Research Journal Assignment #13a: Field Research

I conducted a two part study for my field research. The first part was a simple survey of some educators that I know. The second part was an interview with my uncle, Bob Elliott, who has been a teacher for over 20 years.

The questions asked in my survey were:

1. What age are you teaching?
2. What ages have you taught?
3. In your classroom are you more likely to allow your students to make their own investigations or do you prefer to provide guided instruction?
4. Do you think that development in children is culture specific?

The answers I received from my survey were:

1. Varying ranges but mostly sixth grade and under
2. Again it varied but fell closer to the younger side of schooling
3. Out of everyone I surveyed only one person said they are more likely to allow their students to make their own investigations while the rest concluded that children need lots of modeling and guidance, especially when they are younger.
4. Every educator I surveyed concluded that development in children is in fact culture specific.

As stated, I interviewed Bob Elliot, who has been an educator in the state of Hawaii for over 20 years and has taught K-12 and graduate level courses in his teaching career, with a good portion spent in grades five and six. I asked him similar questions to what I had asked in the survey but in more depth and he provided a lot of good information. Just to sample a couple of answers he wrote this:

"At the elementary level all activities are instructor driven with specific responses required but accommodations allowed based on different learning styles."

"Most significant to note here is that students are individuals. Birth order in the family, medical conditions, relationships with siblings and parents, number of parents in the house, climate, and socio-economic status all contribute to a student's readiness to learn. Even within the same culture, some children absorb knowledge independently while others require repetition, longer learning periods, and varied examples before the same content begins to penetrate the student's organizational thought patterns that lead to an assimilation of base knowledge that builds a base of knowledge for higher level content learning."

I will utilize both the survey and the more in depth interview to further my argument in the paper.

Research Journal #12b: Presentation Plan

For my presentation I will be presenting part of my body to the class. I am not sure which argument I will present to the class but I am leaning toward presenting the third argument of my paper about the social construction of development. I will also include intro slides about the background information on both Piaget and Vygotsky because this may be a foreign concept to some classmates. I will probably try to incorporate outside pictures or at least a common background for each slide. By giving a background introduction to the class they will be able to follow along with the rest of the presentation. I will probably devote my first two slides to the history of these two psychologists and then use the next five or six slides for discussing my argument.

Research Journal #12a: Progress Report

Progress Report

What I Have Accomplished:

• Acquired all my print sources
• Written the Formal Outline
• Written the Introduction to my Paper
• Started my Works Cited Page
• Conducted Field Research/Survey

What I Still Need to Do:

• Finish Paper
• Find periodical article
• Prepare for Presentation
• Create Visual Aids

Detailed Schedule for Completing Research Paper:

• Write a page per day until completed with Draft
• Compile Survey Results into a table of sorts
• Create slide show online for Presentation this weekend
  

Research Journal Assignment #11c: Thesis Statement Check

I checked Dominique's and Zach's Thesis Statements

Research Journal Assignment #11b: Visual Aids

Possible Visual Aids for Research Paper: Table of Piaget's Stages of Development, Picture of Piaget's idea of conservation, Table of Vygotsky's Stages of Development in Language, Curriculum or Purpose Statements from different Schools

Research Journal Assignment #10b: Argument

Thesis Statement: Lev Vygotsky's theory of developmental education provides a more versatile foundation to be used in schools due to its innovative concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development, Vygotskian play throughout development, and societal impacts on development.

Reason 1: Zone of Proximal Development

Warrant: Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development provides more reason for his theory to be applied over Piaget's because the ZPD allows both for Piaget's idea of intrinsically motivated students and those that need a little aid. With the ZPD students are aided by more competent individuals, not strictly the teacher. The ZPD states that students need to be stretched outside of what their current capabilities are in order to learn the next step. The ZPD stresses continuous growth from point to point.

Reason 2: Vygotskian Paly

Warrant: Through great deals of research it has been discovered that play enhances the learning in children. As stated by Cognitive Development Psychologist Robert Mead, play teaches children how to take on the role of the "generalized other" and aids in socialization and the development of social skills in children. Vygotsky emphasizes that students learn through play for life and not only in the stages that Piaget outlines that play occurs in.

Reason 3: Societal Impacts on Development

Warrant: Education is an essential agent in the socialization of children. Vygotsky emphasized the nurture side of development in children whereas Piaget emphasized a more nature development approach. Piaget posed that development happens in distinct, age appropriate stages that occur in biologically analogous times for every child. Vygotsky however disagreed with Piaget here, Vygotsky believed that children develop in culturally different ways that change from society to society and are not confined by age or stage.

Possible Objections:

1. Piaget's idea of intrinsic motivation can be proved in school like Montesori

Refutation: Although this can be true for some students, it is not uniform and can be idealistic too often.

2. Piaget's emphasizes play just as much as Vygotsky

Refutation: Vygotsky emphasizes play to a much greater extent than Piaget and it is part of the foundation of Vygotsky's theories of development

3. Piaget's stages of development are proven

Refutation: Although Piaget's stages can be proven and tend to work for most children, they are again not uniform in their development and children develop on their own pace. Piaget did not take into account socialization as Vygotsky did, making his theory more relevant.

