Incorporation of
existing cognitive cognitive structure
structure
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Natural tendencies…

1. Organisation
• combining
• arranging
• recombining
• rearranging
Behaviour and thought in coherent systems

So, what happens?

Organise thinking process into
psychological structures
↓
Schemes : basic building blocks of thinking
↓
Def. p.32: Schemes = Mental systems or categories of perception and experience

2. Adaptation
↓ ↘
Assimilation Accommodation
↓
Equlibration
Act of searching for balance

Disequilibrium → Discomfort

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 Piaget's Stages of Development

- Sensory– motor (0-2) (Infancy)

• Imitation; memory; thoughts
• Develop object permanence
• goal directed activities

- Pre-operational (2 – 7) (Early childhood)

• Language development
- Make sense of gestures explain (explain through gestures…)
• Development of logical thinking
• Conservation
• Egocentric

- Concrete - operational (7 – 11) (Middle school years)

• Cognitive skills
• Concrete objects and situations
- can solve conservation problems but depends on…

3 Basic Aspects of Reasoning

- Identity
- Compensation
• Classi cation
- Reversibility
• Seration

• Developed a complete and logical system of thinking but cannot yet reason about
hypothetical abstract problems that involve the coordination of many factors at once.

- Formal – operational (12+) (High school & Tertiary)

• Involves abstract thinking that can co-ordinate number of variables
- Can reason hypothetically
- Can reason deductively
• Needed for success at school
• Adolescent Egocentrism
- Defensive

Neo- Piagetian theories

- Neo-Piagetians propose that working memory capacity is affected by biological
maturation, and therefore restricts young children's ability to acquire complex thinking and
reasoning skills. ... Therefore, brain maturation, which occurs in spurts, affects how and
when cognitive skills develop.

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 Educational Implications

- Adaptation of instruction to the learner's developmental level. The content of instruction

needs to be consistent with the developmental level of the learner.
- The teacher's role is to facilitate learning by providing a variety of experiences.
- "Discovery learning" provides opportunities for learners to explore and experiment,
thereby encouraging new understandings

- Additional suggestions include:

• Provide concrete props and visual aids, such as models and/or time line
• Use familiar examples to facilitate learning more complex ideas, such as story problems
in math.
• Allow opportunities to classify and group information with increasing complexity; use
outlines and hierarchies to facilitate assimilating new information with previous
knowledge.
• Present problems that require logical analytic thinking; the use of tools such as "brain
teasers" is encouraged.
• Use visual aids and models.
• Provide opportunities to discuss social, political, and cultural issues.
• Teach broad concepts rather than facts, and to situate these in a context meaningful and
relevant to the learner.

Criticisms of Piaget's Theory

1. First, Piaget underestimated children's abilities.
2. Second, Piaget's theory predicts that thinking within a particular stage would
be similar across tasks. In other words, preschool children should perform at the
pre-operational level in all cognitive tasks….. According to Piaget, efforts to teach
children developmentally advanced concepts would be unsuccessful.
3. Thirdly: Did not consider importance of Cognitive development and Culture.

NB! Test prep:

• Brie y explain the stages of development according to Piaget.

• Explain how learning happens according to Piaget.
• Discuss the criticism of Piaget’s theory of learning

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Unit 2: Vygotsky

Social Constructivism
• Social interaction
• Cultural tools
• Activity
All shape individual development and Learning

Sociocultural Perspective

Human activities takes place in cultural se ings and cannot be underst d

apart from these se ings

- Social interaction create cognitive structures and thought processes

- Vygotsky saw human development as the transformation of shared social activity to
internalised processes

Social sources for individual thinking

Development on 2 levels

1. Social
• Construction of knowledge during shared activities

2. Individual level
• Internalizing processes
• Becomes part of cognitive development

• Cognitive development of children is fostered by people more capable in their thinking

- Eg parents and teachers.
- [More knowledgeable other – MKO]

Cultural instruments
- Material instruments →. media, computers, ploughs….
- Psychological instruments (Symbol systems)
• symbols, mathematical systems, braille, sign language, maps, artwork….
- Plays an important role in cognitive development

Cultural Toolkit
- Transform thinking and create own understanding
↓
- Gradually change as they continue with social interaction and trying to make sense of their
world

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Mediation
- Process by which higher order thinking processes (e.g. reasoning and problem solving) are
guided by means of psychological instruments such as language, signs and symbols.
↓
- Internalisation

The role of language in cognitive development

- A way to express ideas and question things

- Provides categories and concepts for thinking
- Connects the past and the present

- Language
• Critical for cognitive development
- Ideas
- Concepts
- Questions
- Categories and concepts needed 4 thinking
• Links past to future
- Vygotsky emphasizes role of language:
“Thinking depends on sp ch as the means of thinking and on the child’s socio-

cultural experience”

- Self-talk (private speech) and learning

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 Zone of Proximal Development

- Area current level of development

- Move through ZPD with help of adult of with peer group
- How?
• Structure, hints, reminders, steps, encouragement…
- The process of instruction as learners move from their actual to their potential level of
development is called mediation.
- Also referred to as scaffolding since the 1970’s.
- Scaffolding describes the activities the teacher constructs to help the learners learn.

Mediated Learning Experience

- MLE of Feuerstein lls the gap left by Vygotsky regarding the ZPD.
- The human mediator is central to MLE
↓
- The mediator directs learners’ attention to the relevant object or situation
- Learners gain meaning from the stimuli and understanding of the world around them.
- Learner develops schemata that they can apply in other situations
- AIM:
• exercise self-regulation
• become independent learners who
• adapt con dently to their own environment
- Too little MLE may lead to ineffective, underachieving learners with de cient cognitive
functioning

The main proponents of social constructivism are Vygotsky (1896-1934) and Jerome Bruner
(born in 1915). Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory embraces the notion that social
(interpersonal), cultural-historical and individual factors are key to human development and
learning (Schunk, 2012). It thus emphasises the integration of social, cultural and biological
aspects. It also proposes that learning happens at two levels; 1st externally at a social level
after which at the 2nd level internalisation takes place. The concepts associated with SCT
are: the acknowledgement of prior knowledge and experiences, the role of a More
Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), scaffolding
through mediation and the use of the cultural “toolbox” of which language is a very important
tool (Woolfolk, 2012).

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 Limitations of Vygotsky’s theory
- Did not detail the cognitive processes underlying developmental changes
- Consists mainly of general ideas
- Not enough detail for applying theory to teaching

NB! Test prep:

• Explain how learning happens according to Vygotsky.

• Explain Piaget and Vygotsky’s opinions regarding private speech differ.
• Discuss the criticism of Vygotsky’s theory of learning

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