Zone of Proximate Development Essay

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theoretical views that according to Vygotsky have attempted to explain the relation between development and learning. Why does Vygotsky consider these unsatisfactory for explaining this relation?

Vygotsky challenges perspectives such as that of Piaget and Binet (one of the founders of the Stanford-Binet intelligence test) who assumes that a certain level of development is required for learning: i.e., unless the child's mental functioning has achieved a certain point of maturity, he or she is unable to understand a concept. This led them to fear "premature instruction" which meant the child could not absorb the necessary information and that learning "trails" development (Vygotsky 30). Another perspective Vygotsky challenges is the idea that "learning is development" or that learning can be equated with habit and acquired reflexes (Vygotsky 30). This group of theorists believed that learning and development are virtually synonymous and that they take place sequentially; i.e., development means acquiring new skills. The third theoretical construct simply merges the first two theories, suggesting that development and learning are linked to the point that they are virtually synonymous and that there is not necessarily a developmental lag when it comes to learning (Vygotsky 30). "The very fact that these two viewpoints [the first and second] can be combined into one theory indicates that they are not opposing and mutually exclusive but have something essential in common" (Vygotsky 30).

Vygotsky also draws a distinction between theorists that emphasize the specificity of learning, contending that "the development of one particular capacity seldom means the development of others…speed and accuracy in adding up numbers are entirely unrelated to thinking up antonyms" versus those Gestalt theorists that instead emphasize the overlap between categories of learning (Vygotsky 32). Theorists of the reflexive schools of learning tend to stress the limited applicability of learning one thing to learning new things while those of the third school stress that "learning is not limited to habit and skills acquisition" (Vygotsky 33). The fact that learning cannot be reduced to habit is what Vygotsky sees as the fundamental problem with the second, previous theory of learning.

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But one step of learning leads to two steps of development, further empowering the child to learn more, Vygotsky believes; the two are not the same as the third school suggests (Vygotsky 32). Finally, while learning and development are not necessarily the same thing but cannot be separated theoretically given that learning leads to development and the development increases the capacity for learning.

Question 2

What is the zone of proximal development? According to Vygotsky, what role does it play in learning and what role does it play in cognitive development?

As soon as children are in the world they begin to learn, even if not in a formal way. Children gain an appreciation of qualities such as number and mass long before they learn about how to deal with these concepts numerically on paper. Teachers who teach best are those who build upon the children's current knowledge and bridge the gap between the student's knowledge and the new concept the teacher wants the child to learn. The zone of proximal development is the gap between what the learner knows and can do without assistance from someone else and what he or she can understand or perform with the assistance of the teacher. Gradually the gap is narrowed so that the student can perform essential tasks relatively independently. The concept of the zone of proximal development recognizes the fact that not all have the same mental age. The zone will be individual for each child and also depend upon the child's previous framework of references and education.

The concept of the zone of proximate development also underlines the need for education to be a developmental bridge that helps students overcome their innate handicaps. For example, in the case of….....

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