Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development Flashcards
What did Vygotsky say about cognitive development?
Vygotsky agreed that reasoning ability develops sequentially. BUT- he saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others.
What does knowledge being intermental and intramental mean?
Knowledge is first intermental (between the most expert other and the less expert other).
Then knowledge is intramental (within the mind of the less expert other).
What is the zone of proximal development?
A gap between a childs current level of development (what they can do and understand alone) and what they can potentially do and understand after intervention from a more expert other.
How do you close the ZPD gap?
Scaffolding.
What is scaffolding?
Refers to all the kinds of help adults and peers give a child to help them cross them ZPD.
As a child starts to cross the ZPD the level of help decreases from L5 (most help) to level 1 (least amount of help).
Research support for ZPD comes from who?
Antonio Roazzi and Peter Bryant (1998):
Gave children aged 4-5 task of estimating number of sweets in a box.
One condition worked alone, other condition worked with older child.
The “more expert others” were seen giving prompts, guiding the children and they were better at mastering the task.
Research support for scaffolding?
David Conner and David Cross (2003)
Used a longitudinal procedure to follow 45 children, observing them engaged in problem solving tasks with mother at ages 16, 26, 44 and 54 months.
Mothers used less help and hints as they gained experience.
Why has Vygotsky been influential in education?
Promoting learning through social interaction (group work/scaffolding from teachers etc).
Tutoring etc.
Despite the fact Vygotsky has been influential in education, what did Liu and Matthews point out (2005)?
In China classes of up to 50 children learn effectively in lecture style classroom with very few interactions with peer/tutors.
