Learning for everyone…
   What do theories say about children’s development?
   There are many theories about how children 
    learn and develop.
   An awareness of these theories will help the 
    Teaching Assistant understand children’s needs.
   Recognising how these theories influence 
    practice in schools will help the Teaching 
    Assistant identify strategies for maximising 
    children’s development.
  Learning for everyone…
           Cognitive theory
   Looks at how children learn and understand new 
    concepts
   Famous theorists include Piaget and Vygotsky
   Learning for everyone…
                   Jean Piaget 
   
    Recognised that children have different learning processes to adults
   
    Children learn through developing ‘schemas’ (building blocks of knowledge)
   
    Children’s intellectual development is a process of adaptation to the world, which includes:
   Assimilation
   – Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation. 
   Accommodation
   – This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be 
   changed to deal with a new object or situation. 
   Equilibration 
   –This is the force which moves development along, and is disrupted by assimilation when new 
   schemas are added
   Piaget therefore believed that children need to hands on experiences in order to construct their 
   own understanding .  This is reflected in the Foundation Phase.
   Learning for everyone…
            Piaget continued…
    Piaget believed children go through four stages of 
     development
     Sensorimotor – 0-2 years
      Key feature – object permanence
     Preoperational – 2-7 years
      Key feature – Egocentrism
     Concrete operational – 7-11 years
      Key feature – Conservation
      Formal operational – 11yrs+
      Key feature – Manipulate ideas in head e.g. abstract reasoning
  Learning for everyone…
            Lev Vygotsky
   Vygotsky believed in social constructivism
   Interactions from others support children’s construction 
    of their own learning
   Believed learning was ‘scaffolded’ by the More 
    Knowledgable Other (M.K.O.)
   Developed the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development 
    (Z.P.D.) – the distance between what a child can do 
    independently and what they can achieve with support
   Reflected in practice by children learning through active 
    involvement and the support given by the adult