Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky „zone of proximal development“ (ZPD).

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was born in Western Russia (Beloruss) in 1896. He graduated with law degree at Moscow University. After graduation, he started teaching at various institutions. Vygotsky’s first big research project was in 1925 with his Psychology of Art. A few years later, he pursued a career as a psychologist working with Alexander Luria and Alexei Leontiev. Together, they began the Vygotskian approach to psychology. Vygotsky had no formal training in psychology but it showed that he was fascinated bby it. After his death of tuberculosis in 1934 his ideas were repudiated by the government, however, his ideas were kept alive by his students. Through his lifetime, he completed over 180 works, some of which were not published until after his death.

The culture in Russia during Vygotsky’s most productive years was a fertile ground for new ideas. After the Russian revolution of 1917, the Russian population was focused on creating a new society based on Marxist ideals. Everyone wwas committed to making sure this new society would survive. Since Vygotsky supported socialism and worked its foundations into his own research and writing, he received much support from his audience and the community at large.

Vygotsky first publicly introduced himself iinto the domain of psychology in 1924 with his presentation, “Methods of Reflexological and Psychological Investigations,” at the Second All-Russian Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad. It was an impressive intellectual accomplishment and while not everyone there agreed with his ideas, they all realized he was an important new voice in psychology.

Through his most productive years, Vygotsky worked mostly in Moscow, writing, lecturing, and researching. He was very popular and looked up to by many in the domain. Students occasionally listened to his lectures from open windows because the lecture halls where he spoke were so packed. Even today, Vygotskian principles are the basis for much research in psychology. Vygotsky faced very little criticism during his lifetime. He was considered to bbe a creative genius and found much support for his work. Based on his personality and supportive community of peers, we can deduce that if Vygotsky had encountered significant criticism while he was alive that he would have dealt with it quite well and continued his work in spite of it.

When the Cold War ended, Vygotsky’s works were revealed. Vygotsky has written several articles and books on the subject of his theories and psychology, including Thought and Language (1934). His rresearch in how children solve their problems that surpassed their level of development led Vygotsky to create the Zone of Proximal Development theory. That is one reason why Vygotsky’s developmental psychology has influenced education profoundly in Russia.

The major theme of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky (1978) states: „Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.“ (p. 57).

A second aspect of Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development is limited to a certain time, which he calls the „zone of proximal development“ (ZPD). Furthermore, full development during the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.

The element in the socio-cultural theory is the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky believed that any pedagogy creates learning processes that llead to development and this sequence results in zones of proximal development. It’s the concept that a child accomplishes a task that he/she cannot do alone, with the help from a more skilled person. Vygotsky also described the ZPD as the difference between the actual development level as determined by individual problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or collaboration with more knowledgeable peers. The result of this process is children become more socialized in the dominant culture and it induces cognitive development (Moll, 1994).

In order for the ZPD to be such a success, it must contain two features. The first is called subjectivity. This term describes the process of two individuals begin a task with different understanding and eventually arrive at a shared understanding. The second feature is scaffolding, which refers to a change in the social support over the course of a teaching session. If scaffolding is successful, a child’s mastery level of performance can change, which means that it can increase a child’s performance on a particular task.

A child’s actual developmental level indicates a child’s level of mental development at a particular time. It indicates the ffunctions that have already matured in the child. A child’s ZPD defines those functions that have not matured yet, but that are in the process of maturing and developing. A child’s ZPD permits us to outline the child’s immediate future and his overall dynamic state of development. „Experience has shown that the child with the larger zone of proximal development will do much better in school.“ (Hanfmann, 1962) Ex. Taken from Lefrancois (1994).

Take, for example, two five-year-old children, who can both, under normal circumstances, answer questions that other average five-year-olds can also answer. Their mental ages might be said to correspond to their chronological ages, and their intelligence would be described as average. But if, when prompted, one of these children could successfully answer questions corresponding to a mental age of but the other could not, it would be accurate to say that the first child’s zone of proximal growth is greater than the other’s (that is, it spans a wider range of higher functions).

The zone of proximal development has implications for assessment, especially concerning children with learning and behaviour problems. In the book, Scaffolding Children’s Learning, Berk and Winsler discuss Vygotsky’s dissatisfaction with the ability and achievement

tests as valid measures of children’s capacity to learn. Two children can differ substantially in the ZPD’s. One child may do his/her best on their own, while the other needs some assistance. Therefore, the ZPD is crucial for identifying each child’s readiness to benefit from instruction.

An interesting analogy of zone of proximal development: in mechanics, when you adjust the timing of an engine, you set it slightly ahead of the highest compression moment in order to maximize power and pperformance.

Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development has many implications for those in the educational milieu. One of them is the idea that human learning presupposes a specific social nature and is part of a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them (Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky (1978), an essential feature of learning is that it awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is in the action oof interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers.

Therefore, when it comes to language learning, the authenticity of the environment and the affinity between its participants are essential elements to make the learner feel part oof this environment. These elements are rarely predominant in conventional classrooms.

Vygotsky’s theory is complementary to the work of Bandura on social learning and a key component of situated learning theory. Because Vygotsky’s focus was on cognitive development, it is interesting to compare his views with those of Bruner and Piaget.

