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Vygotsky also gave special emphasis to the
role of language and its influence on thinking.
For him, “language is perceived as an instrument
or tool of thought, not just providing a “code” or
system for representing the world (as Piaget per-
ceived), but a way of transforming how children
learn, think and understand.” (McGregor, 2007,
p. 55). Therefore, socio-constructivist learning
activities very often employ teaching strategies
where students are asked to verbalize their inner
thoughts. The assumption is that during verbal-
ization learning is being created. For instance,
students are constantly encouraged to converse
with others to express their ideas so that they have
the opportunity to share, negotiate and modify
their personal comprehensions.
A key factor to understand Vygotsky's as-
sumptions about learning is the concept of zone
of proximal development (ZPD). This concept
emerged from his belief that assessing someone's
actual level of mental development was not as im-
portant as identifying his or her potential for future
development. He was interested in how children
would increase their already achieved level of cog-
nitive development by engaging in activities with
other children within a certain situation. For this,
he built the concept of zone of proximal develop-
ment to propose that “what children can do with
the assistance of others might in some sense be
even more indicative of their mental development
than what they can do alone.” (Vygotsky, 1978,
p. 85). Accordingly, learning experiences, based
on the ZPD concept, stress the importance of stu-
dents engaging in collaborative activities (usually
problem solving activities) where students have
the opportunity to interact with more knowledge-
able others; thus, peer-to-peer and teacher-to-peer
mentoring are promoted. In particular, from the
ZPD perspective, the mediation of the teacher, as
a more skilled member, is believed to be essential;
what is looked for is not to have a teacher as a
mere transmitter of information, but rather as a
provider of a scaffolding structure to support stu-
dents' learning. This scaffolding structure can be
supplied by the teacher using strategic questions
and constant coaching.
Jones and Bronack (2007, p. 93) present and
discuss a list of what they call principles of social
constructivist learning, which I think concretize
rather aptly the Vygotskian theory (although they
also include some more sociocultural concepts):
1. Knowledge is created and maintained
through social interactions;
2. Learning is participatory where students take
an active role;
3. Development proceeds through stages and
among more-and less-experienced peers
within a community of practice [this con-
cept of “community of practice” is central
in sociocultural constructivism];
4. A specific and general knowledge base
emerges from learning through meaningful
activity with others;
5. Learners develop dispositions relative to the
community of practice. (p. 93)
Nowadays, some of the socio-constructivist
concepts discussed so far sound common to us;
however, in his day, Vygotsky's ideas were highly
original. In fact, he was trying to propose an alter-
native to the reductionist posture of the behaviorist
theories that prevailed in the psychological world
of his time like Pavlov's classical conditioning.
Through most of his work, Vygotsky's interest
was in the mediation of social interaction in psy-
chological development; however, near the end of
his rather short life, he was starting to expand his
views to include cultural aspects as well (Minick,
1997). Many lines of thought have developed from
his ideas focusing more on the social, cultural and
historical aspects and how they influence learning,
like situated learning, communities of practice and
apprenticeship. In the next sections of this paper
it will become clearer how Vygotsky's concepts
have influenced the development of the situated
learning paradigm.
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