LEV VYGOTSKYBy: Jackie Valencia and Cynthia Rascon

BIOGRAPHY• November 17 1896 – June 11 1934

• Graduated from Moscow University in 1917, degree in law

• Death at the age of 37

• Born in the town of Orsha, Belarus, in the Russian Empire

• Began studying psychology in 1924 at the Institute of Psychology in Moscow

• Collaborated with Alexei Leontiev and Alexander Luria

BIOGRAPHY• Published 6 books on psychology topics within a 10 year period

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

• Vygotsky, L.S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (original work published in 1934).

• Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). Thinking and speech. (N. Minick. Trans.). New York: Plenum Press.

ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

• It is the range of abilities that a person can perform with assistance, but cannot yet perform independently

• Scaffolding- providing students with the appropriate assistance and tools gives the student what they need to accomplish the new task or skill

• Eventually scaffolding can be removed and the student will be able to complete the task independently.

• Moving target- as a learner gains new skills and abilities, this zone moves progressively forward.

EXAMPLES• A teacher in an experimental psychology course might provide scaffolding for students by

coaching them step-by-step through their experiments.

• Next, teacher might slowly remove the scaffolding by only providing outlines or brief descriptions of how to proceed.

• Finally, students would be expected to develop and carry out their experiments independently.

3 LEVELS• Level of potential development:

What a student is not able to do independently but able to do under adult guidance or with competent peers. Teaching should not happen here, it would not result in effective learning.

• Zone Of Proximal Development:The area between the level of actual development and the level of potential development. Where instruction should be focused to drive the greatest learning gains in students.

• Level of actual development:Encompasses skills a student has already mastered and can perform independently. Instruction here does not provide students with a sufficient challenge.

BENEFITS• STUDENTS provided with-

challenging tasks that stimulate thinking and motivate efforts to learn

meaningful instruction and feedback that helps drive further development at an appropriate pace

TEACHERS-

identify and use areas of strength and weakness to tailor learning experiences at the individual level

engage students in social interactions to enable learning

better understand students as individual learners, learners in a small group setting and learners in a larger social setting

 discover unique thought processes that different students may use to solve problems 

Morrissey and Brown (2009) state, “the aim of scaffolding is the ultimate transfer of responsibility for the task to the child as adult support decreases and child capability increases” 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_XngwzpR8I