Comparison of Vygotsky and Piaget: Vygotsky’s ideas and theories are often compared to Jean Piaget, especially his cognitive- developmental theory. They had a conflict explaining that development concepts should not be taught until children are in the appropriate developmental stage. Opposing Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, Piaget believed that the most important source of cognition is the children themselves. But Vygotsky argued that the social environment could help the child’s cognitive ddevelopment. The social environment is an important factor, which helps the child culturally adapt to new situations when needed. Both Vygotsky and Piaget had the common goal of finding out how children master ideas and then translate them into speech.

Piaget found that children act independently on the physical world to discover what it has to offer. Vygotsky, on the other hand, wrote in Thought and Language that human mental activity is the result of social learning. As children master ttasks they will engage in cooperative dialogues with others, which led Vygotsky to believe that acquisition of language is the most influential moment in a child’s life.

In conclusion, Piaget emphasized universal cognitive change and Vygotsky’s theory leads us to expect highly variable development, depending on the child’s cultural experiences to the environment. Piaget’s theory emphasized the natural line, while Vygotsky favoured the cultural line of development.

In the introduction to Vygotsky’s Thought and Language, Jerome Bruner (1962) described Vygotsky’s view of the role of semiotic mediation:

He believed that in mastering nature we master ourselves. For it is the internalization of overt action that makes thought, and particularly the internalization of external dialogue that brings the powerful tool of language to bear on the stream of thought. Man, if you will, is shaped by the tools and instruments that he comes to use, and neither the mind nor the hand alone can amount to much..And if neither hand nor intellect alone prevails, the tools and aids that do are the developing streams of internalized language and conceptual thought that sometimes run parallel and sometimes merge, each affecting the other. (p. vii)

Indicating how might be adapt portions of various widely-recognized educational ttheorists into a practical framework:

Educational Theorist Some concept(s) from this theorist: Adaptation or practical usage of this concept:

Jean Piaget Piaget believed that all children go through four stages of cognitive development. This idea is built on several assumptions including the need to respect neurological and psychological development, that learning takes place by assimilation and by progressive integration. Piaget’s theories underground is the objectivist insistence on the need to teach systematically and by structure, the right aspects of knowledge at the right time. To the extent that Piaget is right is the extent to which directed methods must be the skeletal framework of instruction, with constructionist methods the blood and flesh.

Lev Vygotsky He emphasized the intimate connection of cognitive and social development. His concept of „scaffolding“ is built upon this connection. Great emphasis is placed on individual growth and individual differences. This need to assess the developmental stage of each individual student and to work with them where they are for maximization of their potential, the essence of Vygotsky, is a constant goal of mine, ultimately unreachable, but a goal nonetheless. This concept was taboo in Russia because it strikes against the assumptions of totalitarian collectivist philosophy.

Principles of Vygotsky’s theory(s):

• Cognitive development is limited to a ccertain range at any given age.

• Full cognitive development requires social interaction.

The zone of proximal development includes all the functions and activities that a child or learner can perform only with the assistance of someone else. The person who intervenes in this scaffolding process could be an adult (parent, teacher, caretaker, language instructor) or a peer who has already mastered that particular function.

The theory of a zone of proximal development supports a theory of teaching that is in advance of development. The curriculum should consider the basic principles of Vygotsky’s theory:

• Cognitive development is limited to a certain range at any given age (the area of current development surrounded by another area of future development = ZPD),

• Full cognitive development requires social interaction, mediation.

Because teaching is effective when it is based on the next stage of the child’s development rather than on the current stage of development; inferentially, the instructor must be knowledgeable about child development. The instructor must also provide educational materials and content, which go beyond the child’s current capabilities. The teacher’s role is not that of simplifying the content, but of providing unfamiliar content and the setting for learners to step from their current level to

a higher level of understanding.

Scientific concepts, or schooled concepts, are learned „downward“ through written symbols to examples, where spontaneous concepts, are learned „upward“ from sensory experiences to generalization. Vygotsky observed that children become conscious of spontaneous concepts late. They know the concept but are not aware of the act of their thought. Schooling should interface spontaneous and schooled concepts to ensure the highest understanding.

Learning involves everyday conflict-generating problem solving. Inferentially, instruction should provide opportunities for resolving dilemmas.

In the ZPD, a tteacher and learner work together on tasks that the learner could not perform independently because of the difficulty level. The ZPD captures the Marxist idea of collective activity, in which those who know more or are more skilled share the knowledge and skill with those who know less to accomplish a task. Cognitive change occurs in the ZPD as teacher and learner share cultural tools and it is this culturally mediated interaction that produces cognitive change when it is internalized iin the learner.

Instructional scaffolding could refer to the same processes that should occur in the zone of proximal development during instruction. In a learning situation, a teacher or tutor initially might do most of the work, after which the teacher aand the learner share responsibility. As learners become more competent, the teacher gradually withdraws the scaffolding so learners can perform independently. The key is to ensure that the scaffolding keeps learners in the ZPD, which is altered as they develop capabilities.

Vygotskian principles in the classroom:

• Learning and development is a social and collaborative activity that cannot be „taught“ to anyone. It is up to the student to construct his or her own understanding in his or her own mind. It is during this process that the teacher acts as a facilitator.

