82 • Chapter 2

As we saw earlier in our discussion, language is one of the most important tools of any
culture, so we will need to provide the concrete experiences students who aren’t native
English speakers need to function effectively in our classrooms. Further, the more we have
all our students—and particularly those who aren’t native English speakers—practice using
language to describe their increasing understanding, the more fully their development will
be. We elaborate on this idea in the next section. Let’s turn to it now.

Educational Psychology and Teaching: Applying

Vygotsky’s Theory with Your Students
Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the role of culture, social interaction, and language in devel-
opment. As with Piaget’s work, it has important implications for our teaching. The follow-
ing guidelines can help us apply his ideas in our classrooms.

1. Embed learning activities in culturally authentic contexts.

2. Involve students in social interactions, and encourage them to use language to de-
scribe their developing understanding.
3. Create learning activities that are in learners’ zones of proximal development.
4. Provide instructional scaffolding to assist learning and development.

Now, let’s examine these guidelines in more detail.

Embed Learning Activities in Culturally Authentic Contexts. To begin, let’s look at

the efforts of Jeff Malone, a seventh-grade math teacher, as he works with his students to
help them solve problems involving fractions, decimals, and percents with the goal of meet-
ing the following standard.

CCSS.Math.Content.7.NS.A.3 Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving the

four operations with rational numbers. (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2014w).

Jeff begins his math class by passing out two newspaper ads for the same computer
tablet. Techworld advertises “The lowest prices in town”; Complete Computers says,
“Take an additional 15% off our already low prices.”
Jeff then asks, “So, where would you buy your tablet?”

Technology is an integral part of our culture, so Jeff built his lesson around the cost of
computer tablets, items about which most students are familiar and are interested in. Using
a familiar topic in this way also can increase students’ interest and motivation (Brophy,
2010; Schunk, Meece, & Pintrich, 2014).
Embedding learning activities in culturally authentic contexts doesn’t have to be dif-
ficult; it merely requires a bit of creativity in linking the learning activity to some aspect of
your students’ culture. For instance, a teacher with several Hispanic students in his class
compared the Mexican War of Independence from 1810 through 1821 to our own Ameri-
can revolutionary war with Great Britain, and helped his students identify similarities
between the two. This simple effort had a double benefit; it made the American revolution-
ary war more meaningful to his students with Hispanic backgrounds, and it enriched the
experience for all his students, some of whom had no idea that a Mexican war of indepen-
dence even existed or confused it with Cinco de Mayo, a widely held celebration of Mexican
heritage and pride, but not Mexican independence.

Involve Students in Social Interactions, and Encourage Them to Use Language

to Describe Their Developing Understanding. As we saw earlier in our discussion
 Cognitive and Language Development • 83

of Vygotsky’s work, he believed that social interaction and the use of language are essen-
tial for promoting development. To see how Jeff capitalizes on these factors, let’s rejoin
his lesson.

After showing his students the two advertisements, and asking, “So, where would you
buy your tablet?” Jeff, as expected, finds that his students disagree.
He then asks, “How can we find out?”
After some additional discussion, the students decide they need to find the price
with the 15% discount.
Jeff reviews decimals and percentages and then puts students into groups of
three and gives them two problems.
A store manager has 45 video games in his inventory. Twenty-five are
out of date, so he puts them on sale. What percentage of the video
games is on sale?
Joseph raised gerbils to sell to the pet store. He had 12 gerbils and sold
9 to the pet store. What percentage did he sell?
As he moves around the room, he watches the progress of one group—Sandra,
Javier, and Stewart. Sandra zips through the problems. Javier knows that a fraction is
needed in each case, but he struggles to compute the decimal; and Stewart doesn’t
know how to begin.
“Let’s talk about how we compute percentages in problems like this,” Jeff says,
kneeling in front of the group. “Sandra, explain how you did the first problem.”
Sandra begins, “Okay, the problem asks what percentage of the video games are
on sale. First, I thought, how can I make a fraction? . . . Then I made a decimal out of
it and then a percent. . . . So here’s what I did first,” and she then demonstrates how
she solved the problem.
“Okay, now let’s try this one,” Jeff says, pointing to the second problem. “The first
thing,” he continues, “I need to find out is what fraction he sold. Why do I need to find
a fraction? . . . Javier?”
“. . . So we can make a decimal and then a percent.”
“Good,” Jeff smiles. “What fraction did he sell? . . . Stewart?”
“. . . 9 . . . 12ths.”
“Excellent. Now, Javier, how might we make a decimal out of the fraction?”
“. . . Divide the 12 into the 9,” Javier responds hesitantly.
“Good,” and he watches Javier get .75. Stewart also begins hesitantly, beginning
to grasp the idea.
After the groups have finished the review problems, Jeff calls the class back
together and has some of the other students explain their solutions. When they strug-
gle to put their explanations into words, Jeff asks questions that guide both their think-
ing and their descriptions.
He then returns to his original computer tablets problem and asks them to apply
their knowledge of percentages to it.

