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The Social and Technological Dimensions of Scaffolding and Related Theoretical Concepts for Learning, Education, and Human Activity: Journal of the Learning Sciences: Vol 13, No 3

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support scaffolding BUT too few studies to be certain 

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support scaffolding BUT too few studies to be certain 

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This content analysis of articles in the Social Science Citation Index journals from 1995 to 2009 was conducted to provide science educators with empirical evidence regarding the effects of scaffolding on science learning. It clarifies the definition, design, and implementation of scaffolding in science classrooms and research studies. The results show important cross-study evidence that most researchers have adopted a qualitative approach (67.44%), focused on learning context (72.09%), and used high school students as participants (53.49%). In designing scaffoldings, researchers have shown a preference for long-term explicit scaffolding using multiple representations to promote procedural and strategic skills and alternative assessments of learner performance. Nevertheless, scaffolding issues related to teacher education are unexpectedly few (11.63%) in empirical research. The results also indicate that there are too few studies to guide researchers in considering fading scaffolds for active learning (9.30%). Future directions and suggestions toward conducting research regarding scaffolding are provided.

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Social Scaffolding (evaluation of empirical evidence in science education) 

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Social Scaffolding (evaluation of empirical evidence in science education) 

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Article supporting scaffolding. Examples and effectiveness in classroom.

A task:  Sequence 1: Learning to categorize seashells

Teachers guided student and 'drove ideas' out of him when he

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Scaffolding evidence:)

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The zone of proximal development (ZPD) refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

It represents tasks beyond the learner's current abilities but are attainable with the help and guidance of the more knowledgeable other (MKO)). The ZPD is the range of tasks a person can't complete independently but can accomplish with support.

Thus, the term "proximal" refers to skills the learner is "close" to mastering. The ZPD ensures challenge is not too hard or too easy.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual's capabilities.

To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

ZPD Theory

The zone of proximal development was developed by Soviet psychologist and social constructivist Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934).

Vygotsky introduced the ZPD concept to criticize psychometric testing which only measured current abilities, not potential for development. He argued assessment should be collaborative to reveal emerging skills.

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) has been defined as:

"the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).

For teachers, the ZPD is the space between current teaching knowledge and potential new level with assistance. Willingness to learn enables ZPD progression.

Vygotsky believed that when a student is in the zone of proximal development for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of a "boost" to achieve the task.

To assist a person to move through the zone of proximal development, educators are encouraged to focus on three important components which aid the learning process:

The presence of someone with knowledge and skills beyond that of the learner (a more knowledgeable other).

Social interactions with a skillful tutor that allow the learner to observe and practice their skills.

Scaffolding, or supportive activities provided by the educator, or more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the ZPD.

Scaffolding Theory

The ZPD has become synonymous in the literature with the term scaffolding. However, it is important to note that Vygotsky never used this term in his writing, and it was introduced by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976).

Scaffolding consists of the activities provided by the educator, or more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the zone of proximal development.

Support is tapered off (i.e., withdrawn) as it becomes unnecessary, much as a scaffold is removed from a building during construction. The student will then be able to complete the task again independently.

Wood et al. (1976, p. 90) define scaffolding as a process "that enables a child or novice to solve a task or achieve a goal that would be beyond his unassisted efforts."

As they note, scaffolds require the adult's "controlling those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capability, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence" (p. 90).

It is important to note that the terms cooperative learning, scaffolding and guided learning all have the same meaning within the literature.

The following study provides empirical support both the concept of scaffolding and the ZPD.

Wood and Middleton (1975)

Procedure: 4-year-old children had to use a set of blocks and pegs to build a 3D model shown in a picture. Building the model was too difficult a task for a 4-year-old child to complete alone.

Wood and Middleton (1975) observed how mothers interacted with their children to build the 3D model. The type of support included:

* General encouragement e.g., 'now you have a go.'

* Specific instructions e.g., 'get four big blocks.'

* Direct demonstration, e.g., showing the child how to place one block on another.

The results of the study showed that no single strategy was best for helping the child to progress. Mothers whose assistance was most effective were those who varied their strategy according to how the child was doing.

When the child was doing well, they became less specific with their help. When the child started to struggle, they gave increasingly specific instructions until the child started to make progress again.

The study illustrates scaffolding and Vygotsky's concept of the ZPD. Scaffolding (i.e., assistance) is most effective when the support is matched to the needs of the learner. This puts them in a position to achieve success in an activity that they would previously not have been able to do alone.

Wood et al. (1976) named certain processes that aid effective scaffolding:

Gaining and maintaining the learner's interest in the task.

Making the task simple.

Emphasizing certain aspects that will help with the solution.

Control the child's level of frustration.

Demonstrate the task.

Intersubjectivity

Intersubjectivity is when two people (i.e., the child and helper) start a task together with a different level of skill and understanding, and both end up with a shared understanding.

As each member of the dyad adjusts to the perspective of the other, the helper has to translate their own insights in a ways that is within the grasp of the child, and the child develops a more complete understanding of the task.

It is essential that they work towards the same goal, otherwise there won't be any collaboration. It is important that they negotiate, or compromise by always working for a shared view.

If you try to force someone to change their mind, then you"ll just get conflict. You need to stay within the boundaries of the other person's zone of proximal development.

Example of Scaffolding

Vygotsky emphasized scaffolding, or providing support to learners to help them reach higher levels of understanding. This can be mapped to progressing through Bloom's taxonomy, where educators scaffold tasks from basic understanding to more complex analysis and creation.

For example, a teacher might start by providing information (Remembering) and then ask questions that require understanding.

As students become more proficient, tasks can be scaffolded to require application, analysis, evaluation, and creation.

Example: In teaching a concept like photosynthesis:

1. Remembering: The teacher provides the basic definition.

2. Understanding: Students explain the process in their own words.

3. Application: They might conduct an experiment on plants.

4. Analysis: Dive deeper into how different variables affect the process.

5. Evaluation: Debate the most critical components of photosynthesis.

6. Creation: Design an optimal environment for plant growth.

Each step can be scaffolded, starting with substantial teacher support and gradually releasing responsibility to the students as they climb Bloom's taxonomy, guiding students from foundational knowledge to higher-order thinking skills.

Scaffolding vs. Discovery Learning

Freund (1990) wanted to investigate if children learn more effectively via Piaget's concept of discovery learning or guided learning via the ZPD.

She asked a group of children between the ages of three and five years to help a puppet decide which furniture should be placed in the various rooms of a doll's house. First, Freund assessed what each child already understood about the placement of furniture (as a baseline measure).

Next, each child worked on a similar task, either alone (re: discovery-based learning) or with their mother (re: scaffolding / guided learning). To assess what each child had learned, they were each given a more complex, furniture sorting task.

The study's results showed that children assisted by their mothers performed better at furniture sorting than the children who worked independently.

More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) refers to anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level in a particular task, process, or concept than the learner.

It's essential to note that the MKO isn't necessarily an adult or a teacher. It could be a peer, a younger person, or even technology or media, as long as they provide the learner with the knowledge or scaffolding needed to perform a task.

Often, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience.

The relationship between the MKO and the ZPD is vital to Vygotsky's theory. The MKO assists or scaffolds the learning experience to help the learner function within their ZPD.

Through this guidance, the learner can tackle and master tasks they couldn't accomplish independently.

Over time, as the learner internalizes this support and becomes more capable, the scaffolding can be reduced, and the learner can perform the task without assistance. The ZPD moves as learners acquire new skills and knowledge with the help of the MKO.

