Article Review: A COMPARISON OF THE MASTERS
Emmanuel Matthiews
Liberty University: Advanced Educational Psychology 500
7/7/42
As an educator, is it important to analyze and compare bodies of work so that research effectiveness can be determined. In essence, the meta-cognitive process of a professional requires the professional to be able to synthesize information studied quickly in order to apply skills learned with “real life” classroom or workshop experiences. In this paper, the author owill compare the work of three famous education pioneers to determine why their research is held as being valid enough to be examined by countless educational practitioners.
Erickson
The first article in review is titled "Identity Development Throughout the lifetime An Examination of Erikson Theory.” It was written by Justin Sokol. This article reviews identity Development from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Erikson theories go into all three stages. He illustrates the identity development of all three stages. In reviewing the literature of identity. there is very little agreement on how identity is defined (Bosma,Graafsma,Groterant and de Levita ,1994) . In this article, Erikson's psychosocial theory is composed of eight developmental stages. Each of the eight stages present a different challenge. Erikson placed a great deal of time researching social culture factors that strongly influences learners. Thus, the influence of Erik Erikson (1902-1994) has stimulated over 50 years of social science literature (Schwartz 2001). His theories on development have inspired countless research studies making him an especially relevant figure in the field (Kroger,2007) Vygotsky

Are there any differences between the way the students learn in the 20 century versus the 21st-century? Observing Vygotsky’s work, some may notice that there is a big difference between the two. Understanding Vygotsky theories of social - cultural approach can help answer that question. Basically, there are four basic principles to the Vygotskian Framework. They are as follows: Children construct their knowledge. Development cannot be separated from a social context. Learning can lead to development. Language plays a central role in mental development. In today classroom, students learn and live through today’s media savvy world. Rapid development of technologies has bought many exciting changes to life in this new millennium so there is a new challenge for schools (Douglas Keller, UCLA). Students are more focused on learning on their media than anything else. In the case study, used in this literature review, they use a e-learning and scaffolding to help students acquire information. Within this article, the three types of scaffolds used were : Conceptual scaffold ,strategic and procedural scaffolds. The conceptual scaffold helps a student organize work or ideas to the information provided. The specific scaffolds help students to ask more questions. All in all, the 21st century learners are helped by a wide variety of knowledge, technology, and shared information to help them with their ability to solve complex questions.
The other aspect of Vygotsky's work is that potential for cognitive development is determined by their zone of proximal development. Teachers need to be able to understand this in order to keep kids engaged, scaffold learning, and bring the students to a level where they can demonstrate independence in doing the task. If students still need additional assistance, they can get extra assistance with their ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) by using other strategies like private speech. Basically, there are many things that can help students to get in their zone of learning and develop cognitively. Vygotsky did a good job in getting this point across because his methods are used in classrooms throughout the