vygotsky theory of cognitive development Flashcards
who is Vygotysky
A Russian psychologist who was influenced by Piaget
what are the aims of Vygotsky’s theory
- Vygotsky saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others (referred to as “experts”)
- knowledge is first intermental- which is between the more and less expert individual, then intramental within the mind of the less expert
what is the role of cultural differences in cognitive abilities
if reasoning abilities are acquired from the more experienced individual with whom a child has contact, it follows that the child will acquire the reasoning abilities of those particular people
This means that there may be cultural differences in cognitive development, with children picking up the mental “tools” that are most important for life within their physical social and work environments
what are the mental “tools” that children can pick up
These mental tools can be anything from the hand-eye coordination needed to hunt with a bow and arrow to the evaluation skills for A- levels e.t.c
what is the zone of proximal development
Vygotsky put emphasis on the role of learning through interaction with others
He identified a gap between a child’s current level of development e.g. what they can understand and do alone and what they can potentially understand after interaction and with more expert others
This gap is known as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
why is expert assistance important
expert assistance allows a child to cross the ZPD and understand as much of a subject or situation as they are capable - children are still to some extent limited by their development stage
Vygotsky believed that children develop more advanced reasoning abilities needed to deal with it by learning from others, as opposed to through exploration of the world
Critically Vygotsky
critically, Vygotsky was not just saying that children can learn more facts during social interaction, but also that they acquire more advanced reasoning abilities
he believed that higher mental functions, such as formal reasoning could only be acquired through interaction with more advanced others (Experts)
what is scaffolding
scaffolding is the next logical step in understanding the ZPD
It refers to all kinds of help adults and more advanced peers give a child to help them to cross the zone of proximal development
what did Vygotsky say about scaffolding
Vygotsky did not focus much on this process in his writing, and so most of what we know about scaffolding is from psychologists influenced by his theory, such as Jerome Burner and colleagues
Therefore the approach is sometimes called the “Vygotsky - Burner model”
what were the 5 aspects involved in scaffolding did Wood, Bruner and Ross identify
the 5 aspects are general ways in which an adult can help a child better understand and perform a task:
- Recruitment
- Reduction of degrees of freedom
- Direction maintenance
- marking critical features
- demonstration
what is recruitment
engaging the child’s interest in the task
what is reduction of degrees of freedom
focusing the child on the task and where to start with solving it
what is marking critical features
highlighting the most important parts of the task
what is demonstration
showing the child how to do aspects of the task
what happens when the learner crosses the zone of proximal development
as a learner crosses the zone of proximal development , the level of help given in scaffolding declines from level 5, most help, to level 1 least help
