Saturday, September 26, 2009

Molly Paraschak- Vygotsky

I have heard of the zone of proximal development in other Education classes that I have taken, but we did not read into depth about the process. After reading this article I have a better understanding of how to incorporate this process into my classroom and how to monitor students in my classroom when I use this process with them. I understand the definition of ZPD and am aware that it is the distance between the actual development level and the level of potential development. ZPD as my understanding is the range of learning from what the students can accomplish on their own compared to what they can accomplish with assistance. Teachers can determine how much assistance a student gets by how well they are doing with the particular activity. ZPD is a very effective tool to incorporate into your classroom, but it is important that you use it properly.
I remember when I was in grade school that if I was confused about something I would ask for assistance. It was not that I was dumb, but I needed that extra help to accomplish my goal. I needed assistance with math problems, I had a tutor after school that would help me with my homework. Having that extra help helped me reach being able to work independently on certain math problems. Having assistance for students that need it is a good resource to use in the classroom and is an effective asset to the learning processs. I am in college and still to this day if I do not understand something, I will not hesitate to ask for assistance. After reading this article I have a better understanding of ZPD and how to incorporate it into the classroom.

1 comment:

  1. I also had a math tutor in elementary school. She would introduce concepts to me in ways that were meaningful to me and sped up my acquisition of knowledge. thanks miss t!

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