Vygotsky and Social Development Theory LITERATURE REVIEW NOOR IZZATI RAHIM

Transcription

1 2016 Vygotsky and Social Development Theory LITERATURE REVIEW NOOR IZZATI RAHIM

2 Learning theories help us to understand how people learn in social contexts (learn from each other) and informs us on how we, as teachers, should construct active learning communities for the benefits of human civilization. Lev Vygotsky (1962), a Russian teacher and psychologist, pointed that it is a natural phenomenon that human learns through our interactions and communications with others. He examined on the influence of social environments in the learning process. He suggested that learning takes place through the interactions students have with their peers, teachers, and other experts. Inevitably, teachers can create a learning environment that fulfils the learner's maximum ability to interact with each other through discussion, collaboration, and feedback. Moreover, Vygotsky (1962) argues that culture is the primary determining factor for knowledge construction. We learn through this cultural lens by interacting with others and following the rules, skills, and abilities shaped by our culture. Lev Vygotsky was born in the town of Orsha, in the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) into a non-religious middle class of a Russian Jewish family. He was raised in the city of Gomel, Belarus, where he obtained both public and private education. In 1913 Vygotsky was admitted to the Moscow State University through a "Jewish Lottery" to meet a three percent Jewish student quota for entry in Moscow and Saint Petersburg universities. There he studied law and, in parallel, he attended lectures at fully official, but privately funded and non-degree granting Shaniavskii Moscow City People's University". His early interests were in the arts and he might have aspired to be a literary critic, fascinated with the formalism of his time. He lived during the Russian Revolution era, and for that his theory was not well-accepted at that particular time. However, his social learning theories have been praised by many as something that help the human to comprehend people s action in social contexts and let us know how an active learning communities can be constructed. As a teacher and psychologist, he always believe that human learn through our interactions and communications with others. Vygotsky argues that the social environments determine the outcome of the learning process. A complete learning as per suggested by him, occurs through the interactions students have with their peers, teachers, and other experts. As a result of that, the teachers are always able to create an environment for the teaching that will fulfil the maximum potential of their learning, while indirectly reach the height of the learners ability. Vygotsky also stressed out that culture is the main determining factor for knowledge construction, as ones ought to learn through their cultural lens as the rules, skills, abilities and even social interactions are shaped by the culture.

3 There are four aspects of social development theory that complimenting social learning, those are developing learning communities, community of learners classroom, collaborative learning and group work and discussion-based learning (Socratic Questioning Methods). It has been recognized as liberating the students as they work together on a task and develop across the curriculum. The teachers will also be indirectly inclined towards choosing meaningful and challenging tasks for the students to work and increase Socratic dialogues that promote deeper learning. Vygotsky always maintained, "That language is the main tool that promotes thinking, develops reasoning, and supports cultural activities like reading and writing" (Vygotsky 1978). In consequence to that theory, instructional strategies that prioritize literacy in curriculum definitely notable in the construction of knowledge, alongside the whole class leadership, individual and group coaching, and independent learning. In addition to that, teachers must allow the student to revel in managed discussion about the learning, as it helps them due to its objective that build off one another with the substantive comments. The direct exchange of thoughts between students and teachers will also let their understanding to flourish. Discussionbased classroom using Socratic dialogue where the teacher manages the discourse can lead each student to feel like their contributions are valued resulting in increased student motivation. The teacher should always plays role of facilitator, someone that is important and needed to create the environment that emphasize in perfecting the interactions among its pupils. The rational and relevant Vygotsky's social process ideas and proposed strategies has been adopted by many theorist and philosopher as it fosters deeper knowledge construction, facilitate Socratic student discussions, and build active learning communities through small group based instruction. In essence, Vygotsky recognizes that learning always occurs and cannot be separated from a social context. Consequently, instructional strategies that promote the distribution of expert knowledge where students collaboratively work together to conduct research, share their results, and perform or produce a final project, help to create a collaborative community of learners. Knowledge construction occurs within Vygotsky's (1962) social context that involves student-student and expert-student collaboration on real world problems or tasks that build on each person's language, skills, and experience shaped by each individual's culture" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102).

4 Vygotsky has always pointed out the importance of culture affecting/shaping cognitive development, something that strongly contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development. One of the stark contrast is that Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, while Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures. Besides that, he also place considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development, whereas Piaget has always been criticized for underestimating this factor. For Vygotsky, the cognitive development derives from social interactions off guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge. He underlined that the environment in which children grow up will influence their thinking and actions. In contrast, Piaget famously said that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations where children construct knowledge of their own. According to Vygotsky the role of language in cognitive development should not be undermined too, as it plays a decisive factor in the moulding of one s minds, while Piaget s finding did not put much attention on this. Vygotsky also stressed that cognitive development results from an internalization of language as it depends on thought for its development, as thought comes before the language. As two totally separates thing, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech). According to Vygotsky (1962), adults are an important source of cognitive development. Adults transmit their culture's tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize. In contrast Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers as peer interaction promotes social perspective taking. He said that "Inner speech is not the interior aspect of external speech - it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e. thought connected with words. But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings" (Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149). Vygotsky reiterated that language breeds from social interactions, for communication purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man s greatest tool, a means for communicating with the outside world. Based on Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in achieving the complete cognitive development; firstly, it is the main means by which adults transmit information to children and another one is language itself becomes a very powerful tool of intellectual adaptation.