In educational settings, the concepts of MKO and ZPD have inspired practices like cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and scaffolded learning experiences.

Teachers aim to identify each student's ZPD and then act as the MKO, or facilitate interactions with other MKOs, to provide the right level of support, allowing students to achieve and learn effectively.

Educational Applications

Vygotsky believes the role of education is to provide children with experiences which are in their ZPD, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning. (Berk, & Winsler, (1995).

"From a Vygotskian perspective, the teacher's role is mediating the child's learning activity as they share knowledge through social interaction" (Dixon-Krauss, 1996, p. 18).

Cooperative Learning

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue.

The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their own performance.

Lev Vygotsky views interaction with peers as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers - within the zone of proximal development.

Scaffolding is a key feature of effective teaching, where the adult continually adjusts the level of his or her help in response to the learner's level of performance.

In the classroom, scaffolding can include modeling a skill, providing hints or cues, and adapting material or activity (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009).

Consider these guidelines for scaffolding instruction (Silver, 2011).

Assess the learner's current knowledge and experience with the academic content.

Relate content to what students already understand or can do.

Break a task into small, more manageable tasks with opportunities for intermittent feedback.

Use verbal cues and prompts to assist students.

Scaffolding not only produces immediate results, but also instills the skills necessary for independent problem-solving in the future.

A contemporary application of Vygotsky's theories is "reciprocal teaching," used to improve students" ability to learn from text.

In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.

Vygotsky's theories also feed into current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their zone of proximal development.

Examples of ZPD

Example 1

Maria just entered college this semester and decided to take an introductory tennis course. Her class spends each week learning and practicing a different shot. Weeks go by, and they learn how to properly serve and hit a backhand.

During the week of learning the forehand, the instructor noticed that Maria was very frustrated because she kept hitting her forehand shots either into the net or far past the baseline.

He examines her preparation and swing. He notices that her stance is perfect, she prepares early, she turns her torso appropriately, and she hits the ball at precisely the right height.

However, he notices that she is still gripping her racquet the same way she hits her backhand, so he goes over to her and shows her how to reposition her hand to hit a proper forehand, stressing that she should keep her index finger parallel to the racquet.

He models a good forehand for her, and then assists her in changing her grip. With a little practice, Maria's forehand turns into a formidable weapon for her!

In this case, Maria was in the zone of proximal development for successfully hitting a forehand shot. She was doing everything else correctly, but just needed a little coaching and scaffolding from a "More Knowledgeable Other" to help her succeed in this task.

When that assistance was given, she was able to achieve her goal. Provided with appropriate support at the right moments, students in classrooms will be able to achieve tasks that would otherwise be too difficult for them.

Example 2

Clinical psychology trainees at the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University are trained using approaches aligned with Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Hong & del Busto, 2020).

Trainees are paired with more senior trainees (e.g., a first-year student with a second or third-year student) for co-therapy sessions. The senior trainee scaffolds the junior trainee's learning by initially taking the lead and modeling skills, then gradually encouraging the junior trainee to become more independent in leading sessions as they demonstrate competence.

This allows trainees to be involved in clinical care early in their training, with support and coaching from a more experienced peer. It meets them in their zone of proximal development - what they can do with guidance vs what they cannot yet do independently.

Supervisors assign trainees different roles based on experience level. More senior trainees are given opportunities to develop supervisory skills by training junior peers. Junior trainees are supported in gaining clinical skills.

The zone of proximal development concept is applied not just for patients in case conceptualization but also for trainees' own professional development. Supervisors provide individualized support and scaffolding to help each trainee progress.

Example 3

Social interaction, aided by cultural tools, supports teachers in developing new aspects of their practice and identity. The interpersonal activity facilitates the transformation of their teaching expertise.

This demonstrates the value of mediation through the ZPD (Shabani et al., 2010).

Collaborative peers and mentors: Observing and discussing teaching practices with experienced colleagues helps teachers learn new instructional approaches and strategies. This social exchange facilitates development within their ZPD.

Action research: By studying their own teaching through classroom inquiry, teachers can gain insights into improving their methods. The self-reflection shifts their ZPD forward.

Diaries: Writing reflectively about teaching experiences enables teachers to analyze their development and assumptions. This metacognition expands their ZPD.

Technology: Using digital tools and platforms introduces teachers to innovative teaching techniques. The technology mediates new pedagogical capabilities.

TESOL discourse: Engaging with academic research and theory opens teachers to alternative perspectives on teaching and learning. This discourse stretches their ZPD.

Coursework: Formal professional development courses scaffold teachers' learning of new knowledge and competencies. The instruction targets their ZPD.

Student data: Responses and achievement metrics provide feedback to teachers on areas needing growth. This evidence shifts teachers' self-perception.

References

Berk, L., & Winsler, A. (1995). Scaffolding children's learning: Vygotsky and early childhood learning. Washington, DC: National Association for Education of Young Children.

Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Dixon-Krauss, L. (1996). Vygotsky in the classroom. Mediated literacy instruction and assessment. White Plains, NY: Longman Publishers.

Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal Regulation of Children's Problem-solving behavior and Its Impact on Children's Performance. Child Development, 61, 113-126.

Hong, N., & del Busto, C. T. (2020). Collaboration, scaffolding, and successive approximations: A developmental science approach to training in clinical psychology. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 14(3), 228.

Shabani, K., Khatib, M., & Ebadi, S. (2010). Vygotsky's zone of proximal development: Instructional implications and teachers' professional development. English Language Teaching, 3(4), 237-248.

Silver, D. (2011). Using the 'Zone'Help Reach Every Learner. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 47(sup1), 28-31.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wass, R., & Golding, C. (2014). Sharpening a tool for teaching: the zone of proximal development. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(6), 671-684.

Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Child Psychiatry, 17, 89−100.

Wood, D., & Middleton, D. (1975). A study of assisted problem-solving. British Journal of Psychology, 66(2), 181−191.

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Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development & Scaffolding Theory In Psychology

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The zone of proximal development (ZPD) refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

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What are some of the educational implications of Vygotsky's theory?

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Answer (1 of 4): SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT THEORY (VYGOTSKY) Social Development Theory argues that social interaction precedes development; consciousness and cognition are the end product of socialization and social behavior. KEY CONCEPTS Vygotsky's Social Development Theory is the work of Russian ...

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Option 2: Applying your understanding of sociocultural theory.

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Option 2: Applying your understanding of sociocultural theory.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EpVTrBAr7g

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https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
^ some facts from simply psychology

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Vygotsky's Theory

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978) has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly what has become known as sociocultural theory.

Vygotsky's theory comprises concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky believed cognitive development is influenced by cultural and social factors. He emphasized the role of social interaction in the development of mental abilities e.g., speech and reasoning in children.

Vygotsky strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning."

Cognitive development is a socially mediated process in which children acquire cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance).

The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others.

According to Vygotsky, adults in society foster children's cognitive development by engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Adults convey to children how their culture interprets and responds to the world.

They show the meaning they attach to objects, events, and experiences. They provide the child with what to think (the knowledge) and how to think (the processes, the tools to think with).

Vygotsky's theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers or peers. Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective educational strategies based on Vygotsky's ideas.

Scaffolding involves the teacher providing support structures to help students master skills just beyond their current level. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and students take turns leading discussions using strategies like summarizing and clarifying. Both scaffolding and reciprocal teaching emphasize the shared construction of knowledge, in line with Vygotsky's views.