Jeff capitalized on the second guideline in three ways. First, he had his students discuss
where they would buy their tablets, and after they disagreed, he didn’t simply tell them to
find the price of the tablet at Complete Computers with the 15% discount. Rather, with
his guidance they made the decision for themselves. This both capitalized on social inter-
action and also increased the students’ motivation because it was their decision rather
than his.
84 • Chapter 2

Second, Jeff had his students work in groups to solve his review problems, and third, he
encouraged his students’ use of language as they worked. As an example, let’s look again at
some of the dialogue when he worked with Sandra, Javier, and Stewart.

Jeff: Let’s talk about how we compute percentages in problems like this. . . .
Sandra, explain how you did the first problem.
Sandra: Okay, the problem asks what percentage of the video games are on sale. First,
I thought, how can I make a fraction? . . . Then I made a decimal out of it and
then a percent. . . . So here’s what I did first (and she then demonstrates how
she solved the problem).

And let’s look at a bit more dialogue later in the discussion.

Jeff: Okay, now let’s try this one. . . . The first thing I need to find out is what fraction
he sold. Why do I need to find a fraction? . . . Javier?”
Javier: . . . So we can make a decimal and then a percent.
Jeff: Good. What fraction did he sell? . . . Stewart?
Stewart: . . . 9 . . . 12ths.
Jeff: Excellent. Now, Javier, how might we make a decimal out of the fraction?
Javier: . . . Divide the 12 into the 9.

In both brief sets of dialogue, we see that Jeff had all three students in the group verbalize
what they were doing. Vygotsky believed that the use of language, such as we see illustrated
here, is essential for development, and it has important implications for our teaching. The
more language our students use to describe their developing understanding, the deeper that
understanding becomes. Initially, they will likely struggle to put their understanding into
words, so we will need to help them. With practice, however, they will gradually become more
able to articulate their understanding, and the result will be increased learning and advances
in development.
Finally, after he called the groups back together, Jeff had some of the students explain
their solutions, which gave them additional practice in using language and presented the
rest of the class with modeling that illustrated the students’ thinking.

Create Learning Activities That Are in Learners’ Zones of Proximal Develop-

ment. As we saw earlier, when a task is within students’ zones of proximal development,
they can complete it with support from someone more knowledgeable—most often a
teacher—but they cannot complete the task on their own. To illustrate this idea, let’s look
again at Jeff ’s work with Sandra, Javier, and Stewart, each of whom was at a different devel-
opmental level. Sandra could solve the problem without assistance, so Jeff asked her to
explain her solution, which is a more advanced task. The task was within Javier’s zone of
proximal development, because he was able to solve the problems with Jeff ’s help. But Stew-
art’s zone was below the task, so Jeff had to adapt his instruction to find the zone for him.
Stewart didn’t initially know how to attack the problem, but with assistance he found the
fraction of the gerbils that had been sold to the pet store. By asking Stewart to identify the
fraction, Jeff adapted his instruction to find the zone for this task.
Jeff ’s instruction seems simple enough, but it is, in fact, very sophisticated. By observing
and listening to his students, Jeff assessed their current understanding and then adapted the
learning activity so that it was within each student’s zone of proximal development.
 Cognitive and Language Development • 85

Provide Instructional Scaffolding to Assist Learning and Development. As we saw

earlier, scaffolding is instructional support that we provide for students that helps them
accomplish tasks that are in their zones of proximal development. To illustrate this process,
let’s look again at the dialogue from Jeff ’s work with Sandra, Javier, and Stewart. They were
working on the second review problem, which we see again here.

Joseph raised gerbils to sell to the pet store. He had 12 gerbils and sold 9
to the pet store. What percentage did he sell?
Jeff: The first thing . . . I need to find out is what fraction he sold. Why do I need
to find a fraction? . . . Javier?
Javier: . . . So we can make a decimal and then a percent.
Jeff: Good. . . .What fraction did he sell? . . . Stewart?
Stewart: . . . 9 . . . 12ths.
Jeff: Excellent. Now, Javier, how might we make a decimal out of the fraction?”
Javier: . . . Divide the 12 into the 9.
Jeff: Good [as he watches Javier get .75. Stewart also begins hesitantly, and then
begins to grasp the idea.]

