Activity 3.3: PowerPoint on Social Constructivism

Activity 3.3 - PowerPoint on Social Constructivism

One of the key concepts in Vygotsky’s theory is obuchenie, a kind of give and take, a two-way process, (teaching – learning) which creates a zone of proximal development (ZPD). This zone is an area between children’s actual, independent developmental levels, and potential levels of development, those reached with assistance from a teacher or more advanced peer.

I taught combined grades, from fifth through eighth, for eleven years. I was able to pair kids, or have mixed-ability groups where the more advanced could model or teach certain concepts/skills, and once mastered, the groupings would change. Students might reverse roles, depending upon what areas of competence or expertise each student possessed. Students may be first, a tutee, next time, the tutor.

Students learn from their teachers, as teachers must also learn from their students, getting inside their minds, assessing their thoughts, in order to assist in their learning. James said, “When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind or a pupil’s, our conscious effort should not be so much to impress and retain it as to connect it with something else already there. The connecting is the thinking …” (p. 70).