Vygotsky highlighted the importance of language in cognitive development. Inner speech is used for mental reasoning, and external speech is used to converse with others.

These operations occur separately. Indeed, before age two, a child employs words socially; they possess no internal language.

Once thought and language merge, however, the social language is internalized and assists the child with their reasoning. Thus, the social environment is ingrained within the child's learning.

Effects of Culture

Vygotsky emphasized the role of the social environment in the child's cognitive development.

Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for intellectual development called "elementary mental functions" (Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities). These develop throughout the first two years of life due to direct environmental contact.

Elementary mental functions include -

Eventually, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes, which Vygotsky refers to as "higher mental functions."

Tools of intellectual adaptation

Each culture provides its children with tools of intellectual adaptation that allow them to use basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively.

Tools of intellectual adaptation is Vygotsky's term for methods of thinking and problem-solving strategies that children internalize through social interactions with the more knowledgeable members of society.

For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the type of memory strategy we develop.

For example, in Western culture, children learn note-taking to aid memory, but in pre-literate societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in a string to remember, carrying pebbles, or repeating the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and, therefore, socio-culturally determined.

Therefore, intellectual adaptation tools vary from culture to culture - as in the memory example.

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning and discovering and developing new understandings/schema.

However, Vygotsky emphasized social contributions to the development process, whereas Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the corner/edge pieces, and provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself, and offers encouragement when she does so.

As the child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this social interaction involving cooperative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

To understand Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky's work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, concerning a particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case. Often, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience.

For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teenage music groups, how to win at the most recent PlayStation game, or how to correctly perform the newest dance craze - a child or their parents?

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. To support employees in their learning process, some companies are now using electronic performance support systems.

Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide students through learning. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.

Zone of Proximal Development

The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of Vygotsky's work, the zone of proximal development.

This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop - but not to their full potential.

He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) - and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other learners that this gap can be bridged.

The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development, what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals.

Social interaction, therefore, supports the child's cognitive development in the ZPD, leading to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two important features.

The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other.

The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but as children's mastery of a task increases, so the adult tends to withdraw their own contributions in recognition of the child's increasing success.

For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual's capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

As a result of shared dialogues with more knowledgeable others, who provide hints, instructions, and encouragement, the child can internalize the 'how to do it' part of the task as part of their inner or private speech. The child can then use this on later occasions when they tackle a similar task on their own.

Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given - allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own - developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky also views peer interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers - within the zone of proximal development.

Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD

Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular areas of a doll's house.

Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a similar situation before they attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) while others were allowed to work on this by themselves (Piaget's discovery learning).

Freund found that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed the greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task.

The conclusion is that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).

Vygotsky and Language

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man's greatest tool for communicating with the outside world.

According to Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in cognitive development:

1. It is the main means by which adults transmit information to children.

2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.

Vygotsky (1987) differentiates between three forms of language:

1. Social speech, which is external communication used to talk to others (typical from the age of two);

2. Private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and serves an intellectual function;

3. Private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility as it takes on a self-regulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven).

For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age.

At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and speech becomes representational.

As children develop mental representation, particularly the skill of language, they start to communicate with themselves in much the same way as they would communicate with others.

When this happens, children's monologues are internalized to become inner speech. The internalization of language is important as it drives cognitive development.

"Inner speech is not the interiour aspect of external speech - it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words.

But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings."
(Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149)

Private Speech

Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking.

Thus, in Vygotsky's view, private speech was the earliest manifestation of inner speech. Indeed, private speech is more similar (in form and function) to inner speech than social speech.

Private speech is "typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed to the self (not to others) for the purpose of self-regulation (rather than communication)."
(Diaz, 1992, p.62)

Private speech is overt, audible, and observable, often seen in children who talk to themselves while problem-solving.

Conversely, inner speech is covert or hidden because it happens internally. It is the silent, internal dialogue that adults often engage in while thinking or problem-solving.

In contrast to Piaget's (1959) notion of private speech representing a developmental dead-end, Vygotsky (1934, 1987) viewed private speech as:

"A revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and preintellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental functioning." (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005: p. 1)

In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984).

Through private speech, children collaborate with themselves, in the same way a more knowledgeable other (e.g., adults) collaborate with them to achieve a given function.

Vygotsky sees "private speech" as a means for children to plan activities and strategies, aiding their development. Private speech is the use of language for self-regulation of behavior.

Therefore, language accelerates thinking/understanding ( Jerome Bruner also views language in this way). Vygotsky believed that children who engage in large amounts of private speech are more socially competent than children who do not use it extensively.

Vygotsky (1987) notes that private speech does not merely accompany a child's activity but acts as a tool the developing child uses to facilitate cognitive processes, such as overcoming task obstacles, and enhancing imagination, thinking, and conscious awareness.

Children use private speech most often during intermediate difficulty tasks because they attempt to self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their thoughts (Winsler et al., 2007).

The frequency and content of private speech correlate with behavior or performance. For example, private speech appears functionally related to cognitive performance: It appears at times of difficulty with a task.

For example, tasks related to executive function (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), problem-solving tasks (Behrend et al., 1992), and schoolwork in both language (Berk & Landau, 1993), and mathematics (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007).

Berk (1986) provided empirical support for the notion of private speech. She found that most private speech exhibited by children serves to describe or guide the child's actions.

Berk also discovered that children engaged in private speech more often when working alone on challenging tasks and when their teacher was not immediately available to help them.

Furthermore, Berk also found that private speech develops similarly in all children regardless of cultural background.

There is also evidence (Behrend et al., 1992) that those children who displayed the characteristic whispering and lip movements associated with private speech when faced with a difficult task were generally more attentive and successful than their 'quieter' classmates.

Vygotsky (1987) proposed that private speech is a product of an individual's social environment. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there exist high positive correlations between rates of social interaction and private speech in children.

Children raised in cognitively and linguistically stimulating environments (situations more frequently observed in higher socioeconomic status families) start using and internalizing private speech faster than children from less privileged backgrounds.

Indeed, children raised in environments characterized by low verbal and social exchanges exhibit delays in private speech development.

Children's use of private speech diminishes as they grow older and follows a curvilinear trend. This is due to changes in ontogenetic development whereby children can internalize language (through inner speech) to self-regulate their behavior (Vygotsky, 1987).

For example, research has shown that children's private speech usually peaks at 3-4 years of age, decreases at 6-7, and gradually fades out to be mostly internalized by age 10 (Diaz, 1992).

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and disappears with age not because it becomes socialized, as Piaget suggested, but because it goes underground to constitute inner speech or verbal thought" (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985).

Educational Implications

Vygotsky's approach to child development is a form of social constructivism, based on the idea that cognitive functions are the products of social interactions.

Social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs through social interactions within a cultural and historical context.

Vygotsky emphasized the collaborative nature of learning by constructing knowledge through social negotiation. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible to separate learning from its social context.

Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, then integrated into the individual's mental structure.

Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).

This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.
(Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)

Teaching styles grounded in constructivism represent a deliberate shift from traditional, didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centered approach.

Traditionally, schools have failed to foster environments where students actively participate in their own and their peers' education. Vygotsky's theory, however, calls for both the teacher and students to assume non-traditional roles as they engage in collaborative learning.

Rather than having a teacher impose their understanding onto students for future recitation, the teacher should co-create meaning with students in a manner that allows learners to take ownership (Hausfather, 1996).

