Vygotsky, Mind in Society

“Any learning a child encounters in school always has a previous history” (84)

Thinking more about constructivism as a learning theory has brought me to explore the ideas of Vygotsky. His thinking about student's development and learning is directly connected to the ideas I have already explored about inquiry based learning. This discovery has helped me to build a greater understanding of constructive learning as an overarching theme in learning.

Vygotsky introduces the idea of prior knowledge and how it impacts learning. I have thought a lot about this idea with my readings of Geneva Gay, specifically how culture specific prior knowledge impacts learning. Students come with knowledge that can be a beneficial tool to their learning in the classroom.

‘For example, children begin to study arithmetic in school, but long beforehand they have had some experience with quantity-they have had to deal with operations of division, addition, subtraction, and determination of size” (84)

Vygotsky also talks about the Zone of Proximal Development- the area where this prior knowledge supports new learning to reach an attainable goal. 

“We propose that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the child’s independent developmental achievement” (90)




And finally, perhaps the strongest connection to Dewey, is the impact of collaboration with learning in the ZPD. Social learning comes into play, as students work together and communicate to achieve this learning. 

“It is 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” (86)