Week 3 – Discussion

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Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Compare and Contrast the Theories of Piaget and Vygotsky [WLOs: 1, 2] [CLOs: 1, 4]

Prior to completing this discussion, read Chapter 7 in your textbook and Piaget’s Enduring Contribution to Developmental Psychology article, and watch the Play: A Vygotskian approach and Piaget’s Stages of Development (Links to an external site.)

Jean Piaget is probably the most influential theorist in the cognitive development realm. His work has informed American educational practices since the early 1900s. Another key cognitive theorist in the realm is Lev Vygotsky. Interestingly, Vygotsky and Piaget were contemporaries (both were born in 1896), but for many years, Piaget’s theory dominated. The fact that Vygotsky died at age 37, while Piaget lived to be 84, might be part of that explanation. But Vygotsky’s ideas gained traction in the 1980s when educators began to question long held Piagetian ideas. Nevertheless, both theories are important to the study of cognitive development. In your initial post of 300 words minimum,

· Provide a brief overview of Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s child and adolescent cognitive developmental theories.

· Compare and contrast these theories as they relate to child and adolescent development by identifying at least one commonality in the two theories and two major conceptual differences (Table 7.2 in your textbook will be useful here).

· Determine which of the two theories you most support and provide a rationale for your choice.

Your discussion post must use at least one credible source.

Guided Response: Review your peers’ posts and respond to at least two of your peers in substantive posts of at least 100 words each by Day 7. Choose posts that presented different conceptual differences than you did or classmates who supported a different theory than you. Ask further questions about their response to encourage them to think of different points of view and reflect on their statements in another way. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7 and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post.