Christie Caron ZPD

Prior to reading the assigned Vygotski reading, I was very familiar with similarities and differences between two very opinionated theoretical positions. Vygotski and Piaget, both constructivists, agree upon the notion that social interactions are critical for understanding that music communicates mood. The theorists would first design a curriculum that incorporates group work, discussions, and activities within the lesson. However, arguments arise upon how these social groups are formed. Vygotski, argues that one’s actual development does not determine learning, instead, pulls learning along. He feels that there is a gap between the child’s actual development level, and the potential developmental level, this gap can be filled with assistance from adults, more capable peers, and cognitive tools that students can use to make difficult tasks easier.
My way to describe my understanding of the Zone of Proximal Development is to envision a lesson that which students cross the distance between their actual developmental level and the potential level of development that one could reach under adult modeling. For example, many children do not think very hard into subjects or meanings behind certain school content areas. Typically, children like music because it is fun to dance and sing to, but do not think of the instruments or meanings behind what the artist is trying to communicate. Children have an idea and may be in the process of understanding; yet, this concept has yet to mature, thus, identifying music comprehension as a function of the zone of proximal development. If a teacher wanted to help students reach a higher level of understanding of music, Vygotski would advise teachers to present learning strategies that will help the students comprehend how music communicates mood to scaffold and push the child to reach higher thought processes. The teacher acts as a mentor in a large group discussion involving students of all developmental levels, prompting the class to talk themselves through this difficult understanding. The teacher encourages children to express when and what kinds of music they listen to and how that music makes them feel. Vygotski would mix groups of all developmental levels, creating challenging tasks that promote maximum growth. Through this peer discussion, the higher level kids explain their thoughts to help the developmentally lower level students understand, ultimately, forcing the higher level students to re-examine and reevaluate their own ideas, modifying them if necessary. Students would hold discussions and move from a state of equilibrium, understanding the reading through their own past schemes, then through scaffolding, the groups used either assimilation or accommodation to surpass disequilibrium and reach a new, higher level of equilibrium that promotes the development of a more complex thought. The students had a desire to reach an understanding and they moved back and forth between a state of balance and imbalance which forced the students to construct a new scheme or accommodate existing schemes (equilibration).
I find Vygotski’s theory of the “Zone of Proximal Development” very interesting. This zone is a gap between a child’s actual development level and the potential development level attainable with assistance from adults, more capable peers, and cognitive tools that students can use to make difficult tasks easier. Challenging tasks promotes maximum cognitive growth that can reach this “gap.” The zone of proximal development utilizes a mentor that scaffolds, pulls the learner along to reach a higher level of development, and aids the learner in achieving new knowledge. Teachers must provide opportunities to engage in adult-like activities, allow students to learn through play, have students work in small groups to complete difficult tasks, present some tasks that students can perform only with assistance, provide cognitive tools that students can use to make difficult tasks easier, and encourage students to talk themselves through hard tasks, and act as a mentor. These implications all increase the ability of the student to cross the “gap” and reach a higher developmental level.
I learned in previous classes that there are four basic needs that influence motivation and well-being. One must feel relatedness, have self determination, strive for optimal level of arousal and have self worth. Without these, motivation is hard to achieve. To help increase motivation, teachers must be sure classroom expectations are clear and consistent, work to build meaningful relationships with students, break large tasks into smaller goals to help optimal arousal, promote mastery learning, evaluate student work soon after the completion with clear feedback, allow students to have some control over their learning, design projects that allow students to share their knowledge with others, and highlight ways learning can be applied in real life situations. Through the reading from Mind in Society, I learned that the gap of potential learning one day, will be a task developed into the actual developmental level another day. Moreover, with assistance the student can bridge the gap and reach a new developmental milestone and complete the task individually next time.
I grew up in a family of six in a three bedroom split level, thus, I was always surrounded by family and friends that influenced my learning which developed into the life around me. With two older brothers and my parents, I imitated nearly everything they did. Similarly, my youngest brother was only 2 years younger than me and needed a lot of attention, specifically during my peak learning periods between the ages of 4-8. This left me to imitate my brothers. I would watch the same T.V. shows, listen to the same music, play sports with them, and read the same books. This pushed me to advance in my level of development. As I grew older, I excelled in reading, math, and was the lead cross country runner in the state. These successes are a tribute to my surrounding social environment which awaken my own internal developmental processes when imitating my brothers, and diffusing my own independent successes.

