The ZPD

Whew!  That Mind in Society book was a tough one.  I had to use some reading strategies of my own to fully grasp what he was saying and understand his beliefs about development and learning.  I found a graphic which helped me understand the zone of proximal development more concretely through the link below and my group and I used this as inspiration for our mind map showing how, according to Vygotsky, developing and learning happen.

http://www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psychology/development/zone-of-proximal-development.html

            I now understand that Vygotzky believed that development lags behind learning.  The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the distance between a child’s actual development level and the level of potential development.  There is a huge social component too and Vygotsky believed that development stems from social interactions.  He says, “what children can do with the assistance of others is even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone.”  He goes on to say, “what a child can do with assistance today she will be able to do by herself tomorrow.”  

This matches up nicely with the idea of modeling, coaching and fading (no coincidence as Brown, Collins and Duguid no doubt studied Vygotsky carefully!). These beliefs are ones to keep in mind while designing our instruction too as well as essential ideas to keep in mind as we consider the fourth design principle: The Learning Principle.  We want to keep our students “at the edge of their knowledge” (ZPD) and we want them to “internalize meaningful thought.” 

I will keep all this at the forefront of my thoughts as I start the Design Document this week.  As a resource teacher I work with many grade-levels and in both reading and math, but I think I will focus this Design Document on first grade math.  This age seems like a good one to design for with these principles in mind since they still have so much developing and learning to do.  Wish me luck!