vygotsky

• what is the zone of proximal development?

  • gap between a child's current level of development defined by cognitive tasks they can perform unaided and what they can potentially do with help from an expert
• what is scaffolding?

  • process of helping a leaner cross ZPD and advance as much as possible, given their stage of development
  • the level of help declines as they cross the ZPD
• what does ZPD explain?

  • how a child may be eager to learn bit there is a limit to what they can learn as they're restricted by current developmental stage and size of ZPD
• techniques of scaffolding

  • recruitment
  • reduction of degrees of freedom
  • direction maintenance
• scaffolding levels 


  5. demonstration - showing the child how to draw

  4. preperation for child - telling them how to draw

  3. indication of materials - pen, paper etc

  2. specific verbal instructions - now draw using the pen

  1.general prompts - how many eyes to draw
• vygotsy scaffolding strengths

  • supporting evidence -CONNER and CROSS observed 45 pairs of mothers and children completing a problem solving task across 3 years, showed that mothers gradually decreased in the amount of support they offered resulting in children becoming more successful in behaviour in parent child interaction
• vygotsky limitations

  • doesn't consider individual differences between studies/children in terms of personality and social attitude meaning it has limited practice application to education
  • incorrect universal assumptions as he said 2 children exeriencing the same interactions should develop the same cognitive skills but HOWE found children who observe a sane motion of an object shown down a slope developed a different understanding of what they saw
• what does vygotsky say about cultural differences?

  • cultural differences in learning explained through different experiences
  • learning first happens in social and cultural level as child interacts with others and then child internalises what they learnt to enhance skills
• vyotsky strengths

  • BRYANT - 4 + 5 year olds estimated number of sweets, gave better estimate with help from older child expert which shows children develop more advanced skills with expert help