For instance, a student and teacher might start a task with varying levels of expertise and understanding. As they adapt to each other's perspective, the teacher must articulate their insights in a way that the student can comprehend, leading the student to a fuller understanding of the task or concept.

The student can then internalize the task's operational aspect ("how to do it") into their inner speech or private dialogue. Vygotsky referred to this reciprocal understanding and adjustment process as intersubjectivity."

ZPD

Because Vygotsky asserts that cognitive change occurs within the zone of proximal development, instruction would be designed to reach a developmental level just above the student's current developmental level.

Vygotsky proclaims, "learning which is oriented toward developmental levels that have already been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint of the child's overall development. It does not aim for a new stage of the developmental process but rather lags behind this process" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Appropriation is necessary for cognitive development within the zone of proximal development. Individuals participating in peer collaboration or guided teacher instruction must share the same focus to access the zone of proximal development.

"Joint attention and shared problem solving is needed to create a process of cognitive, social, and emotional interchange" (Hausfather,1996).

Furthermore, it is essential that the partners be on different developmental levels and the higher-level partner be aware of the lower's level. If this does not occur or one partner dominates, the interaction is less successful (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

Vygotsky's theories also feed into the current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD.

Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective strategies to access the zone of proximal development.

Reciprocal Teaching

A contemporary educational application of Vygotsky's theory is "reciprocal teaching," used to improve students" ability to learn from text.

In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.

Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers. This two-way communication becomes an instructional strategy by encouraging students to go beyond answering questions and engage in the discourse (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

A study conducted by Brown and Palincsar (1989) demonstrated the Vygotskian approach with reciprocal teaching methods in their successful program to teach reading strategies.

The teacher and students alternated turns leading small group discussions on a reading. After modeling four reading strategies, students began to assume the teaching role.

The results showed significant gains over other instructional strategies (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather,1996).

Cognitively Guided Instruction is another strategy to implement Vygotsky's theory. This strategy involves the teacher and students exploring math problems and then sharing their problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue (Hausfather,1996).

Based on Vygotsky's theory, the physical classroom would provide clustered desks or tables and workspace for peer instruction, collaboration, and small-group instruction. Learning becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and teacher.

Like the environment, the instructional design of the material to be learned would be structured to promote and encourage student interaction and collaboration. Thus the classroom becomes a community of learning.

Scaffolding

Also, Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development on learners is relevant to instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship," in which a teacher or more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

A teacher's role is to identify each individual's current level of development and provide them with opportunities to cross their ZPD.

A crucial element in this process is the use of what later became known as scaffolding; the way in which the teacher provides students with frameworks and experiences which encourage them to extend their existing schemata and incorporate new skills, competencies, and understandings.

Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child's learning, to move from what they already know to new knowledge and abilities.

Scaffolding requires the teacher to allow students to extend their current skills and knowledge.

During scaffolding, the support offered by an adult (or more knowledgeable other) gradually decreases as the child becomes more skilled in the task.

As the adult withdraws their help, the child assumes more of the strategic planning and eventually gains competence to master similar problems without a teacher's aid or a more knowledgeable peer.

It is important to note that this is more than simply instruction; learning experiences must be presented in such a way as to actively challenge existing mental structures and provide frameworks for learning.

Five ways in which an adult can "scaffold" a child's learning:

1. Engaging the child's interest

2. Maintaining the child's interest in the task e.g., avoiding distraction and providing clear instructions on how to start the task.

3. Keeping the child's frustration under control e.g., by supportive interactions, adapting instructions according to where the child is struggling.

4. Emphasizing the important features of the task

5. Demonstrating the task: showing the child how to do the task in simple, clear steps.

As the child progresses through the ZPD, the necessary scaffolding level declines from 5 to 1.

The teacher must engage students' interests, simplify tasks to be manageable, and motivate students to pursue the instructional goal.

In addition, the teacher must look for discrepancies between students" efforts and the solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the act (Hausfather, 1996).

Challenges to Traditional Teaching Methods

Vygotsky's social development theory challenges traditional teaching methods. Historically, schools have been organized around recitation teaching.

The teacher disseminates knowledge to be memorized by the students, who in turn recite the information to the teacher (Hausfather,1996).

However, the studies described above offer empirical evidence that learning based on the social development theory facilitates cognitive development over other instructional strategies.

The structure of our schools does not reflect the rapid changes our society is experiencing. The introduction and integration of computer technology in society has tremendously increased the opportunities for social interaction.

Therefore, the social context for learning is transforming as well. Whereas collaboration and peer instruction were once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace.

Computer technology is a cultural tool that students can use to meditate and internalize their learning. Recent research suggests changing the learning contexts with technology is a powerful learning activity (Crawford, 1996).

If schools continue to resist structural change, students will be ill-prepared for the world they will live.

Critical Evaluation

Vygotsky's work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that Piaget's has, partly due to the time-consuming process of translating Vygotsky's work from Russian.

Also, Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective does not provide as many specific hypotheses to test as Piaget's theory, making refutation difficult, if not impossible.

Perhaps the main criticism of Vygotsky's work concerns the assumption that it is relevant to all cultures. Rogoff (1990) dismisses the idea that Vygotsky's ideas are culturally universal and instead states that scaffolding- heavily dependent on verbal instruction - may not be equally useful in all cultures for all types of learning.

Indeed, in some instances, observation and practice may be more effective ways of learning certain skills.

There is much emphasis on social interaction and culture, but many other aspects of development are neglected, such as the importance of emotional factors, e.g., the joys of success and the disappointments and frustration of failure act as motivation for learning.

Vygotsky overemphasized socio-cultural factors at the expense of biological influences on cognitive development. This theory cannot explain why cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

Vygotky's theory has been applied successfully to education. Scaffolding has been shown to be an effective way of teaching (Freund, 1990), and based on this theory, teachers are trained to guide children from what they can do to the next step in their learning through careful scaffolding.

Collaborative work is also used in the classroom, mixing children of different levels of ability to make use of reciprocal / peer teaching.

Vygotsky vs. Piaget

Unlike Piaget's notion that children's cognitive development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words, social learning precedes (i.e., come before) development.

Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in several important ways:

Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development.

Unlike Piaget, who emphasized universal cognitive change (i.e., all children would go through the same sequence of cognitive development regardless of their cultural experiences), Vygotsky leads us to expect variable development depending on cultural diversity.

This contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages of development (Vygotsky does not refer to stages like Piaget does).

Hence, Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.

Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development.

1. Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge.
In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge.

2. For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and what they think about.
The importance of scaffolding and language may differ for all cultures. Rogoff (1990) emphasizes the importance of observation and practice in pre-industrial societies (e.g., learning to use a canoe among Micronesian Islanders).

Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development.

According to Piaget, language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech).

In Piaget's theory, egocentric (or private) speech gradually disappears as children develop truly social speech, in which they monitor and adapt what they say to others.

Vygotsky disagreed with this view, arguing that as language helps children to think about and control their behavior, it is an important foundation for complex cognitive skills.

As children age, this self-directed speech becomes silent (or private) speech, referring to the inner dialogues we have with ourselves as we plan and carry out activities.

For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.

According to Vygotsky, adults are an important source of cognitive development.

Adults transmit their culture's tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize.

In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social perspective-taking.

Behrend, D.A., Rosengren, K.S., & Perlmutter, M. (1992). The relation between private speech and parental interactive style. In R.M. Diaz & L.E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 85-100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berk, L. E. (1986). Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance. Developmental Psychology, 22(5), 671.

