Foundations of Education

Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) was a social constructivist psychologist. He argued that children’s interactions within their social/cultural environments spurred their cognitive growth. In Vygotsky’s view, shared experiences between children and others who were more knowledgeable (e.g., parents, teachers, and older peers) spurred cognitive growth. Vygotsky argued that these socially guided experiences - notably rooted in language - foster children’s deeper understanding of concepts which are then internalized, readying the child for further cognitive development.

Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978)…focused on how a child's or novice's thinking is influenced by relationships with others who are more capable, knowledgeable, or expert than the learner. Vygotsky proposed that when a child (or any novice) is learning a new skill or solving a new problem, he or she can perform better if accompanied and helped by an expert than if performing alone…Someone who has played very little chess, for example, will probably compete against an opponent better if helped by an expert chess player than if competing alone against an opponent.

Vygotsky called the difference between solo performance and assisted performance the zone of proximal development (or ZPD for short) - meaning the place or area (figuratively speaking) of immediate change.

From this perspective learning is like assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1991). Initially during learning, knowledge or skill is found mostly "in" the expert helper. If the expert is skilled and motivated to help, then the expert arranges experiences that allow the novice to practice crucial skills or to construct new knowledge. In this regard the expert is a bit like the coach of an athlete - offering help and suggesting ways of practicing, but never doing the actual athletic work himself or herself.

Gradually, by providing continued experiences matched to the novice learner's emerging competencies, the expert-coach makes it possible for the novice or apprentice to appropriate (or make his or her own) the skills or knowledge that originally resided only with the expert…

…In both the psychological and social versions of constructivist learning, the novice is not really "taught" so much as just allowed to learn. The social version of constructivism, however, highlights the responsibility of the expert for making learning possible. He or she must not only have knowledge and skill, but also know how to arrange experiences that make it easy and safe for learners to gain knowledge and skill themselves.

These requirements sound, of course, a lot like the requirements for classroom teaching. In addition to knowing what is to be learned, the expert (i.e., the teacher) also has to break the content into manageable parts, offer the parts in a sensible sequence, provide for suitable and successful practice, bring the parts back together again at the end, and somehow relate the entire experience to knowledge and skills already meaningful to the learner.

Tharp, R. & Gallimore, R. (1989). Rousing Minds to Life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

As noted above, an important tenant of learning within Vygotsky’s theory is the provision of guidance (scaffolding) by more knowledgeable others.

In the above example, it is expected that the caregiver reading with the child would be aware of the child’s existing knowledge and encourage the child to expand their understanding of reading. This understanding between the child and the 'more knowledgeable other' is referred to as the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD refers to what the child can do and understand with the scaffolded guidance of a more knowledgeable other.

Take for example, a one-year-old child who has just learned to hand their caregiver a book. A caregiver who is aware of a child’s ZPD would not focus on teaching the child letter sounds, but perhaps show the child how to hold or open the book. Initially, these tasks would likely be difficult for the child to perform independently, but with support, the child would likely learn how to hold the book upright and turn the pages independently.

It is at this point that a behaviour has been internalized and the child is ready to move on to the next level of cognitive development in the area of reading (e.g., perhaps talking about the pictures in the book).

Watch the video below which introduces the zone of proximal development: