Vygotskys sociocultural theory focuses on the:
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Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist who argued that culture has a major impact on a child’s cognitive development. Piaget and Gesell believed development stemmed directly from the child, and although Vygotsky acknowledged intrinsic development, he argued that it is the language, writings, and concepts arising from the culture that elicit the highest level of cognitive thinking (Crain, 2005). He believed that the social interactions with adults and more learned peers can facilitate a child’s potential for learning. Without this interpersonal instruction, he believed children’s minds would not advance very far as their knowledge would be based only on their own discoveries. Let’s review some of Vygotsky’s key concepts. Show
Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding: Vygotsky’s best known concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can almost perform a task, but not quite on their own without assistance. With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully. A good teacher identifies a child’s ZPD and helps the child stretch beyond it. Then the adult (teacher) gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided. Researchers have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to this way of teaching. Scaffolding is the temporary support that parents or teachers give a child to do a task. Private Speech: Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as Egocentric Speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in Private Speech or inner speech. Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962). Contrast with Piaget: Piaget was highly critical of teacher-directed instruction believing that teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role (Crain, 2005). Further, teachers may present abstract ideas without the child’s true understanding, and instead they just repeat back what they heard. Piaget believed children must be given opportunities to discover concepts on their own. As previously stated, Vygotsky did not believe children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals. Who is correct? Both theories certainly contribute to our understanding of how children learn. The efforts of Vygotsky and his colleagues to build a new Soviet psychology led them into diverse areas of investigation. All of these areas were linked to the same core ideas of his theory and were drawn from and tested with empirical studies, many performed with innovative techniques. Because Vygotsky's work on creativity flows from and is closely related to his cultural historical theory of psychology, it is important to introduce key elements of that theory before discussing how they relate to creativity. According to Luria, Vygotsky liked to call his approach “instrumental,” “cultural” and “historical” psychology. Each term reflected a different feature of a new approach to psychology that Vygotsky proposed to explain the development of higher psychological functions. The term instrumental reflected the fundamental idea of the mediated nature of higher psychological functions. Unlike basic reflexes, which could be analyzed as a simple stimuli-response situation, complex psychological functions incorporate in their structure new elements– internal and external tools–that transform the whole structure of mental functioning. The analysis of tools, which individuals actively use as instruments to modify and master their own behaviors, became a necessary part of Vygotsky's new approach. The term cultural emphasized that aspect of Vygotsky theory that views cultural development as a unique direction in the development of the child, reflecting socially constructed ways in which society organizes the various types of tasks faced by a growing child and the physical and mental tools that society provides to the young child to master those tasks. The historical aspect of Vygotsky's theory is closely connected to the cultural aspect. The set of tools provided by a given culture were invented and developed during the long course of human history. Thus, tools like language, arithmetic or algebraic systems, maps, and signs have a long history of development and accumulation of their social influence before they become available as special instruments for a child's individual development. Because the invention and development of cultural tools continues, historical also means not only something from the past, but also contemporary aspects of life that are in process of change, linking the past and the future. The historical method of psychological analysis differs greatly from the traditional methods used in the West. Vygotsky wrote that the concept of historically based psychology is misunderstood by most researchers. For them to study something historically means, by definition, to study some past event, and hence they naively imagine an insurmountable barrier between historic study and the study of the present-day behavioral forms. In Vygotsky's view, to study something historically means to study it in the process of change. That is why he argued that the historical study of behavior is not an auxiliary aspect of theoretical study, but rather forms its very base. In fact, studying something in the process of change is the basic demand of the dialectic method, which is an essential element of Vygotsky's theory. The dialectical method, incorporated by Vygotsky in his work owes much to Hegel's dialectic concept, which was later used by Marx and Engels. The Hegelian dialectic concept views things as in constant change and movement. It is concerned with interrelations and interactions. The sources for constant movement and development, the driving force of change, are conflicts and tensions between the contradictory aspects of things. As a result of these conflicts and tensions, development was viewed as constant transformation: nothing can be stable, everything is in a constant process of becoming. Vygotsky viewed the very essence of psychic development as lying in the change of the interfunctional structure of consciousness. He criticized the atomistic and functional models of analysis, which treat psychological processes in isolation while ignoring their interdependence and their organization in the structure of consciousness as a whole. Rejecting methods of research perfected to study separate functions, Vygotsky suggested that psychology's main problem for investigation should be the changing relationships between psychological functions and their developmental changes. The basic characteristics of Vygotsky's theory are summarized in Table I. As this framework shows, Vygotsky separated higher psychological functions (like creativity) from natural psychological functions, then compared them based on their origins, structure, functioning, and complexity. As Table I shows, natural psychological functions are genetically inherited (their origin), they are unmediated (their structure), they are involuntary (their way of functioning), and they are isolated from each other (their relation to other mental functions). In contrast, higher mental functions are socially acquired, “instrumental,” mediated by social means, voluntarily coconstructed and controlled, and exist as a part of a broad system of functions rather than as separate elements (see Table I).  