• The zone of proximal development can be used to design appropriate situations during which the student can be provided the appropriate support for optimal learning.

• When providing appropriate situations, one mmust take into consideration that learning should take place in meaningful contexts, preferably the context in which the knowledge is to be applied.

• Out of school experiences should be related to school experiences. Pictures, news clips, and personal stories incorporated into classroom activities provides the students with a since of oneness between their community and learning.

A theoretical background about learning:

• Learning appears to be a complex matter. No doubt that this is the reason why all the various branches of llearning theory do not even view the problem from a same angle.

• Learning must take place within optional external „conditioning“ (behaviourism)

• Learning is related to active problem solving and involves integration, construction and compilation of new content (cognitivism)

• Learning is a personal interpretation of the world. (constractivism)

• Learning is an active process of understanding, based on experiences. (constractivism)

• Learning is collaborative with meaning negotiated from multiple perspectives. (constractivism)

Piaget’s developmental theory of learning and thinking is that both involve the participation of the learner. He emphasises that children cannot learn something until maturation gives them certain prerequisites. Intellectual growth involves three fundamental processes: assimilation (incorporation of the new events into pre-existing cognitive structures), accommodation (existing structures change to accommodate to the new information), and equilibration (balance between assimilation and accommodation).

Bruner asserts that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so.

A more advanced level of cognitive development (referred to by Vygotsky as the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’) can occur when learners interact rather than learn alone. He also concerns the vital role, which culture and social ccontent have in learning.

Gardner suggested seven intelligences: kinaesthetic, visual, mathematical, musical, linguistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Each person has access to these intelligences but some are likely to be more developed in one person than another.

All these different approaches towards learning show how important role we give to the way the children learn and which are the best ways for the students to achieve a better performance at school. According to the above aspects, learning needs to be understood as an active process. The idea of an active process refers to students new models of understanding through conceptualisation, discussion and reflection.

Reciprocal teaching:

Another area of application is reciprocal teaching. It involves an interactive dialogue between a teacher and small group of students. Initially the teacher models the activities, after which teacher and students take turns being the teacher. Thus, if students are learning to ask questions during reading comprehension, the instructional sequence might include the teacher modeling a question-asking strategy to include checking on his or her own level of understanding. From a Vygotskian perspective, reciprocal teaching stresses social interaction and scaffolding as students gradually develop skills.

Peer collaboration:

When peer work together in cooperative tasks, the shared social interactions can be used iin instructional fashion. Research shows that cooperative groups are most effective when students each have assigned responsibilities and all must attain competence before any are allowed to progress. This peer collaboration attests the recognized impact of the social environment during learning.

Apprenticeships:

In apprenticeships, novices work closely experts in joint work-related activities. Apprentices operate within a ZPD since they often shared understandings. Thus, apprenticeships represent a type of dialectical constructivism that depends heavily on social interactions.

Critic:

One of the major theoretical advances of Vygotsky’s approach to cognitive development was his thesis that human mental functions were social in origins. In making this claim, Vygotsky was confronted with the difficulty to reconciliate it with the existing fact that newborn infants already possess certain mental functions. Vygotsky’s answer to the problem was the introduction of an important distinction between lower mental functions (LMF’s) and higher mental functions (HMF’s) (Vygotsky, 1983).

The relationships between the two: in Vygotsky’s theory was not strictly determined. In some cases LMF can be a prerequisite for the development of an appropriate HMF (i.e., unmediated memory can be developed in mediated and voluntarily controlled memory), in other cases HMF’s exist in the intersubjective form and are merely learned by the child

in the process of education and shared activities (i.e., writing or reading skills). In both cases Vygotsky applied Hegelian developmental scheme to the development of cognitive skills, according to which any cognitive function goes through three major stages, in which it exists at first ‘in itself’, then ‘for others’ and finally ‘for itself.’

For example, Vygotsky portrayed the development of an indicatory gesture in infancy as a series of stages (Vygotsky, 1983, pp.143-144). In the beginning it is just an uunsuccessful grasping movement directed towards a desired object. As such this is not yet an indication, but it can acquire the meaning if interpreted appropriately by the child’s caregivers. At this stage the grasping movement becomes mediated by the social environment and acquires a social meaning ‘help me to get this’ which is quickly absorbed by the child who begins to use it both for the purpose of communication with the caregivers and for achieving his or her practical goals. WWhile doing this, the child can still be unaware of the fact that he or she is exploiting the gesture as a social signal. Still later (our interpretation of Vygotsky’s text) this ‘gesture-for others’ can become a kind of a &‘tool’ by which the child would exercise control over his or her own actions and behaviour, for instance, in order to pinpoint a certain fragment of a picture and concentrate his or her attention on it. This time the child is fully aware that what he or she is doing with his or her forefinger (or whatever may substitute for it) is a special act designed not to let his or her attention to wander around the picture but to stick to a certain elected point. This is the stage when the indicatory gesture exists ‘for itself’ or, strictly speaking, for the child who utilises it being at the same time fully aware of that.

