CHAPTER 3 COMPARING THEORIES OF LEARNING AND COGNITION (pp. 126-127)

1. Watson (behaviourist), Piaget and Vygotsky were contemporaries but each advocated a different theory of how children learn and develop cognitively. Some aspects of their theories are simply unrelated because they address different issues. E.g. Behvaiourism and sociocultural do not focus on age trends (rather on reinforcement and scaffolding) while Piaget focused on age trends but not on the process of learning and how children move from one stage to another

2. Vygotsky and Piaget are similar in terms of considering a child as an ACTIVE learner vs Behaviourism has more PASSIVE view of the child

3. What is true about all these theories 1. REINFORCEMENT does lead to LEARNING (Behaviourism) 2. Children are INNATELY MOTIVATED to EXPLORE the WORLD and CONSTRUCT THEIR OWN KNOWLEDGE (Piaget) 3. Children LEARN through SOCIAL INTERACTIONS and DIALOGUE with OTHERS (Vygotsky)

4. Piaget's theory is different from the two in two ways: 1. Piaget stressed self-directed learning through exploration (Behaviourism and Sociocultural stressed direct teaching by adults) 2. Piaget emphasised MATURATION (Vygotsky believed learning and education cause mental development)