Rachael Matchett

My understanding of the zone of proximal development is this: it is the space between which a child completely understands the concepts of what they are learning and the extent to where they need a teachers help. I first learned about the zone of proximal development in my psychology class a year ago. It was very confusing at first, but after some examples were given, it was easier to break down. However, I think that this article did a poor job of giving the exact definition of the zone of proximal development. Had I not known about this concept before, I would have been completely lost. The authors did a good job though when it came to giving the example of the two twelve year olds and how one has a mental development of an eight year old and the other has the mental development of an eleven year old. When looking back on my academic past, I can remember specific times where the zone of proximal development was highlighted. When I began first grade, I was about six or seven years old. I would say that my mental ability was around a five or six year old. I did not struggle with school; I just was not as advanced as a second grader. I often copied my classmates when they did something funny or an action that was liked. At home, I was more of the leader since I had two younger brothers. I would notice that they would copy my actions sometimes. When it came to simple tasks though, I would need help from my parents. I could not cook anything on my own. If I wanted to make anything, my parents would have been right there to guide me. When I was fifteen I was learning to drive. I knew all the rules for the road, but when it came to driving alone, I was not capable. My zone of proximal development would have been the space in between driving independently and not driving at all. I struggled in math when I was this age too. I was a sophomore in high school and I very much needed as much help as I could get. I was in a lower math class then all of the other students. So my real age was fifteen, but my mental abilities were about thirteen or fourteen. My zone of proximal development was much different than all of my friends.

ZPD Applying To Teaching

The Zone of Proximal development to me is the gap between what a child knows and what he or she may not know. The difficult part of this to understand is how to continue that knowledge better. The child learns from the teacher and models them until he or she can do them on their own without assistance.

I think that this is vital in understanding when you are a teacher because it could help us in having the student become the best learner that they can be. One example that I can think is that I was a soccer coach for a time to nine and ten year old boys. At first they did not want to take me seriously because I was a girl, but I scaffold first their idea that a woman can play soccer, but that I showed them things that they could not do yet, such as juggling. After showing them repeatedly over a couple weeks of practice, the boys did not need me to model how to lift the ball anymore, they could do it themselves. Some still looked at me for guidance, but when I said start juggling they did not need me to model for them.

Looking at my own learning, I can see where my teachers had applied this method. Mr. Hansel my fourth grade teacher was teaching us how to find the area of a triangle. I remember area very vividly for some reason and I remember that we caught on to the triangle pretty easily. However, he started to mix area with fractions, and that took many days for me to be able to apply the concepts I learned when using whole numbers to fractions. I remembered Mr. Hansel had to constantly help me through by showing me models or prodding my thinking along by asking questions.

My biggest concern is that of almost every subject so far, how to apply it to a classroom of twenty six students. Not everyone is going to be at the same level, and while I can see how some of my elementary teachers did achieve that, I always doubt if I will be able to. I think that ZPD is something that is important to a classroom, but one of the hardest to think about on a individual basis and thinking of it on its own.

Zone of Proximal Development (Jayne Royal)

In terms of what the zone of proximal development is I believe that it is the gap between what you are capable of learning and what you actually learn. I believe that the theory of proximal development deals with the fact that you have a mental age as well as an actual documented age. When thinking of zone of proximal development I think of it as children can only know so much at one time. As they grow older their mind allows for more information to enter their mind. When learning in school (especially in elementary school) there were always those kids that things seemed to come easy to. They didn’t seem to even try that hard and would always receive A’s on everything they did.

During the week I work a nursery school with children ages two to six. In Indiana it is not required for children to attend preschool or any schooling prior to elementary school. As you can assume, the day care often has trouble attracting parents to send their children to their school. One thing that they really emphasize at the school is that the children learn socially and that they learn through play. I think that this is very important and relates back to the zone of proximal development because the children are introduced to basic skills such as reading, writing, and math long before elementary school ever starts.

