Recalling my secondary school days, most teachers have used strategies such a think-pair-share and round-robin to explain and elaborate our understanding of topics. This associate closely with Vygotsky’s social culture aspect of development, much learning happened through peer teaching and teacher scaffolding. 

In my poly days, I evoke a particular lesson. My tutor asked all the students in the classroom to form a human cell and to demonstrate how it reacts to foreign objects. Even after 15 years, I can associate and recall the lesson so vividly implies the effective use of concrete illustration and scaffolding by the tutor. The activity showcased that even in older students, concrete illustration is vital. It made it more powerful, as students themselves become the concrete illustration. The teaching involved a good blend of Vygotsky’s scaffolding as well as adapting to Piaget’s cognitive development stage and process. 

Mind mapping – My chemistry teacher, Secondary school will start a lesson by drawing a mind map to understand the chemical names of elements. This will demonstrate the overview of the chapter with all the chemical terms, which I do not need to flip pages in a book. Till now, I am practising for my kids whenever I’m teaching them chemistry.

Breaking down the task – The primary purpose to break down the task is to make it more superficial and easy to understand. Apart from understanding, absorption to your mind is highly effective too.

Group work/discussion – Able to express views based on understanding and retrieve/recall back that have been forgotten.

Repetitive – I applied this method for the math lesson and other subjects too, where I repeatedly attempt the same type of question. This method is effective for primary school as their cognitive level are low, and they need scaffolding from the teacher to repeat the instructions and steps of doing.

Vygosky’s theory states that by involving students in social interactions and encouraging students to use language to describe our understanding as mention in the slides. Our teachers get us involved in group settings and also help us to create the learning activities for guided learning in the form of ZPD. This scaffolding really helps us as learners or students to develop and learn what we need. 

We also learn much better when manipulative and additional resources such as on screen projection and videos and hands on are given to us.  

It really comes down to the way how interactive the teacher conduct the lesson. 
as the bond with the students helps our learning a lot more than we think.

For example, mathematics required tons of practice on my end. Our teacher showed us the different ways a question can be phrased though they were asking for the same thing. You need to know precisely what the question wants before you can apply the correct formula.

Biology was about key words and knowing facts, the question can turn up in different experiments or show you certain charts/diagrams that you need to interpret but they were still asking about something you have learnt in the syllabus, just presented in a different format. Thus, you need to know what the question is asking for, before rummaging through your filing cabinet of key words and concepts to answer the question.

Perhaps getting exposed to a variety of questions is some sort of introducing a disequilibrium into our schemas. It presented to us new ways of using our knowledge in a variety of forms. This is probably in line with Piaget’s cognitive theory. 

What I remember most prominently that resonated with Vygotsky’s theory was when my teacher placed me beside one of my classmates who topped our class for Physics. Needless to say, I was at the bottom. He was the more knowledgeable other (besides the teacher) that was the best candidate who could guide me, and address my questions immediately. At the same time, from a student’s perspective, he was able to explain certain concepts to me in a different way than the teacher so that I could understand. My zone of proximal development was probably huge, but thanks to him and some consultations with the teacher, I managed to pass my Physics.

There was also a lot of scaffolding done in school and one which I could recall would be during language class. Our English teacher guided us on how to write the different forms of essays. We would first learn the structure on how to write the essay. For example, narrative writing requires an introduction, body and end. A twist can be included just before the ending. Whereas for an argumentative essay, the structure of the essay would be different. After that we were taught on how to write the content of each paragraph, and where can we go to look for additional resources to substantiate our points. 

Looking back, I was more focused on doing well for exams than really remembering and understanding the content for my own knowledge acquisition. But all the strategies that my teachers employed (be it Piaget or Vygotsky) clearly did help in my learning and I believe that learning is an ongoing process. 

As I progressed to secondary school, new schemas were introduced. There are times when I do not understand the new information, however it will take some time for me to ponder and reflect on it. If I was stuck, I normally asked my Science teacher to explain this further. It dawned on me that at that period of time, time is required for intellectual growth to occur. I was not only asking questions when I am curious but I was actively seeking out answers.

I continued my Diploma in Biomedical Medical Engineering due to my love for Science. What I did not realise was the course had alot of Engineering Maths modules. I am not good at Maths thus the person who coaches me with my Maths back then was my classmate. By having someone who is competent in the subject area, she was able to bridge the gap. Peer tutoring helped me when I was stuck solving mathematical problems. The assistance rendered along with encouragement, helped me ace the Maths modules. As we work collaboratively to solve problems, learning not only takes place but the learning retains better. Vygotsky’s principle was applied even though I had no idea back then.

When I went to Poly, it was a totally different learning experience.  We had group discussions, frequent interaction with teachers and classmates.  Mind mapping was used to better understand difficult concepts. Job attachment gave me an opporutnity to apply what I learned in school.

