Vygotsky

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Vygotsky
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Lev Vygotsky Historical Background

• Born in Orsha, Byelorussia in 1896
• Graduated in 1917, studied law and also
  philosophy, psychology and literary criticism.
• 1919 Taught literature, aesthetics, philosophy
  and Russian language
• Founded the Institute of Defectology, directed
  dept. of
• education of physically defective and mentally
  retarded children.
• In 1924, gave an important speech that attracted
  the attention of Luria, began to conduct
  experiments.
• Died of tuberculosis in 1934, age 38.

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Vygotsky Work Unknown In U.S. Until Relatively
Recently

• His works were published after his death
• His works were suppressed in 1936
• His work did not become known to U.S. researchers
  until the late 1950s

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Major Influences On Vygotskys Thinking

• Marxist theory
• Pavlov and behaviorism (responding to
  introspective methods of psychological study)
• Kohler Gestalt Psychology Studies of Ape Problem
  Solving
• Western European sociologists (e.g. Weber)
  anthropologists
• Aware of and took into account, work of Herbart,
  Piaget, Thorndike, Freud, and William James

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Sociocultural Theory of Mental Development

• Interested in how mental processes came about
  saw developmental analysis as central method for
  all of psychology
• Criticized biological reductionism and
  mechanistic behaviorism as single factor
  theories
• Emphasized multiple forces in development with
  special emphasis on social processes

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Three Paths Shape Human Development. First Path
Is

• Evolutionary
• Elementary functions will develop from this path.
  These Elementary Functions
• Are shared with some non-human species
• include perception, memory, attention
• Are immediateclose to perception of experience
  and do not involve mediated processes such as
  representation
• Arise from direct influence of external stimuli
• In humans, can be converted to higher mental
  functions via sociocultural development

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The Other Two Path Shaping Human Development

• Historical (sociocultural)
• Accumulated knowledge of many individuals over
  many years interacting with the biological
  environment (first path) contributes to human
  development
• Marxist influences on Vygotskys thinking show
  here
• Ontogenetic
• Development and maturation of the individual
  (sometimes called intrapsychological)

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Cultural Tools Developmental Influences from
the Second Path

• Humans use tools to understand and mediate their
  social and physical environments
• Tools are socially generated and transmitted
  within cultures through joint activity
• Tools are material, symbolic, and semiotic
• Language (speech) most important tool

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Higher Mental Functions

• Mediated
• Involve representation (writing, memory aids,
  advanced concepts categories)
• Social origins
• Self-regulated, rather than environmentally
  controlled
• Voluntary creation of artificial stimuli which
  can cause behavior
• Conscious realizationintellectualization

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A comparison of elementary and higher mental
functions
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A comparison of elementary and higher mental
functions
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A comparison of elementary and higher mental
functions
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Important ideas

• The General Genetic Law Of Cultural Development
• The social context of learning
• Importance of speech as a key social process
• the principle of decontextualization of
  mediational means
• The temporal relationship between development and
  instruction
• "rudimentary" and "higher" mental functions

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General Genetic Law of Cultural Development
Any function in the childs cultural development
appears twice, or on two planes. First on the
social plane, and then on the psychological
plane. First it appears between people as an
interpsychological category, and then within the
child as an intrapsychological category.
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Social function of communication

• Through the use of communication people are able
  to regulate their behavior.

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Importance of speech

• Concepts develop between people interacting in
  small groups
• The interpersonal dimension
• these concepts get internalized through the use
  of internalized speech
• Vygotsky studied impaired people such as deaf
  individuals to see how these impairments might
  impact the development of concepts
• Founded the Institute of Defectology, and
  directed the Department of Education of
  Physically Defective and Mentally Retarded
  Children.

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Internalization the example of trying to reach
an object

• Child tries to reach an object but cannot
• Gets frustrated, makes sounds.
• Adult happens by. Notices child trying. Adult
  gets object for child.
• Child learns pointing gesture
• Nonsocial situation is transformed into social
  interaction.
• The process by which the child comes to learn
  that pointing at the object leads to a desired
  outcome is a process of internalization.
• what the child has learned has transformed this
  external object at which the child was pointing
  from a nonsocial object into an object that is
  part of a social context.