Jeff ’s questions provided the scaffolding Javier and Stewart needed to make progress
with the problem. And he provided only enough support to ensure that they made progress
on their own. Effective scaffolding adjusts instructional requirements to learners’ capabili-
ties and levels of performance (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005). The relationship between
the students’ zones of proximal development and the scaffolding Jeff provided is illustrated
in Figure 2.6.

SANDRA

JAVIER
Explains solutions
to word problems
STEWART
Converts fraction
to percent
Jeff's support
Determines
fraction sold
Jeff's support

Jeff's support

Figure 2.6
Scaffolding tasks in three zones of proximal
development
86 • Chapter 2
Classroom Connections
Promoting Cognitive Development in Classrooms Using
Vygotsky’s Theory
1. Cognitive development occurs within the context of meaningful, cul-
turally embedded tasks. Use authentic tasks as organizing themes
for your instruction.
■ Elementary: A second-grade teacher teaches bar graphing by
having students graph the different transportation modes that stu-
dents in the class use to get to school.
■ Middle School: A science teacher structures a unit on weather
by having her students observe the temperature, barometric pres-
sure, and relative humidity; record and graph the data; and com-
pare the actual weather to that forecasted in the newspaper.
■ High School: Before a national election, an American government
teacher has his students poll their parents and students around
the school. Students then have a class election, compare these
results with their findings at the local and national levels, and dis-
cuss differences.
2. Scaffolding is instructional support that assists learners as they prog-
ress through their zones of proximal development. Provide enough scaf-
folding to ensure student success as they progress through each zone.
■ Elementary: When her students are first learning to print, a kin-
dergarten teacher initially gives them dotted outlines of letters and
paper with half lines for gauging letter size. As students become
more skilled, she removes these aids.
■ Middle School: A science teacher helps her students learn to pre-
pare lab reports by doing an experiment with the whole class and
Analyzing Theories
Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Views of Cognitive Development
Similarities and differences exist in Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s descrip-
tions of cognitive development. For example, both held the now
widely accepted idea that learners, instead of passively receiving
knowledge from others, actively construct it for themselves. Piaget,
however, believed that learners construct knowledge essentially
on their own, whereas Vygotsky believed that knowledge is first
constructed in a social environment and then internalized by
individuals.
Also, Piaget believed that social interaction and language are primar-
ily mechanisms for disrupting equilibrium, which is then reestablished
when people individually reconstruct their understanding and advance
their thinking. Vygotsky, in contrast, believed that social interaction and
language directly cause development (Rogoff, 2003).
writing the report as
a class activity. Stu-
dents then use it as a model for writing their own reports.
■ High School: An art teacher begins a unit on perspective by shar-
ing his own work and displaying works from other students. As
students work on their own projects, he provides individual feed-
back and asks the students to discuss how perspective contrib-
utes to each drawing. Later they can use perspective effectively on
their own.
3. Vygotsky believed social interaction to be a major vehicle for cogni-
tive development. Structure classroom tasks to encourage student
interaction.
■ Elementary: After fifth-grade students complete a writing assign-
ment, their teacher has them share their products with each other.
To assist them in the process, she provides them with focusing
questions that students use to discuss their work.
■ Middle School: An English teacher uses cooperative learning
groups to discuss the novel the class is studying. The teacher
asks each group to respond to a list of prepared questions. After
students discuss the questions in groups, they share their per-
spectives with the whole class.
■ High School: Students in a high school biology class work in
groups to prepare for exams. Before each test, the teacher pro-
vides an outline of the content covered, and each group is respon-
sible for creating one question on each major topic.
Also, as we saw earlier in our discussion of culture, Piaget viewed
cognitive development as occurring largely outside the boundaries of a
particular culture, whereas Vygotsky believed that development provides
the cognitive tools that individuals use to function within a particular cul-
ture (Bjorklund, 2012; P. Miller, 2011).
Perhaps most important, both suggest that individuals are cog-
nitively active in the process of constructing knowledge, which sug-
gests we should limit our use of lecturing and explaining as teaching
strategies and instead should actively involve students in learning
activities.
The similarities and differences between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s
theories, including contributions and criticisms of each, are outlined in
Table 2.4.