No wonder that Vygotsky (1982) wwas strongly opposed to this view. His major objection was theoretically, rather then empirically, based: if infants have an inherent capacity to the constancy of perception, then where are we to find the development? In other words, if the final stage of perceptual development is present from the outset, the concept of development becomes superfluous. Searching for evidence to back his claim Vygotsky addressed Helmgoltz’s early memories from his childhood in which he suggested that orthoscopic perception was not inborn bbut had to develop through experience. Although Vygotsky himself qualified the Helmgoltz’s report as a shaky evidence he, nevertheless, accepted it as one of the proofs in favour of the assumption of the acquired nature of orthoscopic perception.

So, was Vygotsky wrong in his denial that young infants could possibly possess such complex psychological abilities as, for instance, the capacity to perceive an object as constant in shape or size? The affirmative answer, which seems inevitable, can not, however, be given but with serious reservations.

Firstly, the way the infants’ early capacities are presented and discussed by many authors provokes questions. A characteristic feature of most of recent accounts on the problem is that the infants’ early cognitive skills are portrayed in exactly the same terms as are similar capacities in adults: for instance, the infants are supposed to be able to ‘infer’ that a physical object without a support would fall down rather than hang in the air, they can ‘understand’ that a solid object can not go through another solid object, they are able to ‘appreciate’ object permanence or object constancy, and so on. It is not that the qualitative difference between psychological functions of infants and those oof adults is openly denied; rather, it is taken for granted that either these differences do not extend to cover the capacities in question or they are not really important. In a result, the question about what exactly distinguishes, for instance, the 5-months-old infant’s behaviour testifying that the infant can understand object permanence from a similar behaviour of an adult person is very rarely asked, and when it is asked the usual answer is that the difference is nothing but a scope of applicability of the cognitive skill: if an infant can apply the permanence rule to a limited number of cases, an adult person is able to generalize the rule to a much larger number of observable physical events. In other words, a careful reading discovers that the development of cognitive skills is indeed interpreted by many as a quantitative perfection of the early acquired (or genetically transmitted) capacity rather than a series of qualitative changes that the capacity has to go through in order to reach its higher stage. Therefore, despite the fact that the Vygotsky’s answer may have been wrong, his question was correct: indeed, where is (and what is) cognitive development if major psychological capacities in ttheir almost completed form are here in the first few months of life?

Secondly, if we look at the potential content of the Vygotsky’s answer, rather then at it’s literally meaning, we can see that it was rather contradictive. On the one hand, Vygotsky denied the inherent character of the constancy of size on the ground that it was an internally complex psychological quality and hence it must be a socially formed quality. On the other hand, if we look at the criteria that distinguish LMF’s (lower mental functions) from HMF’s (higher mental functions), we won’t find the internal complexity among them. Indeed, as it was already noted, in contrast to LMF’s which are inherent, involuntary, unmediated and isolated one from another, HMF’s are socially created, voluntarily controlled, semiotically mediated and united in systems with other functions. Clearly, there is no claim here from which it would follow that LMF has to lack the internal complexity and perfection which is normally attributed to adults, but not to newborns and young infants.

Taking this into consideration and ignoring Vygotsky’s misleading, although sincere, disbelief in the possibility of inherent and genetically transmitted complex mental function, we can assume that Vygotsky’s distinction between

LMF’s and HMF’s still has something to offer to the recent findings in infancy studies. Clearly, the extraordinary capacities of infants that are now being displayed in a growing number of studies, although complex, are still LMF’s and have to go through the route of development (becoming semiotically mediated, voluntarily controlled, and united in systems with other mental functions) that so ingeniously was outlined by Vygotsky.

Vygotsky’s methodological approach

An understanding of Vygotsky’s methodological approach helps to clarify the concept of iinternalization and to differentiate it from other theoretical perspectives. Vygotsky approached methodological issues on two interrelated levels – the theoretical and the psychological. On the theoretical level he examined complex systems in the process of changes, using dialectical logic to understand the interrelationships between components of the systems. On the psychological level he chose research methods to capture the dynamics of process consistent with his theoretical approach. On both levels his emphasis was on the examination of cognitive change in ddiverse contexts. „Any psychological process, whether the development of thought or voluntary behavior, is a process undergoing changes right before one’s eyes“ (Vygotsky, 1978, p.61).To capture the processes at play, Vygotsky used the experimental-developmental method in which developmental changes are pprovoked in laboratory settings. Through intervention, the experimenter is able to record participants’ initial efforts to solve a problem beyond their existing means or strategies. One of the intervention methods was providing auxiliary means through which the problem could be solved. This type of mediated assistance was of theoretical and methodological interest to Vygotsky. In studying memory in complex choice responses, he focused on the developmental changes taking place in the course of one or several sessions during which the learner appropriates new psychological tools.

Dialectical Method

This approach was described by one of his collaborators, Leontiev (1977), who wrote that in science „dialectic logic does not amount to just the formalistic imposition of its principles on any particular scientific discipline. It iitself develops as scientific inquiry proceeds; it is the result of empirical science“(p.54). Vygotsky underscored the centrality of this method to all of his work. „The search for method becomes one of the most important problems of the entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study.“ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 65).