View chapterPurchase book Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123750389002314 Symbolic Interactionism, Naturalistic Inquiry, and EducationJ.A. Forte, in International Encyclopedia of Education (Third Edition), 2010 SI, Naturalistic Inquiry, and Qualitative Methods: ConclusionThe charge of this article has been to demonstrate the relevance of SI as a paradigm for educators and educational researchers. Space limits preclude discussion of theoretical and research advances into the micro-aspects of conduct (cognition and emotion) or the macro-processes and structures conditioning meaning-making (power, class, and culture). Interactionist's alignments with other traditions, including semiotics, critical theory, Vygotsky's sociocultural approach, and feminism as well as the recent interactionist responses to criticisms of the naturalist approach (e.g., issues of generalizability, utility for policy advocacy and practice, and the rhetoric of science writing), cannot be reviewed. SI represents a distinctive tradition of scientific inquiry and applied science offering educators an assumptive base supportive of interpretive, engaged, and practical theorizing about human subjectivity and situated conduct; an opus of work rich with grounded theories, methodological innovations, and naturalistic studies; a set of exemplary theorists and researchers; a framework for the amelioration of educational problems and betterment of educational institutions; and an approach to inquiry that can make sense of the qualities (immediacy, complexity, uniqueness, and symbolic mediation) related to the perspectives, actions, and interaction of members of diverse learning communities. View chapterPurchase book Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080448947015293 Co-constructivism in Educational Theory and PracticeK. Reusser, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001 1.5 Pedagogical Context of TutoringAnother aspect of concern for the social nature of learning—and for a crucial way in which it is supported by culture—is instructional dialog or conversation. This term refers to a discursive activity in classrooms that permits the co-construction of meaning between teachers and students, tutors and tutees, the more and the less experienced. Consistent with Vygotsky's theory of the constructive role played by adults in children's acquisition of knowledge, the teacher's goal of assistance can be seen as trying to get the students to share his or her understanding and knowledge. However, because of the asymmetrical distribution of knowledge between teachers and students, understanding might be expected to be less jointly constructed in instructional conversation than it is observed to be in peer-cooperative dialog. Actions that tutors or teachers can take in order to elicit responses, including some co-constructive behavior from a tutee, are, for example, described in literature on reciprocal teaching and on cognitive apprenticeship (Collins et al. 1989). They can be subsumed under two broad categories: (a) modeling, scaffolding, and fading as content-specific ways of providing hints, strategies, and situational forms of coaching and guidance that are tailored to the needs of individual students; and (b) prompting as a more content-neutral invitation by the tutor to elicit elaborations, reflections, and self-explanations from students (Chi 1996). View chapterPurchase book Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0080430767024086 Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory☆Mary Gauvain, in Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development (Second Edition), 2020 Informal and Formal LearningVygotsky also considered imaginative play as an activity that provides children with experience in the zone of proximal development. There are two ways that imaginative play allows the child to function beyond her actual developmental level (Göncü and Gaskins, 2010). First, the rules of play (e.g., when playing doctor) serve as support for the child and create a ZPD where the child can function beyond her existing level of development. Second, in play the child separates the usual meaning of objects and actions (e.g., a stick might become a horse) and, thus, the child comes to understand she can use one object to represent the meaning of another object, again extending current understanding. Vygotsky's theory has profound implications for applied psychologists, especially for researchers concerned with education and classroom learning. For example, ‘scaffolding’, a form of instruction inspired by Vygotsky's ideas, is the process by which the more knowledgeable partner adjusts the amount and type of support he or she offers to the child so that it fits with the child's learning needs over the course of the interaction. By careful monitoring of the child's progress, the teacher adjusts the task to make it manageable for the child and provides assistance as needed. In scaffolding, the teacher gradually reduces the amount of support as the child becomes more skilled, so that eventually the child can execute the task independent of the more experienced partner's help. Learners benefit from participating in this type of classroom arrangement, and extensions of this idea can be found in the method of ‘reciprocal instruction’ introduced by A. Palinscar and A. Brown (Palinscar, 2013). This tutoring approach, which is based on the ideas of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding, enhances children's reading comprehension by having the learner work in close and supportive collaboration with more experienced partners who help children develop skills critical to comprehension, such as explication and elaboration. A. Brown and her colleagues also introduced a related classroom application called the ‘community of learners model’ (National Academy of Sciences, 2018). In this approach, adults and children work together in shared activities, peers learn from each other, and the teacher serves as an expert guide who facilitates the processes by which the children learn. The teacher uses the technique of scaffolding to support children's learning and the students, who vary in knowledge and ability, actively help each other learn through their interchanges. Other extensions of the idea of the ZPD are evident in educational practices that use resources from home and community settings, such as linguistic and cultural experiences, to support or scaffold children's classroom learning (Moll, 2014). View chapterPurchase book Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128093245235694 The Effects of