1. Can you change a student’s Piagetian stage by giving them more challenging tasks? Can you scaffold (using Vygotsky techniques) a 2 year old so that he, within a few months, shows abstract and hypothetical thought? [Is it possible to have a 2 year old think in abstract and hypothetical ways?]
2. Behaviorism says that everything can be learned through paired associations. CAN everything be learned in this way? Why or why not? [To me, it seems obvious that everything can't be learned through Behaviorism and paired associations, because if it could, then everyone would learn through behaviorism and there wouldn't be any other learning theories...or is this a misconception/misunderstanding as well?]
3. [this is my own question] Can someone explain again the application of classical conditioning?
Thanks!
3. Classical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was introduced by Pavolv. There are different things that are associated with classical conditioning. First you have neutral stimilus paired with a unconditioned stimilus, which results in a unconditioned response. As time goes on as the unconditioned stimulus and neutral stimilus keeps being paired the person is being conditioned to give a response. Then over time the person automatically thinks that when the neutral stimilus is present the unconditioned stimilus will appear and which will cause unconditioned response. As this keeps being repeated the person will eventually perform the conditioned response when only the conditioned stimulus is present. So you can apply this to pavlov's experiment with the dogs. He first rings a bell and then presents a bowl of food and then the dog salivates. The bell is neutral stimiuls, the food is unconditioned stimulus, and the salivating is the unconditioned response.Over time the bell becomes the conditioned stimulus because the dogs salivates when the bell rings with out the food. The salivating becomes the conditioned response. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteI think that your first question is one that many people ask, and for a good reason - I don't think there's a definite answer. Piaget would argue that you can't change their stage by giving them more challenging tasks, because development comes before learning. However, Vygotsky would argue that you could, because learning can foster development (his ZPD theory). I, personally, think that there's an in-between. However, I could be wrong, but I don't think that a 2 year old could ever really be in the formal operations stage. There is some method to the ages that Piaget gave to his stages, and I've found in my observations that these age ranges tend to be pretty close to reality. This is the reason why there are two theories, though: because both tend to work, and both tend to make sense. I don't think there's really a right or wrong.
ReplyDelete