Cognitive Development: Jean Piaget And Lev Vygotsky

Cognitive Development is the development of the mind; the change of the way a person processes information and the way that a person thinks. The study of Cognitive Development has brought forth findings concerning brain growth. In the private piano lesson, the instructor can use the study of Cognitive Development to use, utilizing such information as critical periods and findings of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Critical periods are certain periods in the development of a person that present rapid brain growth and can lead to increased learning in certain areas. A form of critical periods, sensitive periods, are when a person has an increased learning speed in a subject, such as language. The sensitive period for music is generally agreed
Piaget said that, because of inherent tendencies for adaptation and organization, humans create schemes. Schemes are structures that are either behavioral, cognitive, or verbal; that guide behavior. Schemes help tell a person the function of something, such as the keys on the piano and what to sit on. The instructor can use this information in the private piano lesson so as to help the student develop schemes to make their understanding of the piano greater and for them to have fewer troubles with piano basics in the future. The instructor will also know when the student is having an “off day”, and activating the incorrect schema, and possibly has the chance to help the student start activating the correct schema to make the lesson more efficient for both parties. Piaget also discussed the need for equilibrium in Cognitive Development. Equilibration is the process of accommodating and organizing information into schema so that one can understand
His studies were based more on social than individual. Vygotsky expressed the need for interpsychological and intrapsychological processes. He also emphasized that language was the key to cognitive development. The instructor of the lesson can use Vygotsky’s findings and apply them in the lesson, such as letting the student have time for private speech, allowing the student to internalize the information they were just presented in order to understand it better. The instructor can also find the student’s current zone of proximal development, such as the student can play the C major scale on their own, but regularly miss the accidental in the G major scale. The instructor can then provide scaffolding to help the student realized that they are missing the note and that the student needs to correct the problem without the instructor just saying it out loud. Using findings from Cognitive Development Theory of Educational Psychology, the instructor can more successfully understand the student’s mind and base their teaching on where the student is in stage of cognitive development, if they are in disequilibrium or equilibrium, and where the student’s zone of proximal development is, among other things. This will help make each and every lesson with the student more potent and allow the student to move along at a rate that fits their cognitive development