Summary of Applications to Teaching from the Symposium Forum Discussion:
The following is a far from exhaustive summary of the discussion threads on the ETEC 512 discussion on Developmental Approaches to Learning group 64B. The discussion on each theorist has been summarized, but when looking at their applications to education as a whole, a quote from one of the posts by Brenda Courey is an excellent overall summary: “A good variety of teaching methods ensures that all learning styles and preferences can be addressed”.
PIAGET:
Piaget’s Stages of Development continue to offer some educational strategies and insights into learning. However, many examples of students who do not fit into the correct age for their developmental stage may indicate that the ages as stated by Piaget are not absolute. Early home life experiences, such as being read to, may influence how quickly a child progresses through the stages. If students of the same age are at different stages, Differentiated Instruction (developed by Carol Ann Tomlinson) is one method for meeting these students’ needs within one classroom.
How Piaget’s stages apply with students who are using and/or learning a second language is open to interpretation. Is it possible for a student to be at one stage in one language and another in a second language or are students at one stage and just unable to articulate it in a second language? Does it depend on your interpretation of how learning a second language works?
Piaget states that some adults do not reach the Formal Operational Stage. If this is true, these adults may want to choose career paths that lend themselves to more concrete thinking. Some adults also seem to be at the Formal Operational Stage in some areas but not in others. This does not fit perfectly with traditional Piaget Stage Theory but works well with the concept of different types of intelligences. Some new brain research seems to indicate that, in younger adults, not reaching the Formal Operational Stage could be because their brains have not yet gone through the final stages of neurological development.
VYGOTSKY:
Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is often used both intentionally and intuitively by educators and by parents. It has many useful applications in education and can be particularly effective in homogenous groups and when scaffolding is employed properly. Careful scaffolding leads to easy and understandable evaluation and lends itself to many Assessment for Learning techniques. Like Discovery Learning, teaching to the ZPD often requires more time and careful planning by the teacher. Adults need to allow the students to be responsible for their own learning and to avoid allowing the students to become too dependent on the scaffolding. In order to use the ZPD, teachers need to know what background knowledge the student already has. This is not always practical in large classes and sometimes the gaps in knowledge are so great that scaffolding to the new concept becomes impossible. The use of peers as “more knowledgeable others” can be helpful.
The concept of individual education plans for each student is ideal, but impractical and could potentially lead to isolation if every student were working independently. Grouping students by level, rather than by age, could be more practical in terms of individualizing educational plans, but does not work well as a large scale concept in our current system and may hinder socialization. Online learning opportunities may be useful in creating somewhat individual plans for students and for enrichment. The use of Differentiated Instruction, offering choices of material and areas of interest and altering instruction and expectations to suit individual students, may be a good compromise to completely individualized instruction plans.
The use of technical tools impacts students’ development. For example, the use of technology has had a dramatic impact on many students with various physical and/or learning disabilities. A second example is the impact of texting on students’ grammar and spelling on formal assignments.
BRUNER:
Discovery Learning (DL) is a valuable teaching method when used as a part of a balanced approach featuring a number of teaching methods. Stronger, self-motivated students benefit from DL but weaker students, or students lacking motivation, may need extra support or guidance. Teachers need to help students avoid “wandering” and to ensure that more assertive students do not control the learning. There also needs to be follow-up from the teacher to ensure that the conclusion discovered is accurate. DL takes more time than other methods and careful pre-planning by the teacher but can lead to deeper understanding. Time constraints are an issue for many courses and sometimes discourage teachers from using DL.
DL is an excellent choice of teaching methods when teaching adult learners as adult learners are mostly self-motivated and self-regulating when it comes to “wandering”. For language learning, online virtual worlds can be effective DL experiences if they can be conducted in a controlled environment. Real world problem situations that adult students work through using DL, modelling and scaffolding can be extremely effective.