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The principle of decontextualization of
mediational means

• Process by which signs become less and less
  dependent on the immediate context in which they
  are used

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Mediation

• Cultural tools mediate (influence) thinking and
  behavior of humans
• Humans use cultural tools to operate in their
  social world
• Thus, all human activity, regardless of context
  is culturally mediated and is inherently social
• School instruction is a very important cultural
  tool that mediates thinking

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Example of the Principle Of Decontextualization
Of Mediational Means

• Counting
• Using rudimentary functions objects to be counted
  must be present and visible
• Two shoes
• Using higher mental functions can think of the
  concept of two as an abstract concept
• Abstractly concept of two can be 3-1 or 20 or
  4/2

One shoe
Two shoes
Two
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Decontextualization

• Illiterate subjects
• Cant decontextualize. Tools include log because
  the it is part of the context when you are
  chopping wood using a hammer and a hatchet and a
  saw
• Literate subjects had a concept of tools that
  did not include the log
• They used mediated thinking to develop this
  concept

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The temporal relationship between development and
instruction

• Vygotsky believes that in general instruction
  precedes development
• What implications does this have for teaching
  math?

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Comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget

• With respect to
• Scientific concepts and ordinary everyday
  concepts
• Vygotsky paid special attention to acquisition of
  scientific concepts whereas Piaget more
  interested in acquisition of ordinary concepts
• Learning in isolation versus learning through
  social interaction
• Piaget focused on learning by oneself whereas
  Vygotsky was particularly interested in influence
  of school instruction on learning

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Egocentric Speech

• Appears round age 3 and disappears around age 7
• For Piaget Manifestation of egocentric thinking
  transitional to social speech in which child
  communicates with others in non-egocentric ways.
  Is an artifact of development, rather than a
  function of development

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Egocentric Speech

• For Vygotsky Is transitional between social and
  inner speech and performs an important function
  in planning and regulating childs thought.
  Initially, egocentric and social speech is
  undifferentiated, but they come differentiated
  over time. Increases with task difficulty.
• Is a function of development.

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The course of intellectual development

• Intellectual development is not compartmentalized
• Different school subjects interact with one
  another to contribute to overall intellectual
  development
• Vygotsky seems to hold a domain general
  position
• the psychological prerequisites for instruction
  in different school subjects are to a large
  extent the same instruction in a given subject
  influences the development of a higher functions
  far beyond the confines of that particular
  subject

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Zone Of Proximal Development

• Definition
• The distance between a child's actual
  developmental level as determined by independent
  problem-solving and the higher level of potential
  development as determined through problem-solving
  under adult guidance or in collaboration with
  more capable peers.
• Jointly determined by the child's developmental
  level as well as by the type of instruction that
  he is receiving.

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Zone Of Proximal Development An Image

• the "buds" of development.
• A child at a given stage of development displays
  certain abilities while other abilities are not
  yet demonstrated. However the child has the
  capability of exhibiting some of these not yet
  exhibited capabilities and these future potential
  abilities exist in the form of "buds" that
  Vygotsky refers to in his concept of the zone of
  proximal development.

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Vygotskys views on instruction

• the only good kind of instruction is that which
  marches ahead of development and leads it it
  must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the
  ripening functions.
• it remains necessary to determine the lowest
  threshold at which instruction in, say,
  arithmetic may begin, since a certain minimal
  rightness of function is required. But we must
  consider the upper threshold as well instruction
  must be oriented toward the future, not the past.

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Vygotskys views and teaching challenging
mathematics

• Vygotsky criticizes instruction that does not
  challenge the child to do better.
• instruction (that is oriented) to the childs
  weaknesses rather than his strength (encourages)
  him to remain at the preschool stage of
  development.

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Vygotskys influence on Ginsburg

• Three cognitive systems of mathematical knowledge
• System 1 Natural Cognitive System
• does not involve counting or other specific
  information transmitted by culture
• emerges independently of formal schooling
• When we look at some of Ginsburg's tapes and see
  children engaged in tasks involving one-to-one
  correspondence or the equivalence of two sets of
  objects we are seeing what Ginsburg considers
  informal mathematical knowledge.
• Another aspect of this form of mathematical
  knowledge is knowing that one quantity is more
  than a second quantity even though the child may
  not be able to count.

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Ginsburgs three cognitive systems of
mathematical knowledge

• System 2
• emerges outside of formal instructional settings
  but this time involves some cultural influences
• skills that are involved in using this second
  level of mathematical knowledge are still
  rudimentary skills
• minimal use of assigned system for mediating
  mental functioning.
• child's knowledge of numbers is tied to concrete
  instances
• very minimal decontextualization

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Ginsburgs three cognitive systems of
mathematical knowledge

• System 3 Formal Mathematical Knowledge
• systematically taught when the child is engaged
  in formal schooling

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The General Genetic Law Of Cultural Development

• functions in a child's development appears twice
  first they appear in the interpersonal realm and
  then they appear in the intrapersonal realm
• thinking and concepts that appear in thought
  first appear in the thinking of small groups of
  people interacting with one another
• Later these concepts make their way into the
  individual's own consciousness