1. Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory
STKIP SILIWANGI BANDUNG
Cimahi, 3 Desember 2016

2. Constructivism
Is an approach to teaching and learning based on the premise that cognition is the result of "mental construction". In other words, students learn by fitting new information together with what they already know.
Constructivists believe that learning is affected by the context in which an idea is taught as well as by students' beliefs and attitudes.
The learner actively imposes organization and meaning on the surrounding environment and constructs knowledge in the process.
The teacher's role is not only to observe and assess but to also engage with the students while they are completing activities, wondering aloud and posing questions to the students for promotion of reasoning.

3. Introduction The sociocultural theory:
Did NOT focus on the individual child but on the child as a product of social interaction, especially with adults (parents, teachers).
Focus on DYADIC INTERACTIONS (e.g., child being taught by a parent how to perform some culturally specific action), rather than child by himself.
Social world mediates children's cognitive development. Cognitive development occurs as child's thinking is molded by society in the form of parents, teachers, and peers. This leads to peer tutoring as a strategy in classrooms.
People's thinking differs dramatically between cultures because different cultures stress different things.

4. Theory’s Principles and Concepts
Children construct their knowledge.
Knowledge is not transferred passively, but is personally constructed.
The learning is mediated.
Cognitive development is not a direct result of activity, but it is indirect; other people must interact with the learner, use mediatory tools to facilitate the learning process, and then cognitive development may occur.
Language plays a central role in mental development.
The most significant sociocultural tool is language, as it is used to teach tool use and is vital in the process of developing higher psychological functions.

5. Theory’s Principles and Concepts
Learning appears twice.
First on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychology), and then inside the child (intrapsychology).
Development cannot be separated from its social context.
The context needed for learning is that where the learners can interact with each other and use the new tools. This means that the learning environment must be authentic, that is, it must contain the type of people who would use these types of tools such as concepts, language, symbols in a natural way.

6. Who is Lev Vygotsky? Lev Vygotsky was born in Russia in 1896.
He died at the young age of 37 from tuberculosis.
Due to his early death, most of his theories were left undeveloped.
His work in the last 10 years of his life has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development.

7. What separates humans from animals?
What separates advanced societies from primitive societies?
What separates advanced cognition from basic cognition? That is, what makes us smart?

8. Vygotsky awakes our eyes to the powerful role of culture and community in learning. His theory presents the radical idea that our very thought and intelligence is really not our own. It’s the product of history and culture.

9. (Help us do mental work--So I call them mental tools)
Mediated Activity
Signs
Tools
(Help us do mental work--So I call them mental tools)
(Help us do physical work)

10. Overview of Social Development Theory
Social Interaction Influences Cognitive Development
Biological and Cultural Development do not occur in Isolation
Language plays a major role in Cognitive Development

11. Areas were social interaction can influence cognitive development…
Engagement between the teacher and student
Physical space and arrangement in learning environment
Meaningful instruction in small or whole groups
Scaffolding/Reciprocal teaching strategies
Zone of Proximal Development

12. What is the Zone of Proximal Development?
Levels of Development
what I can’t do
what I can do with help
what I can do
The zone of proximal development is the area of learning that a more knowledgeable other (MKO) assists the student in developing a higher level of learning.
The goal is for the MKO to be less involved as the student develops the necessary skills.
Vygotsky describes it as “the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978).

13. ZPD Tasks I cannot do even with help Tasks I can do only with help
Tasks I can do all by myself

14. ZPD ZPD Use abstract language Use language
What mental tool has been internalized?
Babble

15. Theory’s Principles and Concepts
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Distance Between Actual and Potential Knowledge
potential
knowledge
actual
knowledge actual
Two children with the same actual knowledge travel different distances to their potential knowledge; therefore different ZPDs
ZPD
ZPD

16. Theory’s Principles and Concepts
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
The difference between what a child can do independently and what the child needs help from a more knowledgeable person to do is the
Zone of
Proximal Development

17. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
Like all children, Mo’men is constantly learning and exploring the world around him.

18. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
For our example, we will look at Mo’men’s love of games.
Over the years, Mo’men has developed skills and knowledge that enable him to play a variety of games.
For each game, he is able to successfully strategize and solve problems independently.

19. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
There is one game, however, that Mo’men has never learned. It’s the card game Yu-Gi-Oh. Mo’men knows his brother plays it very well.
Mo’men would like to learn, but is unsure where to start.

20. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
Mo’men finally asks his brother Ali for help. Ali agrees, and begins working with Mo’men in learning the game of Yu-Gi-Oh.
Mo’men is learning in the region Vygotsky would call ZPD.

21. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
In ZPD, Mo’men is doing something requiring the help of someone more capable. Without Ali’s help, Mo’men would be unable to play the game.
Eventually, Mo’men will learn the game well enough to play the game by himself.

22. This is an example of how ZPD can work in the life of a child
Once Mo’men learns Yu-Gi-Oh, the skill moves out of the ZPD region and is added to all the other games Mo’men plays independently.
In time, Mo’men becomes the more capable player, and begins to teach his sister .

23. Individual and Social Constructivism
Individual: individuals construct meaning out of what they already know and through their interactions with the environment.
Social: Groups or cultures construct meaning together out of what the group or culture already knows and experiences.
Vygotsky’s extension: Individuals construct meaning through their interaction with others (i.e., they internalize the meaning constructed by the group or culture as they become enculturated).

