Sociocultural Contexts for Teaching and Learning

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Sociocultural Contexts for Teaching and Learning

• Reynolds and Miller
• Chapter 7
• Chapter important to meet the needs of all
  students of all ages (including the English
  language learners)

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Acquisition of Human Knowledge as a Process of
Cognitive Change and Transformation

• Research is done using the
• following instruments
• Discourse analysis
• Longitudinal methods
• Qualitative methods (observation,
• participation and documentation)

• Vygotsky places culture,
• context and system as the
• center of inquiry
• Framework
• a. Addressed the way that
• psychologists studied
• higher psychological
• functions
• b. Relationship between
• language and thought
• Used functional system
• analysis?interactions
• of the individuals and
• the social in the teaching
• -learning process

• Vs Work
• Pedagogical methods that emphasize human
• diversity and their social and historical
• contexts
• Zone of Proximal Development?difference
• between the difficulty level of a problem that
  
• can be solved independently and the level
• that can be accomplished with help

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• Vs Experimental Method
• Based on how analysis and other mental systems
  affect the
• origin and development of higher mental
  functions
• He used the concept of meaning to analyze
  this relationship
• He looked at the ways in which math and
  writing help
• develop human cognition
• Other topics of interests to educational
  psychologists and
• sociocultural scholars included
• memory
• concept formation
• teaching and learning
• mathematical development
• literacy
• Developing a new psychology
• based on the Marxist approach?study the
  mind
• disagreed in some of the theories
• died as a recluse

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• Vs Methodological Approach for functional
  systems analysis
• Is genetic analysis?the study of a phenomena in
  their
• origins
• development
• disintegration
• Use of dialectics? we should study a phenomena
• At its origins
• Through their changes (not linear)
• These changes were quantitative leading to
  qualitative informa-
• tion leading to qualitative
  transformations
• He began to study the changes that
  occurred when humans
• began to control and use nature to meet
  their needs
• He also explore the minds
  interconnections with
• ..biological
• ..social SYSTEMS FOUND
  IN S SOCIAL RELATIONS
• ..emotional WITH THE EXTENDED WORLD
• ..cultural

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• Ethnographic Research Methods
• Cognitive Pluralism?impact of external
• activities on the acquisition and
  representation
• of knowledge (diversity of knowledge
• acquisition and representation)
• Representation of meaning through the use of
• words, knowledge, drawings, musical notes,
• and scientific diagrams in their planning
  notes
• The Role of Culture?growth and change of
• higher psychological processes through
• cultural development and its relationship to
  the
• elementary and higher mental functions

• Elementary and Higher
• Mental Functions
• Psychology operant
• conditioning (reflexes)
• and voluntary attention,
• logical memory, and
• concept formation
• (culturally developed)
• Those culturally developed
• relied on language, human
• society and culture

Symbolic Tools or Artifacts reveal Information
about the ways we think, reason form concepts

• Cognitive change between and within
• Individuals
• Captures change
• Explains qulitative transformations

Functional System Approach biological,
emotional social educational experiences
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Individual and Social Processes in
Learning Main ideas Role of social
interaction and culture in teaching and
learning Learning changes the physical structure
of the brain

• Principles of Learning and Development
• Development proceeds not toward socialization but
  toward
• converting social relations into mental
  functioning
• Scaffolding?in which an expert creates the
  foundation for
• The zone of proximal development ?where the
  teacher must orient her work, not on yesterdays
  level of performance, but tomorrows
• Principles of Teaching and Learning
• Is a unified process?dialectal view of phenomenon
  (interdependent opposites)
• Speech functions as a tool that mediates social
  action
• The idea of separate realities

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Teacher should use same language as the one used
for prior knowledge Teacher should understand
diversity and the culture of the child

• Sociocultural Approaches
• to Context Explains
• 1, How learning and
• development is affected
• by the context and
• How the context is
• changed as a result of
• this development

Assess what the student brings to the classroom
Assess the classroom variables Before, during
and after learning
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Mediation and Higher Psychological Processes

First form of speech in a child social Then the
child focus attention to the model in order to
acquire their speech pronunciation
Language is socially constructed
Language
Word Meaning
Thought
Consciousness

• There are two distinctive phases
• of thought development
• Prelinguistic development of
• thought
• Preintellectual development
• of expressive and social
• communication
• Both phases become interdependent as the child
• Moves from one stage to the other

Language is internalized by a complex interplay
of social and individual processes?humans learn
from others and from created tools semiotic
mediation
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Is what you mean what I think you mean?
Word Meaning and Verbal Thinking (Vygotsky study
the unity between linguistics and psychology)
Word meaning and Word Sense Is the schema of the
word Is one of the schema
attributes of that word
Inner Speech mediates Though and speech
Language Acquisition and Concept
Formation Language depends on classification?chil
d needs to identify in order to name Phases a)
indiscriminate naming b) trial and error
?meaning is diffuse c) objects are grouped in
families (connections/schemas) method of double
stimulation (mediation artifacts are
introduced Everyday concepts non-instructional
settings Scientific concepts child school
(attention, memory abstraction)
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Making Meaning in the Classroom
Results from several studies have shown students
prior experiences help constitute the
teaching/learning process

• Bilingualism
• Unification of
• diverse processes
• Separation of
• one or more
• languages
• (speech)
• At the level of
• meaning and
• thought, the
• two languages
• are unified

• Writing and Inner
• Speech
• Word meaning is
• internalized from
• external speech
• And externalized
• based on the
• motivation of the
• social interaction
• If students are
• preoccupied with the
• correctness of the
• language, inner
• speech is interrupted

• Writing and Verbal
• Thinking
• Writing is a more
• deliberate act than
• just speaking
• It is an expansion of
• inner speech
• It becomes a
• conscious act and
• in turn because of
• the internal
• preparation that is
• needed

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Vygotskys Contributions to Educational Reform

• In SPED
• Tools to accommodate the handicapped child
• Linguistic cultural diversity among students
  with special needs
• Students perceptions of their handicapping
  conditions and their effect on self esteem
• Assessment Standardized Testing
• For the development of authentic assessment that
  is
• sensitive to the diverse way students process
  information
• Non-bias dynamic assessment
• Psychometrics should be based on social
  interactions
• Collaboration in Education
• Cocollaboration in the cconstruction of thinking,
  meaning and consciousness
• Meaning of collaboration?construction of novel
  solutions to demanding questions
• Importance of dialogue for change