Educational Implication of Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory

Educational Implication of Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory

Vygotsky’s theory has some rather obvious implications for education. Like Piaget, Vygotsky stressed active rather than passive learning and took great care to assess what the learner already knew, thereby estimating what he was capable of learning. The major difference in approaches concerns the role of the instructor. Whereas students in Piaget’s classroom would spend more time in independent, discovery-based activities, teachers in Vygotsky’s classroom would favor guided participations in which theystructure the learning activity, provide helpful hints or instructions that they carefully tailor to the child’s current abilities, and then monitor the learner’s progress, gradually turning over more of the mental activity to their pupils. Teachers may also arrange cooperative learning exercises in which students are encouraged to assist each other; theidea here is that the less competent members of the team are likely to benefit from the instruction they receive from their more skillful peers, who also benefit by playing the role of teacher.