LEARNING

Learning



The concept of learning

Introduction

The psychology of child development and learning has two main exponents whose work and studies are still valid today: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Contribution of these two psychologists occupies immense importance in the field of child development and learning. This paper revolves around the same phenomenon of learning and discusses various aspects and theories put forward by Vygotsky. Firstly, this paper describes Vygotsky's philosophy behind child's development and describes three theoretical positions to reduce the relationship between development and learning. This paper affirms Vygotsky's three stages of concept formation. ZPD which is the most famous concept attached to Vygotsky is also mentioned in this paper. Besides discussing the theories a discussion is also done about the practical implications about these theories and talks about Kamehameha Elementary School of Vygotsky. Moreover, a comparison of Piaget and Vygotsky is also undertaken for the complete understanding of the philosophies.

Vygotsky on children's learning

Vygotsky thinks that development based on evolutionary processes does not coincide with learning processes, but the evolutionary process is a trailer of the learning process. Vygotsky mentions that the conceptions of the relationship between development and learning can be reduced to three theoretical positions. The first focuses on the assumption that the processes of child development are independent of learning, the latter being an external process is that learning is always in tow of development and that development proceeds faster than learning (Miller 2002, 11).

The second position states that learning is the development and the learning process that is completely and inextricably linked to the development process. The third position is to defeat the ends of the above claims a combination of them, noting that development process is based on two distinct but interrelated, which influence one another, namely that the maturation process prepares and enables a process of learning, and this in turn stimulates and advances the maturation process (Cohen 2002, 27).

Vygotsky notes that to discover the real terms of the evolutionary process of learning the skills you have to define at least two developmental levels. The first one he calls real evolutionary level, i.e. the level of development of a child's mental functions, established as a result of certain evolutionary cycles, these are activities that the child can do by itself without any help. The second level is what he calls zone of proximal development (ZPD).

Vygotsky also reveals his thoughts related to communication which is an integral part of the learning process. Language emerges as a means of communication that become internal language helps to organize the child's thinking, i.e., becomes an internal mental function and learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that can operate when the child is interacting with people and in cooperation with some such (Cohen 2002, 27).

Vygotsky establishes three stages in the formation of concepts. The first stage is called syncretism, in which children tend to collect objects in disorganized clumps, or in piles later group them finer forms. The second stage, the call complex thinking, in which the ...