In polytechnic, when lecturers used relatable scenarios or stories to further explain a concept/topic, that made it easier for me to understand and remember what they were teaching. There was a human/personal connection that was established when they related the material taught back to what they experienced for themselves. An example would be one of my polytechnic lecturer was teaching about generalization. As she was going through the slides, she talked about her own personal experience, where she taught this child with ASD, who had difficulties with generalizing. The story was so interesting (and the way that she explained it). that I still remember it although it has been around 5 years since then. In summary, she shared that every day, this student of hers took a specific route to school. But one day, he has a sudden meltdown and was crying and screaming non-stop. His caregiver couldn’t figure out why and neither could my lecturer until she took a walk with them another day, and realized that he would display the same actions at a specific point (in this case, the mini-mart). It was then she realized that the student was upset because the owner changed the way that the products were arranged on the shelf. 

This strategy used by my lecturer can be linked to the process of assimilation by Piaget. In theoretical sense, we knew of generalisation as being able to apply a skill learnt across all settings. After the story, we could then better modify this knowledge to fit into our existing schema, with a clearer idea of how generalisation looks like in a real-life setting. 

Students meet in small groups with a facilitator who brings up discussions and is assigned a problem. They must research and investigate possible causes and solutions to apply in real scenarios. 

The PBL approach resonates with Vygotsky’s theory as students enter the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The facilitator would provide the appropriate help to students to achieve the knowledge.

Associating with Vygotsky's ZPD with PBL. The facilitator has the knowledge and skills higher than the students. These provide the role of a more knowledgeable person that Vygotsky mentioned.

Vygotsky also claims that social interactions with someone knowledgeable. It allows the students to observe and practice their skills. Debating knowledge and contexts are good practices during presenting that are mediated by the facilitator. These can create a higher level of learning.

Vygotsky mentioned the importance of scaffolding. The facilitator provided guidance and encouragement to the student to lead through the ZPD and acquire knowledge through the task.

Based on piaget theory, he views intellectual growth as a process of adaptation or adjustment to the world. Adaptation is the ability to adjust to new information and experiences.  Learning is allowing us to adapt to our constant change of environment, through adaptation, we are able to adopt new behaviours that allows us to work better and bland in with changes.

Vygotsky believes in the zone of proximal development. His concepts refer to which a child needs guidance and encouragement in order to achieve a skill. It can be as easy as putting on shoes to solving a mathematical question.

I believe as a teacher its best to see which theory matches the students needs and how it benefits the child. 

As I move on to secondary school, I remember having multiple group projects especially for subjects like Math and English. Teachers would use collaborative learning strategies such as peer review and jigsaw where I get to learn from other group mates and vice versa. This is in line with Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory where we develop social interactions and learn from others and build our language as we interact with one another. The teachers would also use instructional scaffolding by breaking down difficult topics to bite size information to help us in our understanding.

As I progress to tertiary education, I learn best through pictures, videos and mind-maps. It helps me to visualise and recall information much better than just reading words.

My teacher always revisited our prior knowledge when she wants to introduce a new concept in class. Before introducing a new topic, my teacher used to recall back what we had learnt previously and I always find this method easier for me to grasp the new concepts as this allowed me to connect the dots easily. I feel that my teacher’s method of building on my existing knowledge enhanced my learning.

When I struggled to grasp a new concept, my teacher found ways to provide differentiated instruction to ensure I grasped the concept and this made my learning easier. 

I feel that my teacher’s method of teacher was similar to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development because I feel that just like his theory, my teacher tapped on the assimilation method whereby using the prior knowledge that I had, she built upon it and when I struggled to understand a concept, she modified her instructions (similar to the accommodation method suggested by Piaget).

 

Also, my teacher used a lot of scaffolding in her lessons which allowed me to grasp the concepts better when I was struggling. As a medium ability student, I found the scaffolding method very beneficial as I could learn better when I was guided and I was able to work on similar concepts independently once I had learnt through scaffolding.

My teacher also created a lot of opportunities for group work which allowed us to interact with our peers and this was a great opportunity to learn from one another. I have always enjoyed group work as we all had various ideas to share and it was a good way to learn from each other. I feel that the scaffolding method and she creating the opportunity for us to learn through social interactions is very similar to Vygotsky’s theory.

On the whole, I feel that my teacher used a good mix of both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theory in her teaching which enhanced all our learning. 

During poly, there are multiple sessions of structured groupwork that forced social interactions and discussions. Meaningful debates and opportunities to learn from one another is another takeaway during this period. 

In conclusion, scaffolding and social interactions in groupwork are useful strategies/activities that I applied in my teaching as well.