Vygotsky: Social Development Theory of Learning

Prepared by Jennifer Sinclair
 
Reference:
 
Eggen, P., & Kauchak, D. (2001). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River: Merrill Prentice Hall.
 
Vygotsky proposed that learning takes place by means of social experiences.  A less knowledgeable individual learns from a more knowledgeable one, who guides the learner's experience.  That learning is transfered to other contexts as the learner's experience broadens.  This is called a sociocultural view of development.
 
Vygotsky theorized that children didn't need to reinvent the proverbial wheel.  They could appropriate the knowledge of a culture, which had often taken thousands of years to develop, without having to discover it on their own.  According to Vygotsky, the main source from which this knowledge is appropriated is other people.  Adults such as parents, caregivers, and teachers are all examples of more knowledgeable individuals who explain, give directions, and provide feedback.  Additionally, human beings also appropriate knowledge from peers who are not necessarily more knowledgeable but with whom collaboration can take place in order to solve problems and learn from the problem-solving experience.
 
Language and activity are essential elements in this social interaction.  Language allows learners to access the knowledge that others already have.  Also, when children learn language they learn more than just words--they also learn the ideas connected with those words.  Culture is transfered through the learning of those ideas.  Activity is important because children learn by doing.  When he said that the less knowledgeable learn from the more knowledgeable, Vygotsky did not mean a passive process.  He proposed that the learner must be actively involved in the dialogue.
 
Another important aspect of the development of language is the idea of private speech, or the internal dialogue we all hold in our own heads with ourselves.  Vygotsky theorized that when learners talk to themselves they are learning to manage their own learning and formation of concepts.  In the younger learner this "intrapsychological" self-talk is audible, but as humans develop it becomes more internal.
 
Vygotsky is perhaps best known for the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, or the range of tasks that a child cannot do on his or her own, but which s/he can do with the help of a more knowledgeable mentor.  In every task or learning area there is a Zone of Proximal Development, and it is in that zone that learning is most likely to occur.  If assigned tasks fall into the range of what a learner can already easily perform, little new learning is taking place, and if those tasks fall too far beyond the range of what the learner is capable of performing, then frustration results.
 
Scaffolding is a term applied to the assistance that a more knowledgeable partner provides to a learner in order to assist him/her to perform those tasks that fall within the Zone of Proximal Development, or, in other words, those tasks which the learner cannot perform alone.
 
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