Lev Vygotsky
Sociocultural theory
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is possibly the theory given the most credence at present. Vygotsky believed the child’s culture and their interactions with others is significant in their overall development – especially in relation to cognitive development.
In particular, Vygotsky views a child’s interactions with adults and more able peers as key to their overall development. He believed that a child would internalize dialogues with others and use this information to guide actions and acquisition of new skills on later occasions. From Vygotsky’s perspective learning is dependent on support from adults.
Vygotsky’s socio-cultural approach views humans as being embedded in a sociocultural matrix. As such the environment is not separate from development and consequently one cannot understand human behaviour independently of this ubiquitous matrix.
The sociocultural view balances Piagetian and information processing focus on the individual. Culture defines the knowledge and skills one needs to acquire and gives tools, such as language and technology, and strategies for functioning.
Vygotsky extended Marx and Engels’s ideas about economics and politics:
Vygotsky’s theory highlights discourse and considerations on the need to understand cultural contributions to development, which is increasing in relevance within increasingly multicultural societies and societies showing great race disparities.
Key to Vygotsky’s theory are the notions of private speech, scaffolding and the zone of proximal development. Key ideas
Private speech
Vygotsky believed that in order to learn children must speak to themselves in a self guiding and directing way- initially aloud and later internally. He believed that as children develop and become more competent in a particular area, they begin to internalize this speech and gradually decrease its use. Vygotsky believed that private speech is the foundation for all higher order thinking processes.
Just as we see children talking themselves through learning tasks on a daily basis, we too use forms of private speech in our daily lives. How many times have you spoken these words aloud “Now where did I put the car keys”…., “Now I must remember to…..” Vygotsky believed that children's use of such talk in daily learning tasks was particularly significant in working with difficult concepts and in teaching children with disabilities.
Zone of proximal development
If you recall from our earlier discussion, it was stated that Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory discusses cognitive development as dependent on interaction with adults. Key to this social interaction is the notion of the Zone of Proximal Development. The zone of proximal development refers to the tasks a child is unable to complete alone, but is able to complete with the assistance of an adult. That is the teacher pitches a learning experience for a specific child at a level just beyond his/her current level of performance. In doing this, the child and the teacher engage in cooperative dialogues to enhance learning that the child is able to recall privately when completing a similar task/activity independently. Therefore the child takes in the discussion of the task/activity and uses it as private speech on later occasions.
Scaffolding
Vygotsky’s notion of scaffolding directly relates to his notions of Private Speech and the Zone of Proximal Development. In order for a child to learn new concepts or skills the teacher must provide scaffolds for the learning experience. These scaffolds refer to the changes in social support over the teaching of a concept. Scaffolding is directly linked to the personal needs of the individual. Like scaffolding on a building, supports are withdrawn as individual competence develops. Scaffolding may include physical presence and prompts along with more specific meta-cognitive strategies.
Educational implications
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is possibly the theory given the most credence at present. Vygotsky believed the child’s culture and their interactions with others is significant in their overall development – especially in relation to cognitive development.
In particular, Vygotsky views a child’s interactions with adults and more able peers as key to their overall development. He believed that a child would internalize dialogues with others and use this information to guide actions and acquisition of new skills on later occasions. From Vygotsky’s perspective learning is dependent on support from adults.
Vygotsky’s socio-cultural approach views humans as being embedded in a sociocultural matrix. As such the environment is not separate from development and consequently one cannot understand human behaviour independently of this ubiquitous matrix.
The sociocultural view balances Piagetian and information processing focus on the individual. Culture defines the knowledge and skills one needs to acquire and gives tools, such as language and technology, and strategies for functioning.
Vygotsky extended Marx and Engels’s ideas about economics and politics:
- Humans transform themselves through labour and tools – Interaction with objects and materials direct cognitive development (Both Piaget and Vygotsky believe this but Vygotsky placed more emphasis on social interaction). He also emphasized the cultural origin of physical objects such as machines and toys.
- Socially shared cognition (parallel to the economic collective principle) – the adult collective is responsible for sharing knowledge with children and less advanced members of society (to advance cognitive development).
- Dialectical change – cognitive development throughresolving conflicts (similar to Piaget’s equilibration)
Vygotsky’s theory highlights discourse and considerations on the need to understand cultural contributions to development, which is increasing in relevance within increasingly multicultural societies and societies showing great race disparities.
Key to Vygotsky’s theory are the notions of private speech, scaffolding and the zone of proximal development. Key ideas
- the child is viewed as an active seeker of knowledge;
- the child and environment interact together enabling cognitive development in a culturally adaptive way;
- the mind is perceived to be socially constructed;
- the child is born with basic attentional, perceptual and memory capacities;
- development occurs as a direct result of contact with the environment;
- child as self communicator – leads to higher order thinking;
- language and thought develop independently, but eventually merge and interact.
Private speech
Vygotsky believed that in order to learn children must speak to themselves in a self guiding and directing way- initially aloud and later internally. He believed that as children develop and become more competent in a particular area, they begin to internalize this speech and gradually decrease its use. Vygotsky believed that private speech is the foundation for all higher order thinking processes.
