Florida DCF: School-Age Appropriate Practices (SAP) Practice Test

Dr. David P. Weikart's approach to active learning is primarily influenced by the theories developed by Jean Piaget. Piaget's work focused on how children develop cognitively by actively engaging with their environment. He proposed that children learn through a series of stages and emphasized the importance of hands-on experiences and interactions in the learning process.

Weikart built upon Piaget's ideas about the active role of children in their learning, promoting educational practices that encourage exploration, experimentation, and self-directed learning. This alignment with Piaget's constructivist principles underscores the belief that learning is most effective when it is an active, rather than passive, process.

In contrast, other theorists such as Freud concentrated on psychosexual development, Pavlov is known for classical conditioning, and Skinner focused on operant conditioning, none of which directly align with the principles of active learning that Weikart emphasized through Piaget's lens. Therefore, Piaget is the correct choice as the foundational theorist for Weikart's active learning approach.