In our check-in, we discussed the developmental learning theories and focused specifically on Jean Piaget, Albert Bandura, and Lev Vygotsky.

Jean Piaget – Stages of Cognitive Development

We will focus in this course on the first two stages:

• Sensorimotor stage (0-2.5)
• In this stage, in brief, infants and toddlers are learning about the world around them through their senses and their motor skills. Some ways that we understand how babies are understanding the world around them in through object permanence (Links to an external site.).
• Preoperational Stage (2.5-7)
• In this stage, the preschooler and young elementary school children will learn about the world around them mostly through imaginary/pretend play. In addition, children see and understand concepts in a different way than older children and adults do -What Piaget called conservation tasks lets us see how this plays out.

Albert Bandura – developed the Social Learning Theory – he was mostly focused on how children imitate what they see around them Here is an example of his famous, Bobo the Clown experiment.

Finally, we looked at Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Here Vygotsky emphasized that children learn in community with others. They learn from adult guides and from their peers and older children who have masted the tasks that they are exploring.  Children, according to Vygotsky, need support, scaffolding, to help them get to a place where they are able to learn a new task. When they have the foundation that they need to be able to tackle a new task, but they still need some adult support, this is called the zone of proximal development (ZPD). 

Now, please think about how each of these theories might help a teacher in a classroom with young children and respond the questions below.

• How can an educator use these theories to support the children in their class?
• How might taking each of these theories into consideration cause a teacher to respond differently to a child?
• How might you set up a classroom thinking about a child in the preoperational stage of cognitive development, a child who learns from those around them and needs to be in their zone of proximal development to learn, and a child who will imitate the behavior that they see all around them?

Read the posts of at least two classmates – 

• Could you connect with their responses?
• Do you have any questions about their understanding? 

• How can an educator use these theories to support the children in their class?

Educators can use these theories to help support children by using the concepts learned from these theories and applying them in their daily activities in class. This includes supporting the students and