LEV VYGOTSKY AND HIS THEORY OF LEARNING

Transcription

1 (ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING) LECTURER: Assoc Professor Dr. Neo Mai Individual Assignment LEV VYGOTSKY AND HIS THEORY OF LEARNING BY: KAMYAR GOLMOHAMMADI STUDENT ID: MAY 2012

2 Abstract: In this research, Researcher searched about Lev Vygotsky s theory of learning. This person is known the Mozart of psychology, tis name has been called due to stunning spending years and years of studying this field and led him to be a great asset to his and other societies back in his time and yet the results are useful. Researcher define some basic information about learning and cognitivism which Lev s theory is based on. In order to fully understand and comprehend the subject, several aspects and details of what learning and cognitivism are should be observed. Then some information and facts about his biography is prepared, information about how he lived and what sort of things and subjects he had gone through and his final achievements. Then researcher tried having a closer look to his theory of learning. These are going to be followed by the conclusion and mentioning the used and visited references. 2

3 Introduction: A) Learning: Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves. Human learning may occur as part of education, personal development, or training. It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation. The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory, and pedagogy. In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, values, and world views (Illeris, 2000; Ormorod, 1995). Learning as a process focuses on what happens when the learning takes place. Explanations of what happens constitute learning theories. A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals learn; thereby helping us understands the inherently complex process of learning. Learning theories have two chief values according to Hill (2002). One is in providing us with vocabulary and a conceptual framework for interpreting the examples of learning that we observe. The other is in suggesting where to look for solutions to practical problems. The theories do not give us solutions, but they do direct our attention to those variables that are crucial in finding solutions. [1] B) Cognitivism: In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical approach in understanding the mind using quantitative, positivist and scientific methods, that describes mental functions as information processing models. Cognitivism has two major components, one methodological, the other theoretical. Methodologically, cognitivism adopts a positivist approach and the belief that psychology can be (in principle) fully explained by the use of experiment, measurement and the scientific method. This is also largely a reductionist goal, with the belief that individual components of mental function (the 'cognitive architecture') 3

4 can be identified and meaningfully understood. The second is the belief that cognition consists of discrete, internal mental states (representations or symbols) whose manipulation can be described in terms of rules or algorithms. Cognitivism became the dominant force in psychology in the late-20th century, replacing behaviorism as the most popular paradigm for understanding mental function. Cognitive psychology is not a wholesale refutation of behaviorism, but rather an expansion that accepts that mental states exist. This was due to the increasing criticism towards the end of the 1950s of simplistic learning models. One of the most notable criticisms was Chomsky's argument that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning, and must be at least partly explained by the existence of internal mental states. The main issues that interest cognitive psychologists are the inner mechanisms of human thought and the processes of knowing. Cognitive psychologists have attempted to throw light on the alleged mental structures that stand in a causal relationship to our physical actions. [2] Biography: Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, born in November 16 th 1896, was a Soviet psychologist and the founder of cultural-historical psychology. About a hundred years ago in Tsarist Russia, in the town of Orscha in Belorussia to a middle-class Jewish family. As Jews, Lev Vygotsky family held prosperous outside from the Russia under the Tsar Nicholes. He grew up in Gomel, an inside city that is what is now an independent nation of Belorussia, about 400 miles west from Moscow. During that time, there were strict laws on what jobs Jews could hold, what region of the country they could live in, and limits on how many could be formally educated. He, therefore, received his education in an unconventional way. Lev studied with a private tutor for many years, and enrolled in a Jewish gymnasium only at the junior high school level. Despite under the quota for Jews entering college, finally he was fortunately admitted to Moscow University by Jewish lottery. During the years studying in Moscow University, , at the insistence of his parents he initially applied to the Medical School of Moscow University. Nevertheless, as soon as he started studying in Moscow University, he transferred from the Medical School to 4

5 the Law school. The humanities courses at Moscow University could not satisfy his desire for knowledge. Therefore, he enrolled in the history and philosophy program at a private university, Shaniavsky University, where many leading professors of Moscow University left for. By 1917, he graduated from the two universities at the same time. He was graduated just as the First World War was ending, and Russian Revolution changed all institutions and expectations. After college, Vygotsky returned to Gomel and taught classes there for seven years. Initially he taught literature in the secondary school, and after a few years, taught the teacher education in the local training institution. That is he fed much practical experience in that field of education. Vygotsky was particularly interested in the philosophy of history and was a recognized leader of a small circle of high school students concerned with the problems of Jewish culture and history. He was at that time very enthusiastic about the Hegeli a view of history. He also became interested in psychology and began to do research in this field. He participated in the meeting of the Second Psychological Congress in Leningrad on 6 January 1924, and delivered a speech on the Methodology of Reflexological and Psychological Studies in which he claimed that scientific psychology couldn t ignore the facts of consciousness. Although the talk challenged the leading Soviet behavioral Scientists without successfully convincing everyone of the correctness of his view, it drew the attention of Alexander Lurias, the academic secretary at the Moscow Institute of Psychology. He invited Vygotsky to join the research team in Moscow. In 1926, Vygotsky finished The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology, Which was published only half a century later in Before he died, it was a time of relatively openness for academic freedom. For him, it was simply a period of time as the almost friend-lost decade of his life. Vygotsky worked in a wide range of arenas. He worked for displaced refugees, with the physically and metal handicapped people, in some different institutes and universities. He managed to finish writing seven books and dozens of articles before his death of Tuberculosis at the age of 37 in [3] "A disability in and of itself is not a tragedy. It is only an occasion to provoke tragedy." Vygotsky 5

