Everyone has different qualities and different skills that contribute to the world today. However, with these differences there are a few similarities found between them. Jean Piaget and Howard Gardner shares some things in common with each other. Both have similarities and differences between their lives and work.
Jean Piaget and Howard Gardner are both very influential people in the field of education. Jean Piaget was born in 1896 and died in 1980. Howard Gardner was born around a half a century later in 1943; he is still alive today and looked up to Piaget’s work. (Biography.com Editors) Both men were psychologists; Piaget was also a biologist. Piaget focused on child psychology, while Gardner studies developmental psychology. However,…show more content… Jean Piaget created four separate stages in which a child develops, it is known as the theory of cognitive development. The stages start when a child is born and goes up to around 15 years old. The first stage in sensorimotor, which occurs from birth to the age of two. During this stage the baby learns through motor activities and about the environment. From the age of three to seven the child is in the preoperational stage. During this time the child uses their natural intuition to learn. During the ages of 8-11, the child is considered to be in the concrete operational stage where they use concrete evidence in their learning. The last stage a child is in is formal operations from the age of 12-15. During this age the child is able to learn using abstract thinking. Piaget was also interested in how children organized the information they learn. (Biography.com Editors) He created the process of adaption which consists of assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is when a child learns something new. The child than connects it with something they have already learned. Accommodation is when a child learns a new idea. The child doesn’t have something to connect this new idea to. This results in the child adapting to understand the brand new information. (Atherton) Overall, he noticed that young children learned differently than older…show more content… His theory is called multiple intelligences. He believed instead of one general intelligence people have many different types of intelligences and ways of learning. The eight steps are: visual-spatial intelligence, linguistic-verbal intelligence, mathematical intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence. Each one centers around a specific idea. For example, linguistic-verbal intelligence focuses on reading, writing and speaking. While musical intelligence focuses on expressing oneself through music and dance. His multiple intelligence theory really influenced education. Teachers learned to teach subjects and make lessons that focused on more than one intelligence so everyone would be able to thoroughly understand the topic being taught. (Cherry)
Even though both of their theories had to do with intelligence they were a little different. Piaget focused on how intelligence was developed through out a child’s lifetime. He focused on what a child was capable of doing at a specific time. This impacts the level that the child needs to be taught. (Biography.com Editors) While Gardner focused more on the types of intelligences each child has. He noticed not all children have the same types of intelligence. This results in being taught in different ways to understand a topic.