Berk, L. & Garvin, R. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20(2), 271-286.

Berk, L. E., & Landau, S. (1993). Private speech of learning-disabled and normally achieving children in classroom academic and laboratory contexts. Child Development, 64, 556-571.

Cannella, G. S., & Reiff, J. C. (1994). Individual constructivist teacher education: Teachers as empowered learners. Teacher education quarterly, 27-38.

Crawford, K. (1996) Vygotskian approaches to human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics, (31),43-62.

Diaz, R. M., & Berk, L. E. (1992). Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Driscoll, M. P. (1994). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Needham, Ma: Allyn && Bacon.

Frauenglass, M. & Diaz, R. (1985). Self-regulatory functions of children's private speech: A critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky's theory. Developmental Psychology, 21(2), 357-364.

Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103-120.

Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal regulation of children's problem-solving behavior and its impact on children's performance. Child Development, 61, 113-126.

Hausfather, S. J. (1996). Vygotsky and Schooling: Creating a Social Contest for learning. Action in Teacher Education, (18),1-10.

Ostad, S. A., & Sorensen, P. M. (2007). Private speech and strategy-use patterns: Bidirectional comparisons of children with and without mathematical difficulties in a developmental perspective. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 2-14.

Piaget, J. (1959). The language and thought of the child (Vol. 5) . Psychology Press.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. Oxford university press.

Saettler, P. (1990). The Evolution of American Educational Technology . Egnlewood, Co: Libraries Unlimited.

Schaffer, R. (1996) . Social development. Oxford: Blackwell.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology (pp. 39-285). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934.)

Winsler, A., Abar, B., Feder, M. A., Schunn, C. D., & Rubio, D. A. (2007). Private speech and executive functioning among high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1617-1635.

Wertsch, J. V., Sohmer, R. (1995). Vygotsky on learning and development. Human Development, (38), 332-37.

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Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory Of Cognitive Development

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Lev Vygotsky's theory of child development, known as the sociocultural theory, emphasizes the importance of social interaction and cultural context in learning and cognitive development. Vygotsky proposed the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable person.

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Vygotsky's Theory

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978) has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly what has become known as sociocultural theory.

Vygotsky's theory comprises concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky believed cognitive development is influenced by cultural and social factors. He emphasized the role of social interaction in the development of mental abilities e.g., speech and reasoning in children.

Vygotsky strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning."

Cognitive development is a socially mediated process in which children acquire cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance).

The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others.

According to Vygotsky, adults in society foster children's cognitive development by engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Adults convey to children how their culture interprets and responds to the world.

They show the meaning they attach to objects, events, and experiences. They provide the child with what to think (the knowledge) and how to think (the processes, the tools to think with).

Vygotsky's theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers or peers. Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective educational strategies based on Vygotsky's ideas.

Scaffolding involves the teacher providing support structures to help students master skills just beyond their current level. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and students take turns leading discussions using strategies like summarizing and clarifying. Both scaffolding and reciprocal teaching emphasize the shared construction of knowledge, in line with Vygotsky's views.

Vygotsky highlighted the importance of language in cognitive development. Inner speech is used for mental reasoning, and external speech is used to converse with others.

These operations occur separately. Indeed, before age two, a child employs words socially; they possess no internal language.

Once thought and language merge, however, the social language is internalized and assists the child with their reasoning. Thus, the social environment is ingrained within the child's learning.

Effects of Culture

Vygotsky emphasized the role of the social environment in the child's cognitive development.

Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for intellectual development called "elementary mental functions" (Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities). These develop throughout the first two years of life due to direct environmental contact.

Elementary mental functions include -

Eventually, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes, which Vygotsky refers to as "higher mental functions."

Tools of intellectual adaptation

Each culture provides its children with tools of intellectual adaptation that allow them to use basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively.

Tools of intellectual adaptation is Vygotsky's term for methods of thinking and problem-solving strategies that children internalize through social interactions with the more knowledgeable members of society.

For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the type of memory strategy we develop.

For example, in Western culture, children learn note-taking to aid memory, but in pre-literate societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in a string to remember, carrying pebbles, or repeating the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and, therefore, socio-culturally determined.

Therefore, intellectual adaptation tools vary from culture to culture - as in the memory example.

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning and discovering and developing new understandings/schema.

However, Vygotsky emphasized social contributions to the development process, whereas Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the corner/edge pieces, and provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself, and offers encouragement when she does so.

As the child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this social interaction involving cooperative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

To understand Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky's work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, concerning a particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case. Often, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience.

For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teenage music groups, how to win at the most recent PlayStation game, or how to correctly perform the newest dance craze - a child or their parents?

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. To support employees in their learning process, some companies are now using electronic performance support systems.

Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide students through learning. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.

Zone of Proximal Development

The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of Vygotsky's work, the zone of proximal development.

This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop - but not to their full potential.

He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) - and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other learners that this gap can be bridged.

The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development, what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals.

Social interaction, therefore, supports the child's cognitive development in the ZPD, leading to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two important features.

The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other.

The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but as children's mastery of a task increases, so the adult tends to withdraw their own contributions in recognition of the child's increasing success.

For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual's capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

As a result of shared dialogues with more knowledgeable others, who provide hints, instructions, and encouragement, the child can internalize the 'how to do it' part of the task as part of their inner or private speech. The child can then use this on later occasions when they tackle a similar task on their own.

Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given - allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own - developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky also views peer interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers - within the zone of proximal development.

Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD

Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular areas of a doll's house.

Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a similar situation before they attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) while others were allowed to work on this by themselves (Piaget's discovery learning).

Freund found that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed the greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task.

The conclusion is that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).

Vygotsky and Language

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man's greatest tool for communicating with the outside world.

According to Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in cognitive development:

1. It is the main means by which adults transmit information to children.

2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.

Vygotsky (1987) differentiates between three forms of language:

1. Social speech, which is external communication used to talk to others (typical from the age of two);

2. Private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and serves an intellectual function;

3. Private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility as it takes on a self-regulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven).

For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age.

At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and speech becomes representational.

As children develop mental representation, particularly the skill of language, they start to communicate with themselves in much the same way as they would communicate with others.

When this happens, children's monologues are internalized to become inner speech. The internalization of language is important as it drives cognitive development.

"Inner speech is not the interiour aspect of external speech - it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words.

But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings."
(Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149)

Private Speech

Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking.

Thus, in Vygotsky's view, private speech was the earliest manifestation of inner speech. Indeed, private speech is more similar (in form and function) to inner speech than social speech.

Private speech is "typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed to the self (not to others) for the purpose of self-regulation (rather than communication)."
(Diaz, 1992, p.62)

Private speech is overt, audible, and observable, often seen in children who talk to themselves while problem-solving.

Conversely, inner speech is covert or hidden because it happens internally. It is the silent, internal dialogue that adults often engage in while thinking or problem-solving.

In contrast to Piaget's (1959) notion of private speech representing a developmental dead-end, Vygotsky (1934, 1987) viewed private speech as:

"A revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and preintellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental functioning." (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005: p. 1)

In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984).

Through private speech, children collaborate with themselves, in the same way a more knowledgeable other (e.g., adults) collaborate with them to achieve a given function.

Vygotsky sees "private speech" as a means for children to plan activities and strategies, aiding their development. Private speech is the use of language for self-regulation of behavior.