Just as we see children talking themselves through learning tasks on a daily basis, we too use forms of private speech in our daily lives. How many times have you spoken these words aloud “Now where did I put the car keys”…., “Now I must remember to…..” Vygotsky believed that children's use of such talk in daily learning tasks was particularly significant in working with difficult concepts and in teaching children with disabilities.
Zone of proximal development
If you recall from our earlier discussion, it was stated that Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory discusses cognitive development as dependent on interaction with adults. Key to this social interaction is the notion of the Zone of Proximal Development. The zone of proximal development refers to the tasks a child is unable to complete alone, but is able to complete with the assistance of an adult. That is the teacher pitches a learning experience for a specific child at a level just beyond his/her current level of performance. In doing this, the child and the teacher engage in cooperative dialogues to enhance learning that the child is able to recall privately when completing a similar task/activity independently. Therefore the child takes in the discussion of the task/activity and uses it as private speech on later occasions.
Scaffolding
Vygotsky’s notion of scaffolding directly relates to his notions of Private Speech and the Zone of Proximal Development. In order for a child to learn new concepts or skills the teacher must provide scaffolds for the learning experience. These scaffolds refer to the changes in social support over the teaching of a concept. Scaffolding is directly linked to the personal needs of the individual. Like scaffolding on a building, supports are withdrawn as individual competence develops. Scaffolding may include physical presence and prompts along with more specific meta-cognitive strategies.
Educational implications
- Child as an active participant in the learning process.
- Importance of individual difference.
- Assist children in discovery.
- Teachers should guide learning through explanation, demonstration and verbal prompts.
- Tailor lessons to each child's zone of proximal development.
- Early childhood – promote teacher/child and child/child interactions.
- Promote fantasy play.
- Within the learning environment focus on literacy activities.
- Use prompts, reminders, increase independence, give information, use cooperative learning and reciprocal teaching strategies.
Current applications of Vygotsky's work
Instructional methods such as "reciprocal teaching" - Improves students' ability to learn from text. Teacher-Student collaboration in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role is reduced over time.
Instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship" - teachers or more advanced peers structure and arrange tasks/activities for successful completion by a novice.
Influences practices of collaborative learning - mixing groups based on different levels of ability. More advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD’.
Instructional methods such as "reciprocal teaching" - Improves students' ability to learn from text. Teacher-Student collaboration in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role is reduced over time.
Instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship" - teachers or more advanced peers structure and arrange tasks/activities for successful completion by a novice.
Influences practices of collaborative learning - mixing groups based on different levels of ability. More advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD’.
Relationship to Educational Technology
- Learning and Technology should not be separate considerations within technology oriented/designed cultures. However, in non/low technology based cultures much more assistance and research into instructional design need be employed
- A well designed computer program/application can be created to target specific zones of proximal development and can serve as a tutor in scaffolding activities
- Technnology can aid discovery learning. For example using tools such as the internet.
- Technology aids in iconic and symbolic representations. For example, through the use of visuals
- Collaborative learning across cultures and groups are increasing thus broadening the scope for conflicts and social interactions thereby increasing cognitive development
Educational Limitations
- Holding Back - Many schools hold back students who aren't doing as well as they could be. The thought is that this will provide students with a chance to relearn things that they haven't picked up on. However, this actually causes students to either stay at the same level or to regress. When students feel that teachers don't believe they are capable of moving forward, they might actually find themselves regressing to meet expectations. Therefore, holding students back can be a negative scaffolding technique.
- Negativity - Teachers need to be very careful of what they say to students and in front of students. Comments about a student getting his act together, or even jokes about students not comprehending concepts quickly, might be an example of negative scaffolding, because students might tend to believe the things that teachers say about them. Therefore, this is something that should be avoided.
- Inclusion - Some policies in schools include keeping students who aren't performing up to par out of activities like field trips, extracurricular activities or even after-school programs. In fact, these extra events and activities are often the only things that students are looking forward to and, thus, might be a motivating factor in their performing better than expected. Therefore, excluding kids from activities can really be a negative scaffolding example and should be avoided. Instead, attention should be paid to students to help them earn these things, instead of using their poor performance as a reason to exclude them.
- Too Much or Too Little - Good scaffolding is something that gives students just enough of a push to get them to the next level in their learning. Therefore, if a teacher attempts to get a student from one place to another that is too far away, the student might become lost. Also, if a teacher does not expect a student to get very far, the student won't get far at all. Therefore, expecting too much or too little of students can be negative scaffolding.
- Not Evaluating - The biggest negative scaffolding example is simply not knowing where your students are, and so not being able to push them to the next level. In order for teachers to be good at scaffolding, they must know exactly where each of their students are at all times. Not evaluating is one of the worst things you can do if you are trying to scaffold learning.
Exercise
Try to complete the following exercise. Please try to complete the first part before trying the second part. Use a much prior knowledge as possible in both tasks.
- Scaffolding Exercise
- When you have completed the exercise, please post the following question in the discussion forum under Vygotsky:
-How did Vygotsky's theories revolutionize teaching and what do you think were the limitations of his theories?