5 Vygotsky (1987) states the differences between three forms of language: social speech which is external communication used to talk to others (typical from the age of two); private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and serves an intellectual function; and finally private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility as it takes on a selfregulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven). Contrasting to Piaget s (1959) finding that private speech representing a developmental deadend, Vygotsky viewed private speech as a revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and pre-intellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental functioning (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005). In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984). These two intellectuals also have different opinions in the effects of Culture in learning, as tools of intellectual adaptation. Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for their own intellectual development, as he referred to Elementary Mental Functions as something that is made up of four human sensory aspect, which is Attention, Sensation, Perception and Memory while Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities in their development. Ultimately, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are also developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes and strategies which Vygotsky refers to as Higher Mental Functions. As an example, the biological factors has always been limiting the memory ability of an infant. However, as we grow up the culture has some hand in deciding the type of memory strategy that we nurture. Tools of intellectual adaptation will always be close to Vygotsky s heart as he believes that these allow children to use the basic mental functions effectively, and all of it are uncompromisingly determined culturally. Vygotsky therefore sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs, values and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and therefore socio-culturally determined. The tools of intellectual adaptation therefore vary from culture to culture - as in the memory example. However, Vygotsky mirrors Piaget s opinion in the social influences on cognitive development. He believes that curiosity and actively involved in their own learning makes the young children endlessly discover and develop their continuing progress of understandings.

6 Despite that, Vygotsky contributed towards social interactions to the process of development, totally opposite Piaget that emphasized in its self-initiated discovery. According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skilful tutor. The tutor or teacher may represent a unique behaviours or give verbal instructions for the child. This has always been deemed as cooperative or collaborative dialogue, as the child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor before digesting the information, using it to guide or regulate their own performance. This type of social interaction always involve cooperative or collaborative dialogue that promotes cognitive development. In order to gain an understanding of Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky's work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) refers to an entity 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 someone or something who is perceived to have better skill or understanding of a task, process, or concept. This person could be a peer, a parent, a teacher/tutor, or another person (McLeod, 2007). Normally, when we think of an MKO we refer to an older adult, a teacher or an expert. For example, a child learns multiplication of numbers because his tutor teaches him well. The traditional MKO is an older person; however, MKOs could also refer to our friends, younger people and even electronic devices like computers and cell phones. For instance, you learn how to skate because your daughter taught you this skill. The concept of the More Knowledgeable Other is integrally related to the second important principle of Vygotsky's work, the Zone of Proximal Development. This is an important concept that relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. For example, the child could not tie the shoe by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if succeed), but was able to solve it following interaction with a teacher, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future identical problems. Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given, the freedom afforded to the child in nurturing their skills will eventually result in them developing higher mental functions as they implement it. Vygotsky also views interaction with peers as one effective way to develop skills and strategies. He suggested that teachers utilize on cooperative learning exercises where less competent

7 children will develop with help from more skilful peers, this falls within the zone of proximal development. Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular areas of a dolls house and this led to that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task. The conclusion being that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning). Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech. He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking. Therefore private speech was counted as the earliest manifestation of inner speech. Despite the private speech similarities in its form and function to inner speech than social speech it is typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed to one self for the purpose of selfregulation, rather than just a mere communication (Diaz, 1992). Unlike inner speech which is without doubt covert, private speech is an overt process. Studies nowadays has been something that has distance itself from the conventional way of learning. Playing educational video games for example, can stimulate the mind to become more active and creative and the change of educational landscape will make the learning process more interesting. For example, the nature of electronic games that is virtual reality has also enable an activity or idea that cannot be completed in conventional games to be achieved. In the situation where only the practical method allow the student to endure the actual condition such as the flight simulation, where the real time flight situation are possible to take place due to its simulated nature. It also gives the opportunity to the student to experience the real time situation without causing any damage or loss of life, allowing them to master the skills or nurture the talents in them within their own capacity. As a conclusion, the traditional model where the teacher or tutor transmits or transfers information to her students is still believed in many educational institutions. On the other hand, the Social Development Theory has been able to change this tradition because it explains that the student (learner) must have an active role in learning for this process to occur faster and more efficiently. Because of Social Development Theory, many schools are now encouraging recitation so as to reciprocate the learning experience inside the classroom. This means that the teacher also learns from the students as the students learns from her.

8 Vygotsky s Social Development Theory definitely change the world, and the way of learning being conducted has evolved the years, paving the way for other unconventional methods of learning such as through video games and field research to be practiced in today s educational process.

9 Reference - Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. - Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. - Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, Berk, L. & Garvin, R. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20(2), Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal Regulation of Children's Problem-solving Behavior and Its Impact on Children's Performance. Child Development, 61, Diaz, R. M., & Berk, L. E. (1992). Private speech: From social interaction to selfregulation. Lawrence Erlbaum.