A central concept of dialectics, the unification of contradictions, distinguishes iit from traditional approaches. „Whereas, within the standard view, conceptual unity among objects relies on the commonality of elements, it is the interrelatedness of diverse elements and the integration of opposites that creates unity within dialectics“ (Falmagne, 1995, p. 207). Dialectics surmounts dichotomies by looking at phenomena as syntheses of contradictions. In twentieth century physics, it was the unified vision of light as both wave and particle that led to a broader theoretical understanding. In nature, qualitative transformations unify contradictions – water, for example, as unification of hydrogen and oxygen will go through transformations from gas to liquid to solid with quantitative changes in temperature. Additionally, physical tools can unify contradictory functions – the claw hammer is used to both pound in and pull out nails; the pencil is used to create and erase (Weber, 1992).

Vygotsky (1986) used the dialectical notion of synthesis to analyze a central psychological tool – verbal thought. He examined the way that thought and speech, which initially have separate planes or levels of development in children in a „prelinguistic period in thought and a preintellectual period of speech,“ become inextricably intertwined (p. 210). Throughout his work Vygotsky uses the dialectical method to analyse, explain, and ddescribe interrelationships fundamental to human development where others posited dichotomies – for example, mind and matter, language and thought, external and inner speech, nature and culture, and social and individual processes in the construction of knowledge.

The main concept of development implies a rejection of the frequently held view that cognitive development results from the gradual accumulation of separate changes. The pedagoges and scientiscs believe that child development is a complex dialectical process characterized by periodicity, unevenness in the development of different functions, metamorphosis or qualitative transformation of one form into the other, intertwining of external and internal factors, and adaptive processes which overcome impediments that the child encounters. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 73)

Using this approach, sociocultural theorists analyze internalization and individual and social processes as interrelated parts of neurophysiological, psychological, educational, political, and cultural systems (Tobach, 1995).

Internalization

The concept of internalization recognizes unique human minds which owe their existence to and are inextricably intertwined with social, historical, cultural, and material processes (including brain activities). Internalization is conceived of as a representational activity, a process that occurs simultaneously in social practice and in the human brain/mind. Sociocultural researchers include the learners’ appropriation of socially elaborated symbol systems as a critical aspect of learning-driven ddevelopment. This appropriation of symbol systems was a central focus of Vygotsky’s work, particularly as applied to educational pedagogy, and led to his most fully elaborated application of the concept of internalization – the transformation of communicative language into inner speech and further into verbal thinking (Vygotsky, 1986, Ch. 7).

Although „cognitive constructivist research and practice.is mostly oriented toward understanding the individual learner“ (Derry, 1996, this issue) and separates individual processes of knowledge construction from social processes of joint understanding, we think of them as connected and interdependent. The development of the mind of the child is both individual and social at the same time and is the result of a long process of developmental events (Vygotsky, 1978). A focus of sociocultural research is the study of the way that the co-construction of knowledge is internalized, appropriated, transmitted, or transformed in formal and informal learning settings.

Vygotsky examined and explained the processes, through which humans construct minds in interaction with the external world of nature and with other humans, changing in the process both themselves and nature.

The dialectical approach, while admitting the influence of nature on man, asserts that man, in turn, affects nature and creates through his changes in nature new

natural conditions for his existence. This position is the keystone of our approach to the study and interpretation of man’s higher psychological functions and serves as the basis for the new methods of experimentation and analysis we advocate. (Vygotsky, 1978. pp. 60-61)

The Russian philosopher, E. V. Ilyenkov adds that „the socio-historical environment, the world of things, created by human labour, and the system of human relations, formed in the process of labour“ must also be considered, and that „outside the iindividual lies not only nature as such (‘in itself’), but also humanized nature, nature remade by human labour“ (Bakhurst, 1995, p. 165).

In a psychological framework the unification of nature and culture is powerfully embodied in early development. For example, a human embryo is both a material and a conceptual reality for the mother, but its own consciousness is dependent upon the full (prenatal and postnatal) development of the infant’s own nervous system and his or her subsequent internalization of culturally ddeveloped sign systems. Bakhurst (1995) writes that „the nature and content of an individual’s mental life cannot be understood independently of the culture of which that individual is part“ (p. 159). He further suggests that there are two intuitions which llie behind the claims of „strong cultural theories of the mind“:

The first is that meaning is the medium of the mental, and meaning is (in some sense) socially constructed; the second is that the human mind, and the forms of talk in which human beings explain and predict the operations of minds, should be understood on the model of tools, and like all artifacts, we cannot make sense of them independently of the social processes which make them what they are. (p. 159)

Lemke (1995) poses the contradictory character of the relationship between individual and social processes in the making of meaning: „how to have an active, creative human subject which constructs social meanings, at the same time that this subject iitself must be a social construction“ (p. 80). Vygotsky’s use of dialectics to unravel this contradictory relationship between individual and social processes in which the individual constructs the social and at the same time is constructed by the social distinguishes the sociocultural perspective from others presented in this issue. We favor the view of Penuel and Wertsch (1995) that „sociocultural processes on the one hand and individual functioning on the other [exist] in a dynamic, irreducible tension rather than a sstatic notion of social determination. A sociocultural approach.considers these poles of sociocultural processes and individual functioning as interacting moments in human action, rather than as static processes that exist in isolation from one another“ (p. 84).

