REVIEW OF THE

DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
INTRODUCTION

The educational trend brought out by a number of ground-breaking

researches tells that one can be an effective facilitator of learning if one has
a good working knowledge of the learners’ development.
ADVANCE ORGANIZER
ENGAGE

1. Lev Vygotsky said, “The teacher must orient his work not on yesterday’s
development in the child but on tomorrow’s.”
2. Erik Erikson said, “Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have
integrity enough not to fear death.”
3. Lawrence Kohlberg said, “Right action tends to be defined in terms of
general individual rights and standards that have been critically examined
and agreed upon by the whole society.”
4. Jen Piaget said, “The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men
and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other
generations have done.”
5. Sigmund Freud said, “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk
above water.”
6. Urie Bronfenbrenner said, “We as a nation need to be re-educated about the necessary and
sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be re-educated not as
parents but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations,
committees, boards, and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions
and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
EXPLORE

Challenge your stock knowledge! After answering the short exercise above, write what you
remember most about the ideas of the following theorists. Focus on what you think are their
most important ideas about the development of learners.
SIGMUND FREUD

• He said, “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.”
He believed that much of what the person is really about is not what we see in the outside
and what is conscious.
Freud also emphasized the three components that make up one’s personality;
1. ID- is pleasure-centered
2. EGO- reality-centered
3. SUPEREGO- is related to the ego ideal or conscience
Freud believed that an individual goes through five psychosexual stages of
development.
• Oral
• Anal
• Phallic
• Latency
• Genital
ERIK ERIKSON

• He said, ““Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity
enough not to fear death.” He believed in the impact of the significant others in
the development of one’s view of himself, life and of the world. He presented a
very comprehensive framework of eight psycho-social stages of development.
It is Erikson who described the crisis (expressed in opposite polarities) that a
person goes through; the maladaptations and malignancies that result from
failure to effectively resolve the crisis; and the virtue that emerges when balance
and resolution of the crisis is attained.
PIAGET

• Jen Piaget said, “The principal goal of education in the schools should be
creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply
repeating what other generations have done.”
The four stages of cognitive development
• Sensory-motor
• Pre-operational
• Concrete-operational
• Formal operational
LAWRENCE KOHLBERG

• Lawrence Kohlberg said, “Right action tends to be defined in terms of

general individual rights and standards that have been critically examined
and agreed upon by the whole society.”
• Kohlberg believed that one’s cognitive development influenced the
development of one’s moral reasoning
The three levels of moral development
• Pre-conventional
• Conventional
• Post-conventional
LEV VYGOTSKY

• Lev Vygotsky said, “The teacher must orient his work not on yesterday’s development in
the child but on tomorrow’s.”
• Scaffolding is the systematic manner of providing assistance to the learner that helps the
learner to effectively acquire a skill.
• More knowledgeable other (MKO)
• Zone of proximal development
URIE BRONFENBRENNER

Bioecological Systems Theory

The term “bioecological” points out that a child’s own biological make-up impacts on his/her
development.
• Microsystem
• Mesosystem
• Ecosystem
• Macrosystem
• Chronosystem