Lev Vygotsky

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Lev Vygotsky
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Personal History

• Russian
• Taught by tutors through Socratic dialog
• Worked from 1924 until 1934
• Died of TB at 38

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Theoretical Foundations

• Pavlov stimulus-response interactions
• Vygotsky
• S-R explained primitive animal cognition
• Humans extended beyond the realm of animals
• Culture
• Language
• Interaction between children / environment

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Gredler, G.E. (2005). Learning and Instruction
Theory Into Practice 5th ed.
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Theoretical Foundations 2

• Psychological tools a cultures symbol systems

• Speech
• Writing
• Mathematics
• Music

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Theoretical Foundations 3

• Cognitive development rooted in
• Interactions with the world / symbol systems
• Mastery of symbol systems leads to cognitive
  development
• Logical thinking
• Logical memory
• Learning how to learn

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Theoretical Foundations 4

• Research focus language and associated symbol
  systems
• Means for examining cognitive development
  because
• Essential for interaction
• Regulates / reflects thinking

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Theoretical Foundations 5

• Types of speech
• Social
• Self-talk
• Inner

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Research Findings 1A

• Mastering symbol systems leads to cognitive
  development
• Thought and language initially develop
  independently
• initial language used to communicate by naming
  rather than as a mechanism for thought.

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Research Findings 1B

• Mastering symbol systems leads to cognitive
  development
• About age 2, kids thought and language become
  intertwined
• After merger, self-talk appears which develops
  into inner speech

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Research Findings 1C

• Mastering symbol systems leads to cognitive
  development
• By talking to themselves, kids learn to guide and
  direct their own behaviors much as adults helped
  guide them in the past
• Gradually, they internalize the directions
  theyve received from those around them until
  they can give themselves directions internally

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Research Findings 2 -3

• Complex mental processes begin as social
  activities, are internalized then used
  independently
• Through adult interactions kids learn how other
  people think about objects or events

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Research Findings 4

• Challenging tasks promote cognitive growth
• Little learned through tasks kids can already do

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Research Results

• General Law of Genetic Development
• All aspects of a childs development appear first
  on a social level between people and second,
  internally within the individual
• Mastery requires practice on the part of the
  learner

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Zone of Proximal Development

• Two Levels of Development
• Actual / completed
• Potential
• ZPD was as a true problem solving activity and
  not focused on discrete skills and subskills

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Vygotsky Quotes

• The key to instruction effective in influencing
  cognitive development is that it awakens and
  rouses to life functions which are in a stage of
  maturing, which lie in the zone of proximal
  development.

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Vygotsky Quotes

• If an adult uses leading questions and examples
  and demonstrates the solution to a problem, the
  child may be able to solve the problem.
• The child must have some means for crossing from
  what he or she does not know to what is new
  knowledge.

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Teaching Implications - Scaffolds

• Two Forms
• Guidance
• Structure

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Teaching Implications

• Modeling
• Scaffolding
• Articulation
• Reflection
• Exploration