24. Instructional Models Based on Vygotsky and Social Constructivism
Cognitive Apprenticeship model
Modeling
Scaffolding and Fading
Providing support so that students can complete some task they couldn’t do alone. Then gradually removing the support as students gain competence. In other words, help student progress through their ZPD.
Authentic Activity
Real world
Complex
Meaningful
Social

25. Instructional Models Based on Vygotsky and Social Constructivism
Examples of the Cognitive Apprenticeship model:
Reciprocal Teaching
Immersion approach in foreign language instruction.
Science apprenticeships

26. Scaffolding
Vygotsky defined scaffolding instruction as the “role of teachers and others in supporting the learners development and providing support structures to get to that next stage or level” (Raymond, 2000).
Teachers provide scaffolds so that the learner can accomplish certain tasks they would otherwise not be able to accomplish on their own (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).
The goal of the educator is for the student to become an independent learner and problem solver (Hartman, 2002).

27. Theory’s Principles and Concepts
Scaffolding
“role of teachers and others in supporting the learner’s development and providing support structures to get to the next stage or level” Vygotsky.
a knowledgeable participant can create by means of speech and supportive conditions in which the student (novice) can participate in and extend current skills and knowledge to a high level of competence.
In an educational context, however, scaffolding is an instructional structure whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task then gradually shifts responsibility to the students.

28. Scaffolding:
Provides support
Extends the range of what a learner can do.
Allows the learner to accomplish tasks otherwise impossible
Used only when needed
Example :
An example of scaffolding in the classroom setting could include a teacher first instructing her children on how to write a sentence using commas and conjunctions. As the week goes on, she has her students practice writing these sentences with peers, gives students feedback and eventually has the kids to complete this skill without her guidance.

29. Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal Teaching is used to improve a students ability to learn from text through the practice of four skills: summarizing, clarifying, questioning, and predicting.
Reciprocal Teaching
summarizing
clarifying
questioning
predicting

30. Biological & Cultural Development
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 and then inside the child. 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.”
Simplified: community plays a central role in the process of “making meaning” (McLeod, 2007).

31. Language Language plays a central role in mental development
Language is the main means by which adults transmit information to children
Language itself becomes a very powerful tool of intellectual adaptation

32. How can we practically apply Vygotsky’s theories to our everyday classrooms?

33. Physical Arrangement in the Classroom
Arrange student desks in clusters.
Arrange other work spaces for peer instruction, collaboration, and small group instruction.

34. Scaffolding Strategies
Motivate the child’s interest in the task.
Break the task down into manageable steps.
Provide some direction to keep the child focused.
Reduce factors that cause frustration.
Model and define the expectations of the activity.

35. Reciprocal Strategies
Use props to illustrate each of the four skills to be practiced: summarizing, clarifying, questioning, and predicting.
Have students buddy read and practicing using the reciprocal strategies.

36. Lesson Content
Create lessons that engage student interest and give them a basis for language when socially interacting.
Use technology and hands on activities to further engage them in learning.

37. change in your classroom
Discussion Question
to improve your students social development skills and move them to a higher level of learning?
change in your classroom
What can you

39. Note:
Formal thought is internalized language; language comes from society; hence the mind is a product of society.
[Back to Vygotsky’s basic concepts.]

40. Vygotsky and Piaget Piaget Vygotsky
Both agree children are active learners who actively construct knowledge
Thinking develops in recognisable stages which depend on natural maturation
Development of thinking is dependent upon language and culture
Role of teacher important but use of “more-expert other” not central
Use of “more-expert other” seen as fundamental part of cognitive development
Readiness is a central concept in education – children need to be ready to progress in their learning
Children should be actively encouraged to move through ZPD – do not need to be ready but should be given opportunity to engage in problems which are beyond current level of ability but within ZPD

41. Vygotsky and Piaget Piaget Vygotsky Scaffolding not a key concept
Scaffolding is a central concept
Language reflects level of cognitive development
Language helps to develop cognitive abilities.
This theory was very influential in education but has need revising and underestimation of children’s abilities still a problem
This theory is still very influential in education

42. Conclusion
Sociocultural theory considers learning as a semiotic process where participation in socially-mediated activities is essential.
The theory regards instruction as crucial to cognitive development in the classroom. Instruction should be geared to the ZPD that is beyond the learner’s actual development level.
Social instruction actually produces new, elaborate, advanced psychological processes that are unavailable to the organism working in isolation

43. References
Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, and Experience & School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Hartman, H. (2002). Scaffolding & Cooperative Learning. Human Learning and Instruction (pp ). New York: City College of City University of New York.
McLeod, S. (2007). Simply Psychology; Retrieved February 28, 2012, from
Raymond, E. (2000). Cognitive Characteristics. Learners with Mild Disabilities (pp ). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, A Pearson Education Company.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

44. References
Constructivism (learning theory). Retrieved on 28/08/2010
Hall. A. (2007).Learning and Socio-cultural Theory:Exploring Modern Vygotskian Perspectives International Workshop, Vol 1,1.
Kincheloe, J. L. and R. A. H. Jr. (2007). The Praeger handbook of education and psychology. Westport, An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Peer, K. & McClendon, R. (2002). Sociocultural Learning Theory in Practice: Implications for Athletic Training Educators, JAthl Train. 37(4 suppl): S-136–S-140. Retrieved on 27/08/2010 from
Reiser, R., & Dempsey, J. (2002). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology. Upper saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson Education.
Turuk, M. (2008). The Relevance and Implications of Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory in the Second Language Classroom . ARECLS, Vol. 5, p
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