Lev Vygotsky emphasised the significance which culture and social context have in learning. Computers should not been seen as isolated tools for single learners but rather as instructional devices that support collaborative learning. What richer environment can there be than a motivating and interactive program to encourage collaborative and meaningful learning between groups of children? Networked communication (local and wide area) provides special opportunities for collaborative learning. Small learning groups can lock back over their comprehension or solution paths, interrogate aspects that were different, discuss their situation models, and reflect by which changes they could improoved.

Distinctions from Other Perspectives

The way in which internalization has been interpreted by a variety of critics highlights the distinctions between sociocultural and other approaches. For example, social constructivist critics of the Vygotskian framework such as Cobb & Yackel (1996) characterize it in this issue of Educational Psychologist as a transmission model through which students inherit the cultural meanings that constitute their intellectual bequest from prior generations. Their position is bboth linked to and differentiated from a Vygotskian stand when they question the metaphor „of students and teachers being embedded or included in social practice“ (Cobb, Wood, & Yackel, 1993, p. 96). Although their emergent approach has many commonalities with sociocultural theory, Cobb and Yackel repeatedly criticize the latter as a transfer-of-knowledge model where students imitate „established mathematical practices“ (1996,). This interpretation of sociocultural theory reduces and simplifies the mutuality of learning, and its interpersonal and intergenerational dynamic. In attempting to differentiate their approaches from sociocultural theory, social constructivists misinterpret the transformative character of internalization as described by sociocultural researchers (John-Steiner, 1996).

The conceptualization of internalization as unidirectional transmission freezes the debate, in part, by distorting sociocultural theorists’ views of the roles of both teacher and student. It does not recognize that the sociocultural theory of internalization analyzes the complex process of transmission, transformation, and synthesis in the co-construction of knowledge. As Leontiev wrote, „the process of internalization is not the transferal of an external activity to a preexisting internal ‘plane of consciousness’: it is the process in which this plane is formed“ (Wertsch & Stone, 1985, p. 163). In classroom learning the student plays an active role and constantly informs tthe teacher as their mutual negotiation and collaboration build knowledge.

As well as the presentation of new information, there needs to be extended opportunity for discussion and problem-solving in the context of shared activities, in which meaning and action are collaboratively constructed and negotiated. In other words, education must be thought of in terms not of the transmission of knowledge but of transaction and transformation. (Chang-Wells & Wells, 1993, p. 59)

There are different modes of internalization, reflecting different teaching/interaction strategies. A continuum with direct instruction on one end to creative and collaborative learning on the other could describe the wide range of teaching/learning situations in which internalization occurs. Whether in the learning of a young child or in the activities of experienced thinkers, internalization is a fundamental part of the life-long process of the co-construction of knowledge and the creation of the new.

Other critics warn that using the concept of internalization to explain the learning processes creates the danger of focusing on just the individual mental construction of knowledge. For example, Martin Packer’s (1993) analysis, which is linked to an hermeneutic, interpretive approach, suggests that „Descartes’ ghost may still be with us“ (p. 263), because he sees elements of dualism in

sociocultural concepts of internalization. While he appreciates the work of Vygotskian scholars, Packer is concerned that „the processes and mechanisms being examined keep creeping back inside the head“ (p. 263). In contrasting the view of learning as mental change with an alternative which focuses on participatory activities, his analysis is similar to that of Barbara Rogoff (1994) who writes that „learning is a process of transforming participation in shared sociocultural endeavors „(p.210).

Internalization is simultaneously a social and an individual pprocess. In working with, through, and beyond what they have appropriated in social participation and then internalized, individuals co-construct new knowledge. In contrast to facile internalization which leads to a limited combination of ideas, internalization that involves sustained social and individual endeavors becomes a constituent part of the interaction with what is known and leads to the creation of new knowledge. Chang-Wells & Wells (1993) in their study of the role of instructional conversations in classroom learning describe this interdependent aand transformative view of internalization: „. It is at points of negotiation of meaning in conversation that learning and development occur, as each learner’s individual psychological processes mediate (and at the same time are mediated by) the constitutive intermental processes oof the group“ (p. 86).

Sociocultural approaches are also distinguished from other perspectives by the importance they place on cultural variation and its interrelationship with development (John-Steiner & Panofsky, 1992). This distinction is particularly relevant in contrasting sociocultural approaches with those derived from a Piagetian framework. The emphasis on culture has resulted in the broad use by sociocultural researchers of approaches which examine the ways in which learning and teaching take place under differing cultural circumstances and in differing historical contexts, contributing to a contextualized rather than a universalistic theory of development. And while social constructivists do engage in an analysis of cultural norms, they maintain a conceptual dichotomy between the individual’s constructive activity on the one hand and social processes oon the other. For example, Cobb and Yackel (1996) view the individual through one lens and the social through another without making explicit the dialectical interdependence of social and individual processes. To study these processes interdependently requires a reliance on cross-cultural comparisons and active collaboration between researchers drawn from varied backgrounds examining teachers and children in diverse settings.

