1. The Dialectical Relationship between Prior and Present Learning: Mapping Vygotsky’s Activity Theory to the Prior Learning Portfolio Process
Jessica Kindred, Ph.D.
The College of New Rochelle
School of New Resources
Brooklyn, New York

2. Academic Experience Integration Industry Experience Past Present
Jessica Kindred, Ph.D.
The College of New Rochelle
School of New Resources
Brooklyn, New York
Industry Experience
Workplace training (manufacturing & transportation maintenance)
Past
Present
Future
Academic Experience
Teaching psychology
Integration
Teaching PLP

3. Theory and Practice Cultural Historical Activity Theory
Lev Vygotsky ( )
Prior Learning Portfolio (PLP)
Production, support, and evaluation

4. Expertise Academia Learning work tacit implicit concrete performative
practical
experiential
empirical
Academia
school
formal
Explicit
abstract
declarative
conceptual
pedagogical
scientific

5. Activity Theory
Lev Vygotsky ( )

6. "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (inter psychological) and then inside the child (intra-psychological). 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."
(Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)
learner’s
learner

7. Knowledge Development
Externalization Internalization

8. Challenges of PLP
Identify knowledge from work experience and life history Represent prior learning in academically relevant ways Qualify knowledge as college level learning

9. Schematically, we may imagine thought and speech as two intersecting circles. In their overlapping parts, thought and speech coincide to produce what is called verbal thought… There is a vast area of thought that has no direct relation to speech. The thinking manifested in the use of tools belongs in this area, as does practical intellect in general.
(Vygotsky, 1962, p. 88)

10. Implicit  Explicit Verbal Thought
thought speech Practical Academic intellect intellect
Implicit  Explicit

11. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory
Focus on Mediation: Implicit to Explicit
Mediation
of thought by language
of meaning by other people
of prior learning by present context

12. Vygotsky’s Knowledge Kinds
Theoretical Abstraction Spontaneous Scientific Informal Formal Empirical Theoretical Empirical Generalization

13. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory
Scaffolding
Facilitative role of mentor
toward generative reflection and
effective articulation of
prior learning

14. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
typically applied to the situation of new knowledge acquisition
Zone of Proximal Reflection
adapted to the situation of prior learning as a zone of active reflection

15. Vygotsky’s Activity Theory
Dialectical interaction between kinds of knowledge in the developing mind

16. Past Learning Experience
Scaffolded Reflection
Prior Learning Portfolio

17. References
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.