Developmental Perspectives - Piaget VS Vygotsky

Jean Piaget is best known for his research on children's cognitive development. He suggested that children are active and motivated learners. They organize what they learn by sorting the knowledge that they acquired through their experiences. When new information is acquired, children adapt through process either assimilation or accommodation. Assimilation process, children organize that information by into existing schemas that has been formed previously whereas accommodation is through revising and existing schema or creating an entirely new category of information.

In his study regarding intellectual development of his own three children, he created a theory that identified the four stages that children experienced in the development of intelligence and formal thought processes.

Lev Vygotsky focused on influenced of child's social and cultural worlds on cognitive development. Cognitive development is mostly results of interactions and experiences. It involves a transition between elementary mental function and higher mental function. 

One of the major theories developed by Vygotsky was Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It is a region of sensitivity for learning characterized by the difference between actual development level when a child is capable of doing without assistance and potential development where a child is capable of doing something with assistance. According to Vygotsky, actual development level determined by determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers." Parents and teachers can foster learning by providing educational opportunities that lie within a child's zone of proximal development.

What I can't do: not ready or able to learn, do not teach too difficult.
What I can do with help: what the learner can understand with proper guidance, do teaching and challenged.

What I can do: What is known, do not reteach. Too boring. 

Thus, Vygotsky has been suggested that a child's interactions with the social world would produce advance thinking. 

"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done”.
-Jean Piaget

"Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things." 

- Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978

Reflection on week 9

Assalamualaikum everyone. How are you? I hope everybody who read this blog will always fine and get blessing from Allah S.W.T. Today, we’re going to share with you our lesson in the class for this week. As usual, we had so much fun in the class because we got much information about the topic that we learned. Before I forgot, this week’s topic is Social Cognitive Theory. For this time, method of this learning was teacher centered learning where Madam gives explanation to the students and the students listen and give response with what had the Madam said and teaches.

Okay, let’s go straight to the content of this topic. On 6^th October 2012, we learned about Social Cognitive Theory such as the theory of Bandura. In this theory, Bandura stress about modeling in which the way people behave after they learned from people they saw as their modeling.  According to this theory, people can learn by observing the behaviors of others which known as models. Besides, this learning will not necessarily reflect their actions but may be reflected in behavior exhibited at the same time, later time, or never. But, do you ever think how this earning occurs? Social cognitive theorist said that, cognitive processes as attention and retention (memory) into their explanations of how learning occurs.

Other than that, our Madam also teaches us what the effects of modeling. First and foremost, the effect of modeling is modeling teaches new behaviors by observing others perform those behaviors. For example, when a child saw her/his mother helps the poor by giving sadaqah to them. Then, next time the child follows the mother’s behavior by giving the poor sadaqah. Furthermore, modeling also influences the frequency of previously learned behaviors. It is means that, when people saw the other’s behavior which then they rewarded, it is more likely that people are reinforced to follow that particular behavior. Meanwhile, people are less likely to perform behaviors for which they have seen others being punished. Next, the effect of modeling is modeling may encourage previously forbidden behaviors and last but not least, modeling increases the frequency of similar behaviors.

Moreover, you know what, individuals who are serving as a model tend to have characteristic in order to influence others. Firstly, the model must be competent. Not just that, the model also must have prestige and power like high status, respect, and power. Besides, the model behaves in stereotypical “gender-appropriate” ways which means males are more likely to follow male models and that so with females. Finally, the model’s behavior is relevant to the observer’s situation. Individuals are more likely to follow the behaviors which are similar to them. For instances, a girl is more likely to follow the way her sister dressed if they have similar style of dressing.

Finally, we go to the last subtopic which is the conditions necessary for effective modeling to occur. How to become an individual who is successful to model the behavior of someone else? Here are the answers. According to Bandura, there are four conditions. The first one is attention. The individual must give full attention to the model in order to model that behavior. Then, retention also one of the conditions for effective modeling to occur. After paying attention, the learner must also remember the behavior that has been observed.  Next, come to motor reproduction which is the actual replication of the behavior that a mode has demonstrated. Lastly, the individual must has motivation in order to perform it. If they do not want to demonstrate what they have learned, then, the modeling cannot occur.

We think that is all what we have learned on the first day of this week. Now, we continue with the second day of the week. The topic that we learned during this day is Cognitive Views of Learning. The most important part in this chapter is that we learned about the Gestalt psychology which emphasized the importance of organizational processes in perception, learning, and problem solving. Madam showed to us many pictures regarding this topic. Then, we were asked to try to answer which picture is regard to what category in the Gestalt psychology. We were much enjoyed learned this. Here are some of the pictures. Enjoy~~ J <

CLOSURE

FIGURE-GROUND

PROXIMITY

Reflection: The Ferber method

       According to Ferber method, the parents teach their child to soothe himself to sleep from the age of 5 to 6 months by using learning principles which is reinforcement schedules. His method applying the fixed interval schedule in which he let the baby cry for every 5 minutes within 3 days until it reaches 25 minutes. Then, for the rest of the day, he will only use 25 minutes for mother to come to the baby.

