Article 1 and 2 Review Essay example

Submitted By Bradenandrews1
Words: 838
Pages: 4

Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development has had an enormous effect on education as a whole, but special education in particular. The Zone of Proximal Devlopment deals with how the development of a person’s mind is directly related to the interactions of the individual’s society. Vygotsky’s interest was seeking the relationship between thinking and language, learning and development of children. Vygotsky studied special education and handicapped children. He though that disabled children and normal children were the same in respect to development and they should be educated together. Vygotsky also thought that “effective rehabilitation should apply appropriate and timely methods to educate, strength, and compensate their cultural and psychological functions, communicational ability and social relationship” (p. 102). Vygotsky’s theory of Zone of Proximal Development has helped teachers incorporate teaching styles into the classroom that have a positive effect on disabled children. His theory suggested that students in special education should be encouraged to interact with their teachers, parents, and others adults because the development of their mind is directly affected by their interactions with society. Also working with their peers will help them learn from each other in the aspect of working as a team to achieve a common goal. One of the biggest impact Vgotsky’s theory has is that special education teachers are not isolated to what their children can not do, but rather what they can accomplish. Lev Vgotsky’s theory showed individuals that special education children have strong areas, and rather than focuses on their weak areas and what they cannot accomplish, they can focus on their strong areas and bettering those.

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development studied knowledge and how individuals acquired and used knowledge. Piaget thought that there were four factors that effected cognitive development (Webb, 2001, p.93). The nervious system and endocrine system have to develop physical abilities, proper and organizational skills are developed through experience, and social opportunites allowing individual to interact and learn from interaction, and also that each individual has an internal self-regulation mechanism that is directly effected by environmental stimulus.

According to Webb Piaget theory of cognitive development follows a series of stages that aid in the process of cognitive development (p. 94). They occur in a particular order. The first stage is the sensoi-motor stage where the child uses their senses and emerging motor skills. With these skills they exploe the envirnment. The child experience a time where they are unable to reason logically. Believeing they are center of the world is part of the preoperational stage. The concrete operational stage allows the child to use logic to analyze relationships and divide objects into cateogories. Finally, the formal operational stage where the individual can manipulate objects. (p. 94).
The article written by Webb discuesses the uniqueness of indiviual learning. Piaget’s theory allows teachers to realize that children may be on different cognitive stages or may process information differently. The article also stresses the importance of social interation between peers (Webb, 2001, p. 94).
With the cognitive development theory proposed by Jean Piaget, it allows educators to direct their teachings to the stage of cognition development their students are in. It also allows teachers to make more appropriate goals for the child rather