Constructivism Pt.7: Social Learning cont’d
In terms of a learner’s cognitive development, Vygotsky’s argues that learning precedes development. As developmental processes lag behind learning processes, less experienced or developed individuals can often carry out tasks with the help of others when they could not accomplish these tasks independently. The knowledge, behaviours and skills that learners demonstrate when assisted are actually in the process of becoming internalised in the learner’s schemata – the script is being written.
As in Kolb’s and Fry’s four-stage cycle, this is a recursive process: unlike the experiential model though, the dialectic “tension” is a social discourse between the learner and the MKO, rather than the modes described in the experiential model. Vygotsky (1978) maintains that cognitive development occurs in this area of the learning continuum in what he calls the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD). The ZPD is the gap between a learner’s actual development level and the learner’s potential level of development. Vygotsky described the ZPD as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978, p.86). This process of learning and encoding knowledge is analogous to some of Gagné’s Events of Learning (1985), where the MKO presents a learning stimulus, guides learning through example, elicits performance from the learner and provides feedback. Similarly, it provides a theoretical foundation for Bruner’s concept of instructional scaffolding – the learner current level of knowledge can an edifice that represents their cognitive abilities. Mayes and de Freitas (2005) describe the scaffolding as “a means of exploiting the ZPD” (p.19). The cognitive scaffold surrounