The Dialectical Relationship between Prior and Present Learning: Mapping Vygotsky

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The Dialectical Relationship between Prior and
Present Learning Mapping Vygotskys Activity
Theory to the Prior Learning Portfolio Process

• Jessica Kindred, Ph.D.
• The College of New Rochelle
• School of New Resources
• Brooklyn, New York

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Jessica Kindred, Ph.D. The College of New
Rochelle School of New Resources Brooklyn, New
York

• Industry Experience
• Workplace training (manufacturing
  transportation maintenance)

• Academic Experience
• Teaching psychology

• Integration
• Teaching PLP

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• Industrial Context
• Workplace research and training

1990s international competition new
technologies focus on planning customer /
market orientations 1993 changing job
requirements (college degree for engineering and
supervision) 1999 outsourcing and job loss
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• Academic context
• Developing experiential learning activities for
  the classroom

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TheoryPractice

• Cultural Historical Activity Theory
• Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)
• Prior Learning Portfolio (PLP)
• Production, support, and evaluation

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Prior Learning Process

• Identify knowledge from work experience and life
  history
• Represent prior learning in academically relevant
  ways
• Qualify learning as college level

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Learning
Expertise Academia work school informal
formal implicit explicit intuitive
explanatory concrete abstract performati
ve declarative practical
conceptual experiential representational spontan
eous scientific
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Somewhere between the experience and the
representation is the learning.
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Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934)
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Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language.
Cambridge, MA MIT Press. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978).
Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA Harvard
University Press.
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Activity theory Historical materialism Development
al perspective Dialectical dynamic of thought and
sign Internalization (Transformation of
interpersonal to intrapersonal)
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Schematically, we may imagine thought and speech
as two intersecting circles. In their overlapping
parts, thought and speech coincide to produce
what is called verbal thought There is a vast
area of thought that has no direct relation to
speech. The thinking manifested in the use of
tools belongs in this area, as does practical
intellect in general. (Vygotsky, Thought and
Language, p. 88)
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Verbal Thought

• thought speech
• Practical Academic
• intellect intellect

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Vygotskys Knowledge Kinds
Theoretical Abstraction Spontaneous
Scientific Informal Formal Empirical
Theoretical Empirical Generalization

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Spontaneous Scientific Everyday
Systematic Informal Formal Learned
Taught Empirical Theoretical

• Dialectical interaction between kinds of
  knowledge in the developing mind

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Thought, unlike speech, does not consist of
separate units ... the whole thought is present
at once, but in speech it has to be developed
successively. A thought may be compared to a
cloud shedding a shower of words ... Experience
teaches us that thought does not express itself
in words, but rather realizes itself in them
(Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 250).
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Mediation

• of thought by language
• of meaning by other people
• of prior learning by present context

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Scaffolding

• Facilitative role of mentor toward learners
  generative reflection and effective articulation
  of prior learning

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Dialogue

• The role of dialogic processes in realizing
  knowledge and prior learning
• (interview as process of cultivation)

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ZPD

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
• typically applied to the assessment of potential
  for learning
• Zone of Proximal Reflection
• adapted to the situation of prior learning as a
  zone of
• active reflection

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Generative Reflection of PLP
Present
Prior

• Dialectical interaction between times of
  knowledge in the developing mind the emergence
  of new learning

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PLP prior internalization to present reflection
to future externalization
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