How Children Learn

How Children Learn
    By Robin Norris

    Development Theories of Vycotsky and Piaget Vycotsky and Piaget had different thoughts on how students should learn within the classrooms. Both psychologists agreed that the biggest need for more knowledge is something every person could achieve if the mind is set to pursue and gain that type of goal in life. Different learning styles included in the classrooms help the students learn in many diverse ways as noted by the University of Chicago Corner's Children's Hospital (2006), [pic]"Cognitive development is defined as development of the ability to think and reason (University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, 2006).[pic] When the teacher can understand how a child grasps material given in the classroom he or she is more apt to help that student achieve goals and address the individual needs of each student. Some psychycologist such as Visclosky and Piaget have similar ideas for teachers on how to bring constructivism into the learning environment. Constructivism could be addressed as being the way children learn things, or possibly the way information given to a child is absorbed. One could think of it as putting a puzzle together by joining the pieces of information they may have already heard before with newly learned information. To some, constructivist people may act as if the information a student learns is controlled by what a child may believe in and how that person feels about the subject matter. Another similar idea Visclosky and Piaget have are the beliefs which both may see the limits of any cognitive spurts being brought on through the surroundings of a child's life. The similarities of these two psychologists' beliefs are few, as each believes differently on how people in general should react to life's unexpected turns. Visclosky kind of feels like people in any situation with life will learn from the situation in itself, but with Piaget, any lesson to be learned from a confrontation will be gotten...