Lev Vygotsky Theory
Lev Vygotsky Theory
Vygotsky's Early Life
Lev Vygotsky was
born November 17, 1896, in Orsha, a city in the western region of the
Russian Empire.
He attended Moscow State
University, where he graduated with a degree in law in 1917. He studied a range
of topics while attending university, including sociology, linguistics,
psychology, and philosophy. However, his formal work in psychology did not
begin until 1924 when he attended the Institute of Psychology in Moscow.
He completed a
dissertation in 1925 on the psychology of art but was awarded his degree in
absentia due to an acute tuberculosis relapse that left him incapacitated for a
year. Following his illness, Vygotsky began researching topics such as
language, attention, and memory with the help of students including Alexei
Leontiev and Alexander Luria.
Vygotsky's Career and Theories
Vygotsky was a prolific
writer, publishing six books on psychology topics over a ten-year period. His
interests were quite diverse but often centered on issues of child development
and education. He also explored such subjects as the psychology of art and
language development.
The Zone of Proximal Development
According to Vygotsky,
the zone of proximal development is "[The] distance between the actual
developmental 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."—Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978
Essentially, this zone is
the gap between what a child knows and what he does not yet know. The process
of acquiring that information requires skills that a child does not yet possess
or cannot do independently, but can do with the help of a more knowledgeable
other.
Parents and teachers can
foster learning by providing educational opportunities that lie within a
child's zone of proximal development. Kids can also learn a great deal from
peers, so teachers can foster this process by pairing less skilled children
with more knowledgeable classmates.
The More Knowledgeable Other
Vygotsky conceived the
more knowledgeable other as a person who has greater knowledge and skills than
the learner. In many cases, this individual is an adult such as a parent or
teacher. Kids also learn a great deal from their interactions with their peers,
and children often pay even greater attention to what their friends and
classmates know and are doing than they do to the adults in their life.
No matter who serves as
the more knowledgeable other, the key is that they provide the needed social
instruction with the zone of proximal development when the learner is so
sensitive to guidance. Children can observe and imitate or even receive guided
instruction to acquire new knowledge and skills.
Sociocultural Theory
Lev Vygotsky also
suggested that human development results from a dynamic interaction between
individuals and society. Through this interaction, children learn gradually and
continuously from parents and teachers.
This learning, however,
can vary from one culture to the next. It's important to note that Vygotsky's
theory emphasizes the dynamic nature of this interaction. Society doesn't just
impact people; people also affect their society.
Contributions to Psychology
Vygotsky's life was cut
tragically short on June 11, 1934, when he died of tuberculosis at the age of
37.
He is considered a
formative thinker in psychology, and much of his work is still being discovered
and explored today. While he was a contemporary of skinner, Pavlov, Freud, and
Piaget, his work never attained their level of eminence during his lifetime.
Part of this was because the Communist Party often criticized his work in
Russia, and so his writings were largely inaccessible to the Western world. His
premature death at age 37 also contributed to his obscurity.
Despite this, his work
has continued to grow in influence since his death, particularly in the fields
of developmental and educational psychology.
It wasn't until the 1970s
that Vygotsky's theories became known in the West as new concepts and ideas
were introduced in the fields of educational and developmental psychology.
Since then, Vygotsky's works have been translated and have become very
influential, particularly in the area of education.
In a ranking of eminent psychologists, Vygotsky was identified as the
83rd most frequently cited psychologist during the 20th century.
Vygotsky vs. Piaget
Piaget and Vygotsky were
contemporaries, yet Vygotsky’s ideas never became as well-known until long
after his death. While their ideas shared some similarities, there were some
significant differences, including:
- Vygotsky
did not break down development into a series of predetermined stages as
Piaget did.
- Vygotsky
stressed the important role that culture plays, suggesting cultural
differences can have a dramatic effect on development. Piaget’s theory
suggests that development is largely universal.
- Piaget’s
theory focuses a great deal of attention on peer interaction while
Vygotsky’s theory stresses the importance of more knowledgeable adults and
peers.
- Vygotsky’s
theory heavily stressed the role that language plays in development,
something that Piaget largely ignored.
In His Own Words
"Learning is more
than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many
specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things."—Lev
Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978
Selected Publications
Vygotsky LS. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher
Psychological Processes. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press; 1978.
Vygotsky LS. Thought and Language. Kozulin A,
trans. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; 1986. (Original work published in 1934)
Vygotsky LS. Thinking and Speech. Minick N, trans.
New York: Plenum Press; 1987.
If you're interested in
reading some of Vygotsky's works, many of his writings are available in
full-text format at the Vygotsky Internet Archive.
Key Concepts
Vygotsky’s Social
Development Theory is the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)[1][2].
Vygotsky’s work was largely unkown to the West until it was published in 1962.
Vygotsky’s theory is one
of the foundations of constructivism. It asserts three major themes regarding
social interaction, the more knowledgeable other, and the zone of proximal
development.
Social Interaction
Social interaction plays
a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. In contrast to Jean
Piaget’s understanding of child developmentin which development necessarily
precedes learning), Vygotsky felt social learning precedes development. He
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 (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)”.
The More Knowledgeable Other
(MKO)
The MKO refers to anyone
who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with
respect to a particular task, process, or concept. The MKO is normally thought
of as being a teacher, coach, or older adult, but the MKO could also be peers,
a younger person, or even computers.
The Zone of Proximal Development
(ZPD)
The ZPD is the distance
between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with
peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently.
According to Vygotsky, learning occurred in this zone.
Vygotsky focused on the
connections between people and the sociocultural context in which they act and
interact in shared experiences[3]. According to Vygotsky, humans use
tools that develop from a culture, such as speech and writing, to mediate their
social environments. Initially children develop these tools to serve solely as
social functions, ways to communicate needs. Vygotsky believed that the
internalization of these tools led to higher thinking skills.
Applications of the Vygotsky’s
Social Development Theory
Many schools have
traditionally held a transmissionist or instructionist model in which a teacher
or lecturer ‘transmits’ information to students. In contrast, Vygotsky’s theory
promotes learning contexts in which students play an active role in learning.
Roles of the teacher and student are therefore shifted, as a teacher should
collaborate with his or her students in order to help facilitate meaning
construction in students. Learning therefore becomes a reciprocal experience
for the students and teacher.
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