For this assignment, you will investigate and reflect on learning theories as it relates to brain-based teaching and learning.

Jean Piaget wrote and published his first scientific paper featuring the albino sparrow at age 11. He was a brilliant scientist revered by many and is best known for his research on cognitive development. As you read about Piaget, ask yourself how the stages apply to your classroom, workplace or family. For the early childhood/elementary teacher, you will want to focus on object permanence, one-way logic, reversible thinking, semiotic functions, and conservation. For middle/high school teachers, you will want to focus on concrete operations, identity, compensation, reversibility, classification, seriation, adolescent egocentrism, formal operations, etc. For the private or public professional, select any topic appropriate to your life, family or workplace.

Lev Vygotsky was a tormented, frustrated young teacher in Russia. Desperate for answers to improve his teaching, he began seeking answers by studying learning and development. He swiftly became a recognized researcher, but was banned in Russia because of his references to Western psychologists. His all-too-brief life yielded a treasure trove of remarkable research on the sociocultural perspective we continue to use today. Vygotsky’s ideas about language, culture and cognitive development continue to be major influences in sociopsychology today. "Vygotsky assumed that ‘every function in a child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level and later on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)’" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57, in Woolfolk, 2002, p. 44).

Erik Erikson was an interesting enigma of a researcher who sought answers as much for himself as he did for others. Born into shame as an illegitimate child in Frankfurt, Germany, the product of a married man and single mother, he spent his life focused on researching one’s identity. His parents kept his identity secret, but he was tormented at temple school for being tall, blonde, and blue-eyed and teased at grammar school for being a Jew. During his early professional life he became acquainted with Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud; there began his exposure to and learning of psychoanalysis. He also studied the Montessori Method of education while in Vienna. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he and his wife emigrated first to Denmark and then to the United States, where he became the first child psychoanalyst in Boston. It is important to note that he and his wife spent a year on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota as he developed his theories of child development and the ego. Erikson developed the Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development. As you read, reflect on Erikson’s stage progression, your own life, noting transitions, changes, new developments, etc. See if Erikson’s theory correlates to your experience!

Respond to the following in three to four paragraphs.

What would Gladwell and Jensen say about Piaget, Vygotsky and Erikson? Consider the following as you answer:

How might these theorists’ ideas impact your classroom (or life or family) and influence the strategies you currently use?

How might a student (or other person) advance to the “next level” or stage of development?

Summarize the theorists’ ideas to show how they support or might be used in a learning environment.

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