The significant role of cross-cultural comparisons in theory construction and the development of educational practice is illustrated by the work of Tharp and GGallimore (1988) and their collaborators who developed a highly effective, culturally sensitive approach to teaching Hawaiian children. In their well-known Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP) instructional conversations are designed to resemble the talk story format – overlapping speech, joint performance, and informal turn taking – favored in the native Hawaiian community. However, when this highly successful program was implemented among Navajo children, the results were mixed (Jordan, Tharp, & Vogt, 1985). The researchers became aware of the difficulties in applying a promising culturally sensitive approach from one indigenous context to another. They found that for Hawaiian children groups of four to five students of mixed sex and ability produce the maximum peer interaction and learning cooperation. However, Navajo children were uncomfortable in the larger mixed groups and worked best in dyads of the same sex. These studies illustrate the importance to sociocultural approaches of inclusion of anthropologists, Native teachers, and the learners themselves as educational activity planners whose joint efforts help educators understand the culturally-patterned learning styles children bring to school. This emphasis upon interdisciplinary action research by Vygotskian educators contrasts with other approaches in educational psychology.

Sociocultural researchers emphasize methods which document cognitive and social change. Rather than seeing a ddichotomy between quantitative and qualitative research, approaches are chosen that emphasize process and development and the multiple ways in which both can be revealed. They include experimental research such as Frauenglass and Diaz’s (1985) work on private speech which studied Vygotsky’s hypotheses on the universality and self-regulatory significance of private speech. In a laboratory setting they „compared the frequencies of preschoolers’ private speech in perceptual versus semantic tasks, with or without instructions that permitted and encouraged the use of overt verbalizations..[And found] that researchers who choose to study private speech in laboratory settings must pay close attention to task and setting variables that may increase or inhibit the amount of private speech produced by children in their samples“ (Diaz, 1992, p. 57). Other sociocultural approaches combine experimental and ethnographic research as illustrated by Scribner and Cole’s (1981) work in Liberia. In their studies of literacy they include observational and ethnographic methods and combined them with tasks first developed in laboratory settings. Examples of sociocultural methods of research on cognitive change in the classroom are described in the next section

Learning and Development and the Zone of Proximal Development

In contrast to prevailing theories of his time which dichotomized learning and development vviewing one as an external and the other as an internal process, Vygotsky (1978) looked at their unity and interdependence starting from a child’s birth.

Our hypothesis establishes the unity but not the identity of learning processes and internal developmental processes. It presupposes that the one is converted into the other. Therefore, it becomes an important concern of psychological research to show how external knowledge and abilities in children become internalized. (pp. 90-91)

He thus criticized theories such as Piaget’s, in which „maturation is viewed as a precondition of learning but never the result of it“ (p. 80) and developed the following position:

.Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers..Learning is not development; however, properly organized learning results in mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes that would be impossible apart from learning. Thus learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human, psychological functions. (p. 90)

To help explain the way that this social and participatory learning took place, Vygotsky (1978) developed the concept of the zone of proximal

development (ZPD), which he defined as „.the distance between the actual developmental level as determined through independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers“ (p. 86). Sociocultural theorists, expanding the concept of the zone of proximal development, increasingly conceptualize learning as distributed (Cole & Engeström, 1993), interactive (Chang-Wells & Wells, 1993), contextual (John-Steiner, Panofsky, & Smith, 1994), and the result of the learners’ participation iin a community of practice (Rogoff, 1994).

Ann Brown and her collaborators (1992, 1993) have developed and implemented educational programs based on this concept of learning. They suggest that the active agents within the zone of proximal development „can include people, adults and children, with various degrees of expertise, but it can also include artifacts, such as books, videos, wall displays, scientific equipment and a computer environment intended to support intentional learning“ (1993, p. 191). In expanding the zone of proximal ddevelopment to include artifacts in addition to people, Brown integrates Vygotsky’s analyses of tools and symbols with the roles played by the participants in the learning process. One of the important features of Brown and her collaborators’ work is the eexamination of the way „divergent classrooms can become learning communities – communities in which each participant makes significant contributions to the emergent understandings of all members, despite having unequal knowledge concerning the topic under study“ (Palincsar, Brown, & Campione, 1993, p. 43). They examine the role of „reciprocal teaching,“ an approach in which „students and teachers take turns leading discussions about shared text“ (p. 43), to see whether structured dialogues foster a learning community. The teachers in these studies have a changing role. They share with the students the well-defined tasks of questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting in order to construct text-based knowledge. These studies exemplify two themes in sociocultural approaches to classroom learning and teaching:

1. the implementation of an eeducational program that allows for or encourages the co-construction of knowledge

2. and the analysis of this learning that contributes to our understanding of classroom learning from a sociocultural perspective. Collaborative learning plays an increasing role in these as well as many other innovative classrooms.

An example:

An example of Vygotsky’s theory is shown below, reading from the bottom upward:

The child’s level of learning after receiving help to solve a problem:

Maria`s tears stop. She puts the triangle piece into the correct hhole, then, puts the square piece into the square hole. She smiles happily, dumps all the pieces out of the container, and starts again.

The learning space! (Zone of Proximal Development) The child receives help to solve the problem from an adult or a more experienced child:

Maria`s mother is sitting close by. She says, „Try putting the triangle in the triangle hole.

They both have three sides, see?“ She shows Sarah how to do it.