       Regarding to this method, we will use it to our baby because this method seems workable and practical. Moreover, every mother can practice and apply this method. For example, we will let the baby cry for 10 minutes every time they cry before we feed and comfort the baby. The baby become used with this routine and the baby will not much depending to the mother anymore before getting sleep.

      To sum up, in raising the baby, the mother should apply the learning principle in order to educate the baby to become less dependent to their parents. This is also will ease the parents to do their daily routines.

Reflection: Social Cognitive Learning

General Principles of Social Cognitive Theory

• Observing

            Watching the behavior of other individuals (model)

• Without a change in behavior

  People can learn through observation alone, their learning will not necessarily be reflected in their actions. something learned at one time may be reflected in behavior exhibited at the same time at a later time, or never.

• Consequences  

Contemporary social cognitive theorists propose that both reinforcement and punishment (consequences) have less critical, indirect effects on learning  

• Cognition

Over the past 30 years, social cognition theory has become increasingly "cognitive" in its analysis of human learning :

1. maintain the awareness of response-reinforcement and response-punishment as an essential component of the learning process.
2. Assert that expectations of future reinforcements and punishments can have major impact on the behavior that people exhibit.
3. incorporate such cognitive processes as attention and retention (memory) into their explanations of how learning occurs. 

• Control

People can take active steps to create or modify their environments, perhaps by making changes themselves, or perhaps by convincing others to offer assistance and support - they often do so consciously and intentionally.

Bandura's triadic model of reciprocal determinism

Modeling

The Modeling Process

Not all observed behaviors are effectively learned. Factors involving both the model and the learner can play a role in whether social learning is successful. Certain requirements and steps must also be followed. The following steps are involved in the observational learning and modeling process

Attention:

In order to learn, you need to be paying attention. Anything that detracts your attention is going to have a negative effect on observational learning. If the model interesting or there is a novel aspect to the situation, you are far more likely to dedicate your full attention to learning.

Retention:

The ability to store information is also an important part of the learning process. Retention can be affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on it is vital to observational learning.

Reproduction:

Once you have paid attention to the model and retained the information, it is time to actually perform the behavior you observed. Further practice of the learned behavior leads to improvement and skill advancement.

Motivation:

Finally, in order for observational learning to be successful, you have to be motivated to imitate the behavior that has been modeled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation. While experiencing these motivators can be highly effective, so can observing other experience some type of reinforcement or punishment. For example, if you see another student rewarded with extra credit for being to class on time, you might start to show up a few minutes early each day.

Assalamualaikum w.b.t.
For Tuesday class, Mdm Lihanna starts new lesson with subtopic from chapter 4, schedules of reinforcement. There are two types of schedules reinforcement which are continuous reinforcement and partial reinforcement. In continuous reinforcement, Mdm Lihanna said that The desired behavior
Is reinforced every single time it occurs. It means, every response is reinforced. On the other hand, in partial reinforcement, there are several types of partial reinforcement which are fixed-ratio schedules, variable-ratio schedules, fixed-interval schedules and variable-interval schedules.
     Here, we. Put some examples that related with 4 types of partial schedules in case for better understanding.For first types, fixed-ratio schedules: reinforcement occurs after a set number of responses, predictable. E.g.. For every 10 A's you get on exam, you get to pick out a new hand phone.
Second types, variable-ratio schedules: reinforcement is still based on number of responses, however now it is unpredictable how many responses are needed to get the reinforcement. E.g.. Fishing. You may catch a fish every times you cast out your line, or you may catch a fish after one cast, then 5 more, then after 2 more, etc,etc. The following types of partial reinforcement, fixed-interval schedules: reinforcement is received after a set amount of time, regardless of number of responses during that time. E.g.. Every 30min someone walks by your desk and drops off rm5 each time, provided that you are actually working at that moment. The last types of partial reinforcement, variable-interval schedules: reinforcement is still based on amount of time that passed between responses, not number of responses. Time that passes between reinforcement is unpredictable-leads to slow, steady rate of responses. E.g.. Someone walks by your desk at random times (means that unpredictable to you) and drops off a rm5 each time they pass, if you are actually working at that moment.
    For the last 30 minutes, Mdm Lihanna give us pop quiz. Everybody got shocked and surprised because of unpredictable task. However, alhamdulillah..Allah make ease for us for answering quiz that given by Mdm Lihanna. Although we are little bit of unprepared, but it give us new challenge.:)
And also, this pop quiz gives us new lesson that every time we come to class, at least we must touch,hug and read the book. So that, next time we not surprised anymore with this kind of event.
Thank you Mdm! :)