Research Journal Assignment #10a: Thesis Statement

Research Question: Should either Jean Piaget's or Lev Vygotsky's theory of developmental education be installed more fundamentally in schools?
Claim: The theory proposed by Lev Vygotsky is more relevant and viable in its application to school systems.
Reasons: (1) Vygotsky's idea of the Zone of Proximal Development accounts for how students are guided in their learning and compliments Piaget's idea of intrinsic motivation where it can be somewhat idealistic (2) Vygotskian Play is stressed throughout the development of learning whereas Piaget stressed it primarily in the senrsorimotor stage (3) Vygotsky's emphasis on nurture's influence on development over nature in developmental through his huge sociological focus offers a flexible and more individualized reasoning for how students develop as opposed to a set structure as Piaget proposed.

Thesis Statement: Lev Vygotsky's theory of developmental education provides a more versatile foundation to be used in schools due to its innovative concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development, Vygotskian play throughout development, and societal impacts on development.

Research Journal Assignment #5a: Finding Reference Articles

I searched Encylopedia (Infoplease.com)
with the keyword: Jean Piaget
I had no real search strategy, this was simply a broad search to see what I might find and I searched it on Thursday September 17, 2009.
I had 120 hits with varying relevance but the articles I looked up had a decent relevancy around 3.5 or 4 to my research.

The Article I pulled up was a Biography of Piaget's life and the background into his career, written by Who2 and copywritten in 2007 by Pearson Education.

I then refined by search on the same site by using the search string: Jean Piaget AND Theory AND Education on Thursday September 17, 2009 and I still recieved 120 hits but this time there were only about seven that appeared at the top with all the words I put into the search and the article I found was of a relevance of around 3.5 to my research.

The Article I investigated was an article on Educational Theory and Development and the big names that helped futher this field, including Piaget. It was written by W.F. Connel in A History of Education in the Twentieth Century World in 1980 and presented by the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia the 6th Edition copywritten in 2007 by Columbia University Press.

On Gale Virtual Reference Library Database on the Auraria Library site I found an article about the lives of Piaget and Vygotsky and thier research careers. I found this using the keywords: Jean Piaget AND Lev Vygotsky. I found it on Thursday September 17, 2009. This provided me with 12 hits that had a relevance of 5.

The main article of interest to me on Piaget was by Fernando Vidal in the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography volume 24 pages 90-96. It was published in Detroit, MI in 2008 by the Charles Scribner's Sons Publishers. The piece on Vygotsky was written by Rene van der Veer on pages 192-197.

On Gale Virtual Reference Library I also found another biographical article and information article on both Piaget and his relation to Vygotsky. I found it using the same keywords as before: Jean Piaget AND Lev Vygotsky. I found it again on Thursday September 17, 2009. Again I had twelve hits and they were of a relevance of 5 to my research.

This article on Piaget was written by Kristen Krapp in Psychologists and Their Theories for Students volume 2 and this article spans pages 345-372. It was copywritten in 2005 and published in Detroit, MI by Cengage Learning.

Also using Gale Virtual Reference Library I found an encylopedia on psychology of classroom learning in which both Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories are outlined. I found it using the same keywords as before: Jean Piaget AND Lev Vygotsky. I found it on Thursday September 17, 2009 with 12 hits each with a relevance of 5 to my research.

This entry in the encylopedia was edited by Eric Anderman and Lynley Anderman in the Psychology of Classroom Learning: an Encylopedia. The Piaget article was written by Dorothy Singer and the article by Vygotsky was written by Mary Gauvain. It was copywritten in 2009 and published in Detroit, MI by Macmillan Reference USA. This article spans pages 181-205 in volume 1.

Research Journal Assignment #3b: Narrowing Research Topic

When we were first introduced to the idea of writing a research paper about whatever topic we would like from our field of interest, I was eager to begin and I had so many possible topics running through my mind. I am majoring in Human Development and studying Education as I want to become an Elementary School teacher. So at first I decided I would really like to discuss the topic of education. After I thought about this topic some more I realized that this topic was much too broad in its focus and that I needed to narrow the scope because there are so many different facets to the greater context of Education. I began narrowing my topic down before class on Tuesday September first and class that day only re-enforced what I had decided for my topic. I have settled on comparing and contrasting Piaget's theory of Developmental Psychology to Vygotsky's after narrowing down my topic and I am much more comfortable and prepared now.

Research Journal Assignment #3a: Exploring Research Topic

I did a little research into the basics of the theories and what the main points are for each one. Upon doing the research I found the fundamental differences in each. In order to begin this research I looked on Technorati, Google, and Wikipedia. These sites then directed me to more appropriate sites to find the information I was looking for. Lastly I book marked the sites I found useful to my research and sites I might want to revisit on my Delicious account, providing an accurate description of what I found on these sites.

Piaget's Theory stresses:

• Child led learning/hands on experience
• Assimilation and Accommodation as a form of learning new information
• Schemas as ways to classify information
• Stages through which children progress cognitively in their development
• And operation and play as a form of learning

While Vygotsky's Theory stresses:

• Adult facilitated learning
• The idea of the zone of proximal development as a form of learning new information
• Belief in self talk as means to further understanding
• Emphasized the society and culture's role in conditioning learners
• He also marked language as the key tool in development

Research Journal Assignment #2c: Delicious Account

My Delicious Account