Table 2.4 Analyzing theories: Comparing Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of development
Piaget
Key question How does development occur in all cultures?
Description of cognitive Advances in thinking that result from experiences
development that disrupt cognitive equilibrium in individuals
Development is primarily an individual process.
Catalysts for cognitive Maturation combined with experiences in the
development physical and social world that disrupt cognitive
equilibrium
Important concepts Equilibrium
Assimilation
Accommodation
Schemes
Stages of development
Role of social interaction Mechanisms to disrupt equilibrium which is
and language reestablished by the individual
Role of peers and adults in Promote development by providing experiences
development and interactions that disrupt equilibrium
Contributions • Was first to take a comprehensive look at
cognitive development
• Made educators aware that children’s
thinking is qualitatively different from adults’
thinking
• Helped educators understand that learning is an
active process during which learners construct
their own knowledge
• Has had an enormous influence on school
curriculum with his emphasis on the importance
of experience in development
Criticisms • Underestimated the abilities of young children
and overestimated the abilities of older
students
• Failed to recognize that students’ thinking
depends more on their background knowledge
and experience than Piaget suggested
• Piaget’s stages don’t adequately describe
development for a number of tasks
• Piaget’s theory doesn’t adequately consider the
role of culture in development
Sources: Berk, 2013; Feldman, 2014; Piaget, 1952, 1959, 1965, 1970, 1977, 1980; Piaget & Inhelder, 1956; Vygotsky, 1978, 1986.
Cognitive and Language Development • 87
Vygotsky
How does development occur in a particular
culture?
Advances in thinking that result from social
interactions with more knowledgeable others in a
cultural context
Development is primarily a social process.
Language-rich interactions with more
knowledgeable others in a social environment
Zone of proximal development
Scaffolding
Internalization
Cognitive tools
Private speech
Direct causes of development, which first occurs
in a social environment, then is internalized by
individuals
Promote development by serving as more
knowledgeable others who use language
and social interaction to directly cause
development
• Made educators realize that culture has a
powerful influence on cognitive development
• Recognized the role that adults and more
knowledgeable peers play in cognitive
development
• Helped educators understand that learning and
development are substantively social processes
• Provided the theoretical foundation for many of
today’s approaches to classroom teaching and
learning
• Was vague about the specific mechanisms of
cognitive growth
• Failed to account for the impact of individual
experiences and their influence on cognitive
development
88 • Chapter 2
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Promoting Cognitive Development with
Learners at Different Ages
As you saw in the sections describing Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories, developmental differences have important implica-
tions for the way we teach. We examine these implications here.
Working with Students in
Early Childhood Programs
and Elementary Schools
Working with Students in
Middle Schools
Working with Students in
High Schools
Preoperational and concrete operational thinkers are capable of learning a great many
concepts, but they need concrete examples that connect abstract ideas to the real world.
Those of you who teach early childhood and elementary students should use concrete
experiences like squares of candy bars to illustrate fractions, real crabs to demonstrate
exoskeletons in animals, and experiences in their neighborhoods to illustrate the concept
of community.
Elementary students need continual scaffolding to help them progress through their
zones of proximal development for each new skill. Provide enough assistance to ensure
success, and then reduce scaffolding as development advances.
Cognitive development varies considerably among students at this age. Some will grasp
abstract ideas quickly, while others will struggle. Assess frequently to ensure that your
instruction is within each student’s zone of proximal development. Don’t assume that lack
of questions means that all students understand an idea.
Though middle school students are chronologically on the border of formal opera-
tions, their thinking remains largely concrete operational. As a result, they still need the
concrete experiences that make abstract concepts meaningful, such as Karen Johnson
provided for her eighth graders when they struggled with the concept density.
Middle school students continue to need a great deal of scaffolding when working
with topics that are becoming increasingly abstract, such as in prealgebra and algebra.
The more practice they get with putting their ideas into words, the more effective their
learning and development.
Though high school students are chronologically at the stage of formal operations, the
ability to think in the abstract depends on their prior knowledge and experiences. When
new concepts are introduced, high school students still need concrete examples. Lecture
as a teaching method, though widely used, is less effective than instruction that promotes
interaction and discussion.
The social dimension of learning assumes a powerful role for high school students;
how they look and what other people think of them is very important. They like to social-
ize, so periodically using small-group work can be effective. Small-group work can easily
become a simple gab session, however, so it must be carefully monitored.
This discussion helps answer the third question we asked at the beginning of the
chapter: “How will an understanding of the way students think increase your expertise
as a teacher?” Because you know, for example, that students’ thinking depends on their
experiences, you will provide as many rich experiences as possible for your students,
regardless of the grade level or content area you teach. Also, for those of you planning to
be middle or high school teachers, because you realize that the thinking of most students
at these levels continues to be concrete, you will initially provide them with the concrete
experiences necessary to help them make the transition to abstract thinking. And you will
be a more effective teacher as a result.