6 Vygotsky s Theory: "Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities for thinking about a variety of things." - Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society, 1978 To understand Vygotsky s theory, it is important to look at the political environment of that time. Vygotsky began to work in psychology shortly after the Russian revolution, where the Marxism replaced the rule of the czar. The new philosophy of the Marxist emphasized socialism and collectivism. Individuals were expected to sacrifice their personal goals and achievements for the improvement of the larger society. Sharing and co-operation was encouraged, and the success of any individual was seen as reflecting the success of the culture. Marxists also placed a heavy emphasis on history, believing that any culture could be understood only through examination of the ideas and events that had shaped it (Vasta, R., Haith, M.M., Miller,S.A 1995). Vygotsky incorporates these elements in his model of human development that has been termed as a sociocultural approach. For him, the individual s development is a result of his or her culture. Development, in Vygotsky s theory, applies mainly to mental development, such as thought, language and reasoning process. These abilities were understood to develop through social interactions with others (especially parents) and therefore represented the shared knowledge of the culture. He states: Every function in the child s cultural development appears twice: first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of ideas. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals (Vygotsky, 1978, p.57). Mental abilities and processes similarly were viewed in terms of the historical sequence of events that produced them. Whereas Piaget believed that all children s cognitive process follows a very similar pattern of stages, Vygotsky saw intellectual abilities as being much more specific to the culture in which the child was reared 6

7 (Vasta,R., Haith, M.M., Miller,S.A 1995). Culture makes two sorts of contributions to the child s intellectual development. First, children acquire much of their thinking (knowledge) from it. Second, children acquire the processes or means of their thinking (tools of intellectual adaptation) from the surrounding culture. Therefore, culture provides the children with the means to, what to think and how to think. [4] Fifty years after his death, Lev Vygotsky attracted the attention of Western psychologists and educators for his theory of cognitive development. In contrast to other cognitive perspectives, Vygotsky accorded a central role to culture and social interaction in the development of complex thinking. In addition, he advocated the study of children's unfolding development of cognitive processes, and pioneered a research method to accomplish this purpose. He also contributed ideas to pedology (child study) and defectology (special education) that anticipated current views. Education and Cognitive Development Two influential Vygotskian concepts are the role of inner speech and the zone of proximal development. In contrast to the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, Vygotsky maintained that the child's external self-focused speech during activities did not disappear. Instead, through a dialectical transformation, it became inner speech that guided the child's planning and other emerging thought processes. Vygotsky's view that learning leads development and the immaturity of students' conscious awareness and mastery of their thinking at school age set the stage for the concept referred to as the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Defined as including higher cognitive functions that are about to mature or develop, the ZPD is determined by the cognitive tasks the learner can complete in collaboration with an adult or an advanced peer. Simply stated, the cognitive operations that the student can complete with the assistance of another today, he or she can accomplish alone tomorrow. Some discussions of classroom practices credit Vygotsky as supporting or advocating peer collaboration in the classroom. However, translations of his writings indicate that he discussed only teacher-student collaboration in the classroom. Higher cognitive functions develop through the teacher's requiring the learner to explain, compare, contrast, and generalize from subject-matter concepts. In this way, students learn to control their attention, to think conceptually, and to develop 7

8 logical networks of well-developed concepts in long-term memory. Applying cultural-historical theory to disabilities such as deafness, Vygotsky emphasized that the child's social deprivation is the factor responsible for defective development. For example, he noted that the blindness of a farmer's daughter and that of a duchess are different psychological situations because their social situations differ. To address the difficulties faced by disabled learners, Vygotsky suggested that societies continue developing special psychological tools that can provide the social and cultural interactions essential for cognitive development. Finally, Vygotsky's intellectual heritage includes his emphasis on child study as the science of child development. Required is the synthesis of knowledge from different disciplines that addresses both the development of novel cognitive functions and the educational needs of children. [5] Conclusion: In the last decade, the intellectual climate of educational theory in the United States has had been influenced by the work of Lev Vygotsky. Some of the current philosophers and psychologists still believe in his theories of learning and they, by the help of these theories, try to develop their different fields of knowledge and also pass these learnt objectives to their students and followers. As we all know there a lot of tools, especially mental ones in order to gain and acquire knowledge. But what Vaygotsky tried to focus the most was language. For him language is the most important mental tool. One of the best-known concepts that illustrate Vygotsky's view of language is the concept of private speech. Private speech is directed to other people. Through linguistic mediation, individuals are able to sophisticate their selfdirected thought processes. To understand Vygotsky s critical psychology, one must appreciate his efforts to study the development of language in relation to thought. Thus, because of human beings ability to use tools such as language to change their social context and themselves, they are not simply at the mercy of social and historical processes. [6] 8

9 References: [1] Jungle Gyms: The Evolution of Animal Play by Alex Hawes (ZooGoer 1996) [Viewed dec.3rd.2010] What behavior can we expect of octopuses? By Dr. Jennifer Mather, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge and Roland C. Anderson, The Seattle Aquarium December 12, [Viewed dec.3rd.2010] [2] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, modified on 21 July [Viewed dec.4th.2010] [3] Lev Semenovich Vygotsky's Biography On May 3, 1996 by the P540 Vygotsky Group [Viewed dec.6th.2010] [4] Lev Vygotsky ( ). By Sólrún B. Kristinsdóttir 2001 Síðast uppfært , [Viewed dec.10th.2010] [5] From education encyclopedia, stateuniversity.com, L.Vygotsky ( ) - Cultural-Historical Theory, Education and Cognitive Development by Margaret E.Gredler [viewed dec.10th.2010] [6] 9

10 The article Lev Vygotsky ( ) by Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, [viewed dec.11th.2010] Collected, designed and printed by Kamyar Golmohammadi 10