For Thursday class, Mdm Lihanna started the class usual. After recitation of do'a as to get Barakah from Allah, Mdm Lihanna begins her teaching with new subtopic that we not covered yet last class which are effective forms of punishment and ineffective forms of punishment. For effective forms of punishment, there are several forms of it which are verbal reprimands, restitution and over correction, time-out, in house suspension and response cost. In contrast, the ineffective forms of punishment are physical punishment, physiological punishment, extra class work, out-of-school suspension and missing recess. After we all get an ideas about the forms of punishment, which one can do for punishment and which one not suitable for punishment, we feel so excited to apply it in the group task and of course in the real life also.
Thanks Mdm for create the great learning environment and may Allah bless you always..:)


 

   In learning psychology class, we have so much fun and learned interesting knowledge. Our lecturer Madam Lihanna is a warm and caring person, with her cute gesture and communicative personality, it would be hard for us to not attend the class as her attentiveness is a sort of reinforcement for us to come to class. Madam Lihanna had given her students notes and extra reading materials for us to be prepaired, this makes the students wants to take her class Of course, sometimes the lectures could get boring but, after the lectures we usually get to do some fun activities with our group members.

   Once, Hafiz ate too much for his lunch and got sleepy and eventually slept in class, Mdm. Lihanna woke him with knocking his desk. Everybody laughed making Hafiz felt ashamed, so after that Hafiz would eat moderately so he wouldn't feel sleepy in class. Later, Ain didn't take her luch at all so a result she couldn't even concentrate in class at all. Next she have learned that she have to take her luch before coming to class.

Mali have problems in her attendance, after three times not attending the class she got a warning letter. If she is absent for another three times she would be bar from the class, so to not get the bar letter she intend to have full attendance from that moment on.

  In the class we would be given many assignments, even though it was tough but her criticism and praises made the effort worth while to do. At the end of the lesson Mdm. Lihanna would ask some question, and the person who'd answers the question can leave early. Students would concentrate in class and would compete to raise their hand so they could leave early.

The story above can be related to characteristic of positive reinforcement :

• Activity reinforcer:

               "Mdm. Lihanna would ask some question, and the person who'd answers the question can leave early. "

• Natural consequences:

               "Hafiz ate too much for his lunch and got sleepy and eventually slept in class" 

• Logical consequences:

          "she got a warning letter. If she is absent for another three times she would be bar from the class, so to not get the bar letter she intend to have full attendance from that moment on."      

• Positive feedback:

               "we would be given many assignments, even though it was tough but her criticism and praises made the effort worth while to do"

• Intrinsic reinforcer:

               "In learning psychology class, we have so much fun and learned interesting knowledge."

• Social reinforcer:

               "Our lecturer Madam Lihanna is a warm and caring person, with her cute gesture and communicative personality, it would be hard for us to not attend the class as her attentiveness is a sort of reinforcement for us to come to class."

• Material reinforcer:

              "Madam Lihanna had given her students notes and extra reading materials for us to be prepaired, this makes the students wants to take her class"

Activities In Class As Positive Reinforcer

We had a very interesting learning with Dr. Hanna on our 4^th topic which is instrumental conditioning. The instrumental conditioning currently is also well known as operant conditioning. We just know that operant conditioning is actually a kind of voluntary action rather than involuntary action which is refer to classical conditioning.  Therefore, we could easily differentiate between of the two.

            There are several subtopics under this chapter which are Thorndike’s early research and Skinner’s operant conditioning. Actually we had already learned all these subtopics in the Introduction to Psychology course. Therefore we managed to get the information easily.

For the first subtopic we learned about Thorndike’s early research that containing three components which are law of effects, law of readiness, and law of exercises. Moreover, the second subtopic is Skinner's operant conditioning. It is divided into two which are reinforcement and punishment. After detailed explanation by Dr. Hanna we can identify between reinforcement and punishment as well as the different between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. For the last 30 minutes in the class session, we had group activity to identify the element of the classical conditioning based on our previous  story, The Phenomenon of Red Riding Hood.

On Thursday, 4^th October 2012 we were given a task by Dr. Hanna since Dr. Hanna cannot attend the class due to other commitment. The task is about the differentiation between the operant and classical conditioning we were very satisfied because we can complete the task in unexpected time. We hope that the activity in class could become as a positive reinforcer for us ‘to hunt’ the knowledge and attend the class consistently.