In my own learning, I remember I really struggled with reading when I was in the first and second grade. No matter what teaching strategy was used or how interesting the books were, I just could not get the concept of reading down. Maybe it was because I was not yet at the right mental age for that to happen. Math came easily though. I was exposed to a number of things so I do not know what the excuse really was in terms of why I struggled so much.

My question is how do you help with a child’s zone of proximal development? Is there a way to help them reach the next required level? If exposed to enough things will they surpass their peers and do exceptionally well in school? As a teacher, I want to make sure that all my students reach their full potential. If one of my students is struggling because they are not on the same developmental level as everyone else how do I fix that?

Vygotsky

The first time I was introduced to Vygotsky was in my P-251 class last year. We talked a lot about the ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and his ideas on learning. ZPD basically talks about what a child knows vs. what they don’t know. It also talks about the different stages a child goes through in order to learn new information.

In the classroom we are constantly trying to help children expand on their knowledge. We as teachers are constantly teaching the students new material as well as build off knowledge that they already have. As a teacher it is important to use ZPD in your class because it is very useful in identifying where students are in their learning and how much more you can do for them to help them grow.

I never thought about how much of these practices were implemented into daily teachings. When I would do math homework in 5^th grade my teacher would circle the problems we got wrong on the homework and hand it back to us. She would have us take them home and try and correct what we did wrong. During our morning exercises she would walk around and check our corrected problems. If we had questions she would answer them and if we still had problems wrong she would have us stay after school or during recess. By doing this she was helping me and my other classmates learn from our mistakes so we could further our knowledge in math.

I think once I become a teacher I will definitely stress to my students that it is okay to ask for help. You don’t want them to feel like they can’t come talk to you when they don’t understand a certain topic. If you don’t establish that in the beginning it could hinder how far they go along in their knowledge and understanding of new topics.

Sarah Spitz's Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development is complicated to understand. To simply put it, however, the Zone of Proximal Development is based on knowledge a student already has. Taking the previous knowledge of the student and applying it to other things helps to explain the Zone of Proximal Development further. Also, in talking about the Zone of Proximal Development, it important to note that it involves teacher assistance. When using the Zone of Proximal Development, a teacher must see what a student already knows and then continue in teaching something new. In order to do this, the teacher must use scaffolding techniques to teach the student. The teacher must assist the student until the new subject is mastered.

I feel that I will use the Zone of Proximal Development in my classroom. I agree that students should use their previous knowledge to learn and understand new topics. It is important that students apply what they already know to new things. I feel that as a teacher, it is also important to help students until they fully master whatever they are learning. I will use scaffolding in my classroom so that students understand new ideas fully. I will assist my students in this way when they need extra support.

I feel that as a student, the Zone of Proximal Development was used with me mostly in math. I had a math tutor from 8^th grade to freshman year in college who used this theory to help me learn and understand math. Without the scaffolding techniques of my tutor, I would have done very poorly in math. It was the tutors assistance and patience every step of the way with me that helped me to succeed.

Jen Shearer Vygotsky

I first heard the term Zone of Proximal last year in P251. Zone of Proximal Development is the difference between what a student can do with help and what they can do without help. When a student is doing something with help from an adult or a teacher they learn often by example and through guidance. I think that we experience ZPD with our professors more often than we notice. One class that I think it is especially evident is in our M201 class. This is a field experience class and we meet with our teacher and he guides us through our lessons and helps us to solve problems we have with different children and different learning strategies. We have time after our field experience to discuss with him what we saw that day in class and what can be learned from it.
All throughout elementary school I think we experienced ZPD everyday and I think there is a lot that can be learned through working and collaborating with people who understand a topic more then ourselves. I experience this everyday at work. I am taught how to do different things by my boss everyday. He is an expert horse trainer and he lets me experience things for myself and then comes and shows me a better way or more efficient way of doing something. I enjoy learning things from him because he lets me figure out how not to do something before he shows me how to do something. He likes to see what I can do but then is always there for me when I need him. I think I remember a lot more when I learn this way because I learned through experience.