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Running Head: Theorist Paper Theorist Paper (Authors Name ( (Institutions Name (Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist is best known for his research in developmental psychology. He worked with the administration of intelligence tests to children. Piaget was interested in the types of mistakes children of various ages were likely to make. He theorized that cognitive development proceeds in four genetically determined stages that always follow the same sequential order. Although best known for his groundbreaking work in developmental psychology, Piaget wrote on a number of other topics as well.
Piaget focused on the applications of dialectics and structuralism in the behavioral sciences. Piaget was interested in how people understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. His theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms rules that are not necessarily understood but promise a solution, or heuristics rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships.
He tried to reach a greater understanding of human memory and language. (Piaget, 2000) John Dewey was an American philosopher and educator. His original philosophy, called instrumentalism, bears a relationship to the utilitarian and pragmatic schools of thought. Instrumentalism holds that the various modes and forms of human activity are instruments developed by human beings to solve multiple individual and social problems. Since the problems are constantly changing, the instruments for dealing with them must also change. Truth, evolutionary in nature, partakes of no transcendental or eternal reality and is based on experience that can be tested and shared by all who investigate. Dewey conceived of democracy as a primary ethical value, and he did much to formulate working principles for a democratic and industrial society. (Dewey, 1997) In education John Dewey's influence has been a leading factor in the abandonment of authoritarian methods and in the growing emphasis upon learning through experimentation and practice.
In revolt against abstract learning, Dewey considered education as a tool that would enable the citizen to integrate culture and vocation effectively and usefully. Dewey actively participated in movements to forward social welfare and woman's suffrage, protect academic freedom, and effect political reform. Piaget's contributions to education fall in three main areas: He emphasizes the importance of activity in the growth of intelligence. He explores in depth the growth of the child's thinking in relation to certain universals in the contents of human experience such as the nature of objects, space, time, motion, chance, causality, moral responsibility, and social awareness. He proposes that certain underlying, pervasive logical mathematical structures are found repeatedly in these diverse content areas. (Day, Mosher & Youngman, 1999) Jean Piaget and John Dewey's educational theories come together in the fact, that as Piaget says only by reinventing a theory can the child understand it, applies equally well to all adults. If the teacher is to understand what he is doing, he must invent it; he can neither invent it well nor understand it if he does not understand the child.
In inventing the teacher must use alternative methods that are interesting and appealing to a child and not use authoritarian or conventional methods as theorized by John Dewey. Conventional educational methods stop a childs imagination from growing and he does not develop his own personality but is conditioned to believe age old thoughts and beliefs. (Berger, 2000) References Berger, Kathleen Stassen. (2000) The Developing Person Through the Life Span, Worth Publishers. Piaget, Jean. (2000) The Psychology of the Child, Basic Books Dewey, John. (1997) Democracy And Education, Free Press. Day, James M. , Ralph L.
Mosher and Deborah J. Youngman (1999), Human Development across the Life Span: Educational and Psychological Applications, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.
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Research essay sample on Jean Piaget Developmental Psychology
