Zone of Proximal Development Vygotsky's Term Paper

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The Vygotsky influence has recently had an impact in a university environment in New Zealand. Indeed, the application of the ZPD model in New Zealand moved well beyond just another theory for "old school" teachers to bravely tackle, and has actually become a "common sense" approach to learning and development. This information comes through another peer-reviewed research article ("Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Problem-based Learning: linking a theoretical concept with practice through action research"). In the piece, the author explains that students had been employing "problem-based learning" (PBL) methods to develop "relevant content knowledge and the metacognitive skills that will enable them to become good learners and problem-solvers..." (Harland, 2003).

In this instance, PBL had been providing a needed challenge to the "traditional teacher's role" in that teaching was by way of becoming more like "research supervision" or "mentoring" then actually teaching. Indeed, Harland writes that PBL has been called "an ideology routed in the experiential tradition" because it is altogether capable of being "modified" by individual teachers.

Getting back to a point made earlier in this paper about teachers who have a difficult time abandoning conventional, comfortable methods of instruction - in this case the setting is in New Zealand - PBL was seen as different and refreshing because "most teaching was still organized along traditional lines," Harland explains. The teacher was (and in too many cases still is) the "expert," and hence, the "creator and disseminator of knowledge." But by employing a PBL system, which Harland says takes "a good deal of courage" for the teacher - albeit in the meantime it helps revitalize the educational environment - a teacher can "turn these cultural norms upside down." Harland, the author of this piece, who is also the instructor in question, indicates that his zoology field course had become a "full PBL module" - but after a couple years the capacity for "development and change" within the zoology model "had slowed considerably.

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" It was time for ZPD to make its debut.

Indeed, as soon as Harland was introduced to Vygotsky's ZPD, it "struck" him, he writes, as a "set of common sense ideas that might provide a possible explanatory framework for PBL, and new input into our action research." A very fresh new consciousness subsequently evolved with Harland's class - which was comprised of students who were proven to be fully capable of attaining "a high level of independence from tutors" (and soon in fact did just that) - and hence, "learning was set in the context of genuine inquiry," Harland asserts.

In fact, Harland goes on, students were "surprised that they were...free to make errors of judgment when tutor intervention might have prevented these." but, part of the learning using ZPD (and PBL) was that "the experience of making mistakes can often develop deep understanding and a more critical approach to work..."

When it came to the bottom line strategy for Harland and his independent-minded students, it was clear that "learning is the outcome of collaborative problem-solving," and the introduction of the zone of proximal development certainly gave a "much needed boost" to Harland's research into cognitive development.

And, in conclusion, whenever an alert instructor's "research into cognitive development" can, at the same time, stimulate students and create a healthier, more productive learning environment, those dynamics should be shared and implemented in some form in virtually every learning institution in the world.

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