The child’s level of learning before asking for help:

Maria, 14 months, is playing with a shape sorter toy. She correctly fits the round piece into the round hole. She tries several times without success to fit the triangle piece into the square hole. She cries in frustration and is about to throw the triangle piece away and quit playing.

The other example:

After the second World Wore, were lots of children in one classroom; that means that there were the first, the second and the third school year children together. The older children were teaching younger:

What happened after some time?

• The older children lost their motivation to learn more,

• The older children get lazy,

• Big noise in a classroom,

• Only one teacher can not take care about aall the children and be responsible for their knowledge.

The best aria to use Vygotsky’s theory is not a governmental teaching institution: it is good in the danc, music or other art school (alsoit is good to learn languages) where is no strickt rools. It is good also when the children from different classes does homeworks together. Any way Vygotsky’s theorys are used and adapted differently with different interpretation in all ower the world.

Conclusions

Babies and young children learn best when adults stay close and encourage their play. Adults should permit children to try to solve problems themselves by saying things like, „I know you can do this.“ „You are figuring it out!“ „Go for it!“ „I’m right here if you need me.“ „You are getting so close!“ „Wow, you’re really trying hard!“ „Good job!“ Adults need to decide whether a task is too hard for children’s developmental level. The Developmental Growth Chart may help to make those decisions. A simpler task may be needed so children can succeed. At the point that children are so discouraged that they are ready to give up, the adult may watch closely for an indication that they would like a little help. Then tthe adult may calmly suggest a solution to the problem so that children can continue the activity by themselves and go on to a more complex level of play. Adults should never tease or belittle children because they cannot solve a problem.

Lev Vygotsky, an early 20th century psychologist, built part of his social learning theory on what he called the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). He thought that children could reach a higher level of learning with assistance and encouragement than they could reach by themselves. Older children as well as adults could help the child.

In an issue of the Educational Psychologist devoted to Vygotsky’s ideas, Boris Gindis (1995) describes the emphasis Vygotsky placed on the variety of psychological tools in approaching the study of children who had special physical or mental circumstances. „Vygotsky pointed out that our civilization has already developed different means (e.g. Braille system, sign language, lip-reading, finger spelling, etc.) to accommodate a handicapped child’s unique way of acculturation through acquiring various symbol systems“ (p. 79).

These acts of representation are embedded in social practice and rely on socially developed semiotic means. Ecology, history, culture, and family organization play roles in patterning experience and events in

the creation of knowledge (John-Steiner, 1995). For example, the tasks confronting children, such as learning to talk, to walk, and to attach meaning to their experiences are reflected in cognitive strategies, derived in part from the culturally patterned environment into which they are born. Their thought is shaped by the prevalent methods of physical and economic survival, by the language and visual symbols used by their people, and by socially ordered ways of parenting. Some children who are born into ttribal or agricultural communities spend many hours strapped to the back of their mothers and other caregivers. In this position, they observe and represent the life of their community in a way that is not possible to children who are placed in cribs and playpens (John-Steiner, 1985).

So, in our opinion Vygotsky`s zone of proximal development is good to use at home, when parents helps their children or in the cinder – garden, but not in the primary school. Lots of sscience people where discussing lots of things about his teaching methods and other his works: when we will put all opinion in the order we will have the main solution.

Used Literature:

1. Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky’s Psychology: A Biography of Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

2. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

3. Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

4. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

5. Wertsch, J.V. (1985). Cultural, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

6. Baillargeon, R. (1987). Object permanence in 3 1/2- and 4 1/2-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology, 23, 655-64

7. Bower, T.G.R. (1974). Development in infancy. San Francisco: Freeman.

8. Gibson, E.J and Walker, A.S. (1984). Development of knowledge of visual-tactual affordances of substance. Child Development, 55, 453-60

9. Slater, A. M. and Morison, V. (1985). Shape constancy and slant perception at birth. Perception, 14, 337- 44.

10. Slater, A., Morison, V. and Rose, D. (1982). Visual mmemory at birth. British Journal of Psychology, 73, 519- 25

11. Vygotsky, L.S. (1982). Vosprijatie i ego razvitije v detskom vozraste. In Vygotsky, L.S. Collected works. In 6 volumes. Vol.2, pp.363-81. Moscow: Pedagogica.

12. Vygotsky, L.S. (1983). Istorija razvitija vystchych psykhicheskych functsyj. In Vygotsky, L.S. Collected works. In 6 volumes. Vol.3. Moscow: Pedagogica.

13. Subbotsky Eugene. Vygotsky’s distinction between lower and higher mental functions and recent studies on infant cognitive development .Psychology Department, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK

Contens

1. Lev Semynovich Vygotsky………………1

2. Comparison of Vygotsky aand Piaget………………4

3. Principles of Vygotsky’s Theory(s)……………….6

4. Vygotskian principles in classroom ……………….7

5. A theoretical background about learning ……………7

6. Critic…………………………9

7. Vygotsky’s methodological approach……………..11

 Dialectical method……………………11

 Internalization……………………..12

 Distinctions from other perspective…………..14

8. Learning and the zone of proximal development………..17

9. An example…………………………19

10. Conclusions…………………………20

11. Used literature…………………………22