Jean Piaget's Theory Case Study

The first scenario to be discussed involved a fourteen year-old female. A high school freshman that is obviously concerned about her academic progress, she (and presumably her parents) have noticed that she performs better academically in courses where she has face-to-face instruction rather than in the classes which only convene online. The question is: how would Jean Piaget and B. F. Skinner explain the academic discrepancies between the two different academic presentations?

Jean Piaget was a Twentieth century Swiss psychologist and was the first psychologist to systematically study the cognitive development of children. Thomas (2005) wrote that early in Piaget’s career he worked with children and his observations and interactions with

According to Thomas (2005), Piaget 's theory was based upon both the natural maturation of the child and stages, which means the concept of the child’s readiness is paramount; which is when certain topics should be taught. According to Piaget there are certain concepts that should not be taught to a child until he or she has reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development. Secondly, assimilation and accommodation require the child to be actively engaged, because Piaget believed that problem-solving skills can only be discovered by the learner, not taught (pp. 216-9). Furthermore, Piaget conceived the classroom as being student-centered with the teacher as the facilitator, one who: emphasizes the learning process, not the results; guides the lesson; uses collaborative and individual activities, devises meaningful learning problems, and creates tasks suitable for the child’s level of development (Schcolnik, Kol, & Abarbanel, 2016, p.

McLeod (2015) wrote “[the] obvious advantage of [operant conditioning] is its ability to clearly define behavior and to measure changes in behavior [and thus it] looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a very scientific standpoint”. Skinner believed that a simple way to shape behavior is to provide feedback on learner performance by means of approval, compliments, encouragement, et al. According to Thomas (2005), when a student begins learning a new task, reinforcement (praise) should occur frequent intervals, and as the performance improves reinforcement occurs less frequently, until eventually only exceptional outcomes will receive any reinforcement. An undesired behavior can be quenched by being simply ignored by the teacher instead of being reinforced by having attention drawn to it, which is not an easy task. Furthermore, knowledge of success is extremely important as it serves to motivate a student’s future learning. However, it is also vital to vary the type of reinforcement given so that the behavior is maintained (p. 122-125). Vargas (2009) wrote that “teaching [is] designing circumstances that change the way others behave. Teaching deals with behavior. All behavior” (p. 5). Thus, it is with the implementation of proper contingencies designed to correct misbehavior that true