Therefore, language accelerates thinking/understanding ( Jerome Bruner also views language in this way). Vygotsky believed that children who engage in large amounts of private speech are more socially competent than children who do not use it extensively.

Vygotsky (1987) notes that private speech does not merely accompany a child's activity but acts as a tool the developing child uses to facilitate cognitive processes, such as overcoming task obstacles, and enhancing imagination, thinking, and conscious awareness.

Children use private speech most often during intermediate difficulty tasks because they attempt to self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their thoughts (Winsler et al., 2007).

The frequency and content of private speech correlate with behavior or performance. For example, private speech appears functionally related to cognitive performance: It appears at times of difficulty with a task.

For example, tasks related to executive function (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), problem-solving tasks (Behrend et al., 1992), and schoolwork in both language (Berk & Landau, 1993), and mathematics (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007).

Berk (1986) provided empirical support for the notion of private speech. She found that most private speech exhibited by children serves to describe or guide the child's actions.

Berk also discovered that children engaged in private speech more often when working alone on challenging tasks and when their teacher was not immediately available to help them.

Furthermore, Berk also found that private speech develops similarly in all children regardless of cultural background.

There is also evidence (Behrend et al., 1992) that those children who displayed the characteristic whispering and lip movements associated with private speech when faced with a difficult task were generally more attentive and successful than their 'quieter' classmates.

Vygotsky (1987) proposed that private speech is a product of an individual's social environment. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there exist high positive correlations between rates of social interaction and private speech in children.

Children raised in cognitively and linguistically stimulating environments (situations more frequently observed in higher socioeconomic status families) start using and internalizing private speech faster than children from less privileged backgrounds.

Indeed, children raised in environments characterized by low verbal and social exchanges exhibit delays in private speech development.

Children's use of private speech diminishes as they grow older and follows a curvilinear trend. This is due to changes in ontogenetic development whereby children can internalize language (through inner speech) to self-regulate their behavior (Vygotsky, 1987).

For example, research has shown that children's private speech usually peaks at 3-4 years of age, decreases at 6-7, and gradually fades out to be mostly internalized by age 10 (Diaz, 1992).

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and disappears with age not because it becomes socialized, as Piaget suggested, but because it goes underground to constitute inner speech or verbal thought" (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985).

Educational Implications

Vygotsky's approach to child development is a form of social constructivism, based on the idea that cognitive functions are the products of social interactions.

Social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs through social interactions within a cultural and historical context.

Vygotsky emphasized the collaborative nature of learning by constructing knowledge through social negotiation. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible to separate learning from its social context.

Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, then integrated into the individual's mental structure.

Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).

This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.
(Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)

Teaching styles grounded in constructivism represent a deliberate shift from traditional, didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centered approach.

Traditionally, schools have failed to foster environments where students actively participate in their own and their peers' education. Vygotsky's theory, however, calls for both the teacher and students to assume non-traditional roles as they engage in collaborative learning.

Rather than having a teacher impose their understanding onto students for future recitation, the teacher should co-create meaning with students in a manner that allows learners to take ownership (Hausfather, 1996).

For instance, a student and teacher might start a task with varying levels of expertise and understanding. As they adapt to each other's perspective, the teacher must articulate their insights in a way that the student can comprehend, leading the student to a fuller understanding of the task or concept.

The student can then internalize the task's operational aspect ("how to do it") into their inner speech or private dialogue. Vygotsky referred to this reciprocal understanding and adjustment process as intersubjectivity."

ZPD

Because Vygotsky asserts that cognitive change occurs within the zone of proximal development, instruction would be designed to reach a developmental level just above the student's current developmental level.

Vygotsky proclaims, "learning which is oriented toward developmental levels that have already been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint of the child's overall development. It does not aim for a new stage of the developmental process but rather lags behind this process" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Appropriation is necessary for cognitive development within the zone of proximal development. Individuals participating in peer collaboration or guided teacher instruction must share the same focus to access the zone of proximal development.

"Joint attention and shared problem solving is needed to create a process of cognitive, social, and emotional interchange" (Hausfather,1996).

Furthermore, it is essential that the partners be on different developmental levels and the higher-level partner be aware of the lower's level. If this does not occur or one partner dominates, the interaction is less successful (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

Vygotsky's theories also feed into the current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD.

Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective strategies to access the zone of proximal development.

Reciprocal Teaching

A contemporary educational application of Vygotsky's theory is "reciprocal teaching," used to improve students" ability to learn from text.

In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.

Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers. This two-way communication becomes an instructional strategy by encouraging students to go beyond answering questions and engage in the discourse (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

A study conducted by Brown and Palincsar (1989) demonstrated the Vygotskian approach with reciprocal teaching methods in their successful program to teach reading strategies.

The teacher and students alternated turns leading small group discussions on a reading. After modeling four reading strategies, students began to assume the teaching role.

The results showed significant gains over other instructional strategies (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather,1996).

Cognitively Guided Instruction is another strategy to implement Vygotsky's theory. This strategy involves the teacher and students exploring math problems and then sharing their problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue (Hausfather,1996).

Based on Vygotsky's theory, the physical classroom would provide clustered desks or tables and workspace for peer instruction, collaboration, and small-group instruction. Learning becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and teacher.

Like the environment, the instructional design of the material to be learned would be structured to promote and encourage student interaction and collaboration. Thus the classroom becomes a community of learning.

Scaffolding

Also, Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development on learners is relevant to instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship," in which a teacher or more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

A teacher's role is to identify each individual's current level of development and provide them with opportunities to cross their ZPD.

A crucial element in this process is the use of what later became known as scaffolding; the way in which the teacher provides students with frameworks and experiences which encourage them to extend their existing schemata and incorporate new skills, competencies, and understandings.

Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child's learning, to move from what they already know to new knowledge and abilities.

Scaffolding requires the teacher to allow students to extend their current skills and knowledge.

During scaffolding, the support offered by an adult (or more knowledgeable other) gradually decreases as the child becomes more skilled in the task.

As the adult withdraws their help, the child assumes more of the strategic planning and eventually gains competence to master similar problems without a teacher's aid or a more knowledgeable peer.

It is important to note that this is more than simply instruction; learning experiences must be presented in such a way as to actively challenge existing mental structures and provide frameworks for learning.

Five ways in which an adult can "scaffold" a child's learning:

1. Engaging the child's interest

2. Maintaining the child's interest in the task e.g., avoiding distraction and providing clear instructions on how to start the task.

3. Keeping the child's frustration under control e.g., by supportive interactions, adapting instructions according to where the child is struggling.

4. Emphasizing the important features of the task

5. Demonstrating the task: showing the child how to do the task in simple, clear steps.

As the child progresses through the ZPD, the necessary scaffolding level declines from 5 to 1.

The teacher must engage students' interests, simplify tasks to be manageable, and motivate students to pursue the instructional goal.

In addition, the teacher must look for discrepancies between students" efforts and the solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the act (Hausfather, 1996).

Challenges to Traditional Teaching Methods

Vygotsky's social development theory challenges traditional teaching methods. Historically, schools have been organized around recitation teaching.

The teacher disseminates knowledge to be memorized by the students, who in turn recite the information to the teacher (Hausfather,1996).

However, the studies described above offer empirical evidence that learning based on the social development theory facilitates cognitive development over other instructional strategies.

The structure of our schools does not reflect the rapid changes our society is experiencing. The introduction and integration of computer technology in society has tremendously increased the opportunities for social interaction.

Therefore, the social context for learning is transforming as well. Whereas collaboration and peer instruction were once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace.