Parent-Child Interaction and Media Use on Cognitive Development in Infants, Toddlers, and PreschoolersTiffany A. Pempek, Alexis R. Lauricella, in Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts, 2017 Parent-Child InteractionResearch has demonstrated the importance of positive parent-child interactions across the first few years of life for cognitive development as well as social and emotional growth (e.g., Carew, 1980; Clark-Stewart, 1973; Hart & Risley, 1995). Two specific cognitive activities influenced by engagement with parents are play and language skills. The classic theory of cognitive development proposed by Lev Vygotsky underscores how social interaction can facilitate the development for play, language, and other cognitive skills, such as attention and memory. While Vygotsky's theory focuses on social interaction with any individual more advanced than the child, his position is pertinent to the types of engagement that may occur between parents and children. Of particular relevance, Vygotsky discusses the zone of proximal development, or the distance between the child's current developmental level and the level of their potential development (Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky proposed that, within the zone of proximal development, interactions with others lead to internalization of cognitive processes first achieved in the social context (Vygotsky, 1978). The child will be able to utilize these cognitive skills on their own in new contexts once they are mastered through social interaction. Vygotsky's theory is reflected in modern research findings demonstrating that interactions with a parent can provide “scaffolding” to enhance the child's cognitive abilities (e.g., Dodici, Draper, & Peterson, 2003; Fiese, 1990; Slade, 1987). In this way, parent-child interaction plays an important role in the development of early language and literacy skills. Hart and Risley's (1992, 1995) seminal longitudinal study of language exposure during the first 3 years of life found that greater amounts of parental language input correlated with better language outcomes in their children, such as larger vocabulary size and stronger cognitive abilities in general. Similarly, the amount of language used during the first 3 years, along with parental responsiveness and guidance, has been associated with positive literacy outcomes for low-income children entering kindergarten (Dodici et al., 2003). Beyond the amount of parental language input, the quality of social exchanges is also important for language acquisition. In particular, many studies have indicated that parental language input is most beneficial when it is contingent to the child's communicative bids, as demonstrated by positive effects of sensitive and responsive parenting behaviors and conversational turn-taking (e.g., Golinkoff, Can, Soderstrom, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2015; Hoff-Ginsberg, 1990; Masur, Flynn, & Eichorst, 2005; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001; Zimmerman et al., 2009). Hart and Risley (1999) describe the combination of parental responsiveness, turn-taking, and talkativeness when engaging with their child in conversation as the “social dance” of American families. They argue that this dance between parent and child is crucial for children's successful language development. A second area in which parent interaction can have a significant impact is young children's play. Play is a valuable activity that yields positive outcomes for cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development (for a review, see Ginsburg, 2007). Parents may enhance the positive effects of play by engaging with their child. In fact, parent-child interaction has been shown to increase both the quantity and quality of play in young children. For instance, both free-play and structured play sessions with the mother led to more advanced symbolic play compared to solitary play for children between 1 and 2 years of age (Fiese, 1990). Similarly, for preschoolers, maternal behaviors such as physical and verbal stimulation, involvement, and positive tone were associated with more mature play and better interactions with peers and caregivers (Alessandri, 1992). Active parental interaction (e.g., focusing on the child, showing interest, initiating, or extending play) has also been associated with longer play episodes and move advanced symbolic play (Slade, 1987). Thus, early cognitive development appears to be enhanced to the extent that parents enrich the play experience by actively engaging their children in these ways. While some parental behaviors directed toward children appear to be beneficial for their early development, others lead to negative outcomes. For instance, behaviors by parents such as intrusiveness and questioning or instructing in a way that directs the child's attention have been associated with decreases in children's symbolic play (Fiese, 1990). Likewise, restricting children's behavior by terminating their activity or redirecting their attention to a new task has been associated with slower rates of cognitive and social development, which contrasts with supportive behaviors, such as maintaining children's focus on an activity, that are associated with faster rates of cognitive and social development (Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, & Swank, 1997). Taken together, research and theory on early parent-child interaction point to many ways in which parental engagement can benefit cognitive growth. The social interaction between parents and children during the early years of development has a powerful influence on children's development of cognitive skills, such as language. Certain parental behaviors support children's development during play as well, which can be crucial for development since children spend much of their day in this activity. While there is opportunity for parent-child interaction to be supportive, parental behaviors such as interrupting or redirecting attention can be detrimental. What is Vygotsky's sociocultural theory quizlet?Vygotsky Theory. Argued that cognitive development results from complex interactions between heredity and environment. Vygotsky Theory. The natural and cultural lines of development. Zone of Proximal Development.
What are the key focus for Vygotsky's sociocultural theory choose two answers?Three seminal ideas form the basis of Vygotsky's SCT: (1) an emphasis on developmental or genetic analysis as a means to understand certain aspects of mental functioning; (2) the claim that individual mental functioning has social origins; and (3) an emphasis on the mediated nature of human action (Wertsch, 1991.
What are the main points of Vygotsky's theory?As such, Vygotsky outlined three main concepts related to cognitive development: (i) culture is significant in learning, (ii) language is the root of culture, and (iii) individuals learn and develop within their role in the community.
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