Computer technology is a cultural tool that students can use to meditate and internalize their learning. Recent research suggests changing the learning contexts with technology is a powerful learning activity (Crawford, 1996).

If schools continue to resist structural change, students will be ill-prepared for the world they will live.

Critical Evaluation

Vygotsky's work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that Piaget's has, partly due to the time-consuming process of translating Vygotsky's work from Russian.

Also, Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective does not provide as many specific hypotheses to test as Piaget's theory, making refutation difficult, if not impossible.

Perhaps the main criticism of Vygotsky's work concerns the assumption that it is relevant to all cultures. Rogoff (1990) dismisses the idea that Vygotsky's ideas are culturally universal and instead states that scaffolding- heavily dependent on verbal instruction - may not be equally useful in all cultures for all types of learning.

Indeed, in some instances, observation and practice may be more effective ways of learning certain skills.

There is much emphasis on social interaction and culture, but many other aspects of development are neglected, such as the importance of emotional factors, e.g., the joys of success and the disappointments and frustration of failure act as motivation for learning.

Vygotsky overemphasized socio-cultural factors at the expense of biological influences on cognitive development. This theory cannot explain why cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

Vygotky's theory has been applied successfully to education. Scaffolding has been shown to be an effective way of teaching (Freund, 1990), and based on this theory, teachers are trained to guide children from what they can do to the next step in their learning through careful scaffolding.

Collaborative work is also used in the classroom, mixing children of different levels of ability to make use of reciprocal / peer teaching.

Vygotsky vs. Piaget

Unlike Piaget's notion that children's cognitive development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words, social learning precedes (i.e., come before) development.

Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in several important ways:

Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development.

Unlike Piaget, who emphasized universal cognitive change (i.e., all children would go through the same sequence of cognitive development regardless of their cultural experiences), Vygotsky leads us to expect variable development depending on cultural diversity.

This contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages of development (Vygotsky does not refer to stages like Piaget does).

Hence, Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.

Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development.

1. Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge.
In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge.

2. For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and what they think about.
The importance of scaffolding and language may differ for all cultures. Rogoff (1990) emphasizes the importance of observation and practice in pre-industrial societies (e.g., learning to use a canoe among Micronesian Islanders).

Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development.

According to Piaget, language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech).

In Piaget's theory, egocentric (or private) speech gradually disappears as children develop truly social speech, in which they monitor and adapt what they say to others.

Vygotsky disagreed with this view, arguing that as language helps children to think about and control their behavior, it is an important foundation for complex cognitive skills.

As children age, this self-directed speech becomes silent (or private) speech, referring to the inner dialogues we have with ourselves as we plan and carry out activities.

For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.

According to Vygotsky, adults are an important source of cognitive development.

Adults transmit their culture's tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize.

In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social perspective-taking.

Behrend, D.A., Rosengren, K.S., & Perlmutter, M. (1992). The relation between private speech and parental interactive style. In R.M. Diaz & L.E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 85-100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berk, L. E. (1986). Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance. Developmental Psychology, 22(5), 671.

Berk, L. & Garvin, R. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20(2), 271-286.

Berk, L. E., & Landau, S. (1993). Private speech of learning-disabled and normally achieving children in classroom academic and laboratory contexts. Child Development, 64, 556-571.

Cannella, G. S., & Reiff, J. C. (1994). Individual constructivist teacher education: Teachers as empowered learners. Teacher education quarterly, 27-38.

Crawford, K. (1996) Vygotskian approaches to human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics, (31),43-62.

Diaz, R. M., & Berk, L. E. (1992). Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Driscoll, M. P. (1994). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Needham, Ma: Allyn && Bacon.

Frauenglass, M. & Diaz, R. (1985). Self-regulatory functions of children's private speech: A critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky's theory. Developmental Psychology, 21(2), 357-364.

Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103-120.

Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal regulation of children's problem-solving behavior and its impact on children's performance. Child Development, 61, 113-126.

Hausfather, S. J. (1996). Vygotsky and Schooling: Creating a Social Contest for learning. Action in Teacher Education, (18),1-10.

Ostad, S. A., & Sorensen, P. M. (2007). Private speech and strategy-use patterns: Bidirectional comparisons of children with and without mathematical difficulties in a developmental perspective. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 2-14.

Piaget, J. (1959). The language and thought of the child (Vol. 5) . Psychology Press.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. Oxford university press.

Saettler, P. (1990). The Evolution of American Educational Technology . Egnlewood, Co: Libraries Unlimited.

Schaffer, R. (1996) . Social development. Oxford: Blackwell.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology (pp. 39-285). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934.)

Winsler, A., Abar, B., Feder, M. A., Schunn, C. D., & Rubio, D. A. (2007). Private speech and executive functioning among high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1617-1635.

Wertsch, J. V., Sohmer, R. (1995). Vygotsky on learning and development. Human Development, (38), 332-37.

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Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory Of Cognitive Development

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Lev Vygotsky's theory of child development, known as the sociocultural theory, emphasizes the importance of social interaction and cultural context in learning and cognitive development. Vygotsky proposed the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable person.

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Easy to understand summary of the theory

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Easy to understand summary of the theory

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Lev Vygotsky Theory Summary: Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian developmental psychologist who did a lot of work on cognitive development. His work serves as foundation for research in cognitive development. His work is often termed as socio-cultural theory because he emphasized the cultural and social impacts on cognitive development of human. Vygotsky thought that culture is the main determinant of cognitive development and learning lead it. (Feldman, 2010).

Vygotsky thought that social interactions result in cognitive developments. For example, when kids interact with others, they've to take decisions and solve problems. They learn it from others and it increases their cognitive abilities. He thought that there are two levels in learning something. First one is interaction with others (inter-psychological) and second one is interaction with own self (intra-psychological). (Vygotsky, Hanfmann, & Vakar, 1962)

Vygotsky proposed another key idea which is called as zone of proximal development. He suggested that cognitive abilities of children increase if they are exposed to intriguing information. ZPD is the range of tasks which child can't learn alone but can learn from others. This concept differentiates between what a child can learn independently and what a child can learn from adults or other skilled children. Scaffolding is another related concept. It is the temporary help or assistance provided by others to the kid until kid can do that task alone. (Sigelman & Rider, 2008)

Lisa Freund conducted a research in 1990 to support ZPD concept of Vygotsky. Children were given a problem where they have to decide how to decorate furniture in dolls house. Few kids were allowed to do this activity with their mothers before they try it alone (ZPD). This experiment concluded that kids who did this activity with their mothers and then tried again alone, showed huge improvement as compared to those who tried it for the first time by themselves. This study showed that learning with ZPD resulted in better performance as compared to learning alone. (Freund, 1990).

Although Vygotsky died eight decades ago, still his work has become more influential. His socio-cultural theory is popular among researchers. Now people are recognizing the importance of cultural factors in cognitive development. He was one of the first who realized this and now others are following his footsteps.

Lev Vygotsky Theory Summary Explanation

My selected topic is Lev Vygotsky theory. Vygotsky suggested that culture and social background play a huge role in cognitive development of children. First image shows interaction of a baby with his mother. Second image shows that mother is helping her kid in walking. That kid is going to learn to walk with the help of her mother. This is the interaction of the kid with her mother which is the reason behind his learning. Third image is Vygotsky himself. Fourth image is related with the concept of zone of proximal development which was presented by Vygotsky. ZPD is the range of tasks which child can't learn alone but can learn from others.This concept differentiates between what a child can learn independently and what a child can learn from adults or other skilled children.

Next image shows the concept of scaffolding. Help of adult or skilled kid is considered as scaffolding. In next images, we can see a girl riding a bicycle alone and another boy riding the bicycle with the help of his father. These images show that outer environment is also very important for kid's learning process. ZPD suggest that boy who is learning to ride bicycle with the help of his father is going to be a better rider as compare to the girl. Kid who is helped by his father in learning is going to perform better in class as compare to the kids who try to learn by themselves. Next image shows how much teenagers rely on cell phone for interacting with others. And last image shows that kids see their elders as role models. They can learn good and bad habits from their peers.

Feldman, R. S. (2010). Life Span Development: A Topical Approach. Pearson Publishers.

Freund, L. S. (1990). Matemal Regulation of Children's Problem-solving Behavior and Its Impact on Children's Performance.

Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2008). Life-Span Human Development. Wadsworth Publishing.

Vygotsky, L., Hanfmann, E., & Vakar, G. (1962). Thought and Language.

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Lev Vygotsky Theory Summary - Explanation & Assignment

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Lev Vygotsky Theory Summary: Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian developmental psychologist who did a lot of work on cognitive development. His work serves as foundation for research in cognitive development. His work is often termed as socio-cultural theory because he emphasized the cultural and social impacts on cognitive development of human.

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word/discussion%3Fnolanguage%3Dhe1&ved=2ahUKEwjcu52frLnhAhVhQhUIHaUkDWMQwqsBMAB6BAgGEAU&usg=AOvVaw0OQIUkfRd-Aqt826miADFp&cshid=1554480819061

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Jazzy video on Vygotsky's life and basic summary of his theories

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Jazzy video on Vygotsky's life and basic summary of his theories

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This animation video is an assignment for my E-Learning Technologies subject. Cheers.

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YOU CAN DO THIS!
dont cry

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Voiceover: All right, the next theory that we're going to take a look at is Vygotsky's Theory of Development, which is also the Sociocultural Theory of Development. So building upon the importance of social interaction, Vygotsky studies the role that social interaction plays in the development of cognition. So he was really focused on the social interaction between children, which are obviously growing, so he focused on children and their growth development, the interactions they had with those around them, in the development of their cognition and their higher order learning. Now Vygotsky actually, unfortunately, passed away at a very young age; he was only 38, so much of his theory was left unfinished. But from what we do know of what he did discover and what he did theorize, gives us a lot of insight into this theory of development. So Vygotsky developed this theory and he said that babies had elementary mental functions, and there are four of them. So these elementary mental functions, I'm gonna just right short-hand M F for mental function. So he said there were four of them. One of them is attention. So we have attention; we have sensation, as babies remember. We have perception, and we also have memory. So these are the four elementary mental functions that babies have. Now eventually through interaction with their environment, the socio-culture environment, these elementary mental functions are developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes or strategies. And this is what we call our higher mental functions. So much of our important learning that a child goes through occurs through the social interaction with a skillful tutor. So whether it's their teacher, their parents someone older. So this tutor acts as a model, and they model their behaviors, or they provide verbal instruction for the child. So the child often tries to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor, often the parent or the teacher. And then they internalize it. And they use to that to actually guide and regulate their own performance. So let's take a little trip down memory lane, memory lane. Think about when you were a little kid, and when you were given your first puzzle to put together. I remember when I had my first puzzle, and I was trying to solve it all alone; I had a really hard time. But I also remember my dad sitting right next to me and describing and demonstrating some basic techniques and tips and strategies to solve it. So he first told me to put, or actually find all the corner and edge pieces and to separate those from the middle pieces. And he gave me a couple pieces to put together and kept on encouraging me as I went along. So eventually, I became more competent, and my father didn't have to sit next to me, and he was just able to watch me solve the puzzle. I was able to learn I was actually able to work more independently. So higher mental functions are characterized more by independent learning and thinking. But that can only be cultivated by the elementary mental functions, which involve a tutor or someone older who acts as a guide through which we model our behavior. So according Vygotsky, this type of social interaction involves cooperative and collaborative dialogue, and that's what promotes this cognitive ability or development. So, in this example I was telling you about, my dad was an MKO, which is a more knowledgeable other. So this is the first key term that I want you to know. MKO stands for more knowledgeable other. So this is one term that Vygotsky defined. So the more knowledgeable other is basically someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, which, in this example, was me. I was the learner. So this MKO has a higher level of, of understanding and ability with respect to whatever the task is at hand. So in this case, my dad was an MKO cuz he had a better understanding of how to put the puzzle together than I did. So an MKO is someone else, but then we have to add in that sociocultural factor. So the interaction of myself, which is right here, with the MKO, the other person is what leads to learning, which I'll put over here. And it's what also leads to these higher mental functions in independence. Now the second key term that I want you to know is called the zone of proximal development, so ZPD for short, but I'll just write it out here. So it's called the zone of proximal development, and basically, I'm gonna illustrate in a second for you what what this looks like. But this zone of proximal development is the part where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given. So in my puzzle example, I was in that zone of proximal development because I was most sensitive to the information my father was giving me. I was between the ability of being able to do something and not being able to do something. And then that zone of guidance that I received is what allowed me to transition from the set of skills I already had to a more expanded set of skills by learning, and going beyond what I had already known. So this is what develops these higher mental functions. So let's pretend that this is our, right here I'm gonna draw a box. And this box right here represents everything that's beyond our reach and what we can't do. So I'm gonna do, put a big Can't Do over here, and this little circle inside over here represents everything we can do currently; in our current state, it's what we can do. And according to Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development is the link between the two, right in here, your ZPD. And that is the zone or the area that's most sensitive to instructional guidance, that allows the learner or child to develop the skills they already have and to use it on their own and go beyond into the areas they can't do, to expand that learning. So for example, I couldn't solve the jigsaw puzzle by myself when I was little; it would have taken me such a long time to do or at all. But I was able to solve it, following the interaction with my father. The ZPD involves and interaction with the MKO. And eventually, I developed that competence of that skill that I can also use in the future. So this arrow right here, just gonna show you, is what represents all of our learning and our development. Now another important part of Vygotsky's theory was the importance of language. So I'll put that right over here. Number three is language. So according to Vygotsky, he said that language is the main means by which adults transmit info to children, and it's also a very powerful tool of intellectual adaptation. So he looked at private speech. Now private speech is also called internal speech. It's when people talk out loud to themselves. Which happens most likely with what type of populations? Do adults speak out loud to themselves a lot or do children? Well, it's actually children. Most children engage in private speech. And he, Vygotsky, sees this as a way for children to plan activities and strategies, and this aids in their development. This active speaking to themselves, talking out loud. So he said this language is, therefore, an accelerator for thinking and understanding. So children who engage in large amounts of private speech are actually much more socially competent than children who do not use it that much. So he believed that language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. And later language ability becomes internalized as thought. So as we grow older, it becomes more internalized, which is called our inner speech, so basically, thought is a result of language. That ability to think for ourselves and develop that independence of executing skills comes from this importance of language, according to Vygotsky. So there you have it. These are the three main parts of his theory.

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Vygotsky sociocultural development (video) | Khan Academy

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Voiceover: All right, the next theory that we're going to take a look at is Vygotsky's Theory of Development, which is also the Sociocultural Theory of Development. So building upon the importance of social interaction, Vygotsky studies the role that social interaction plays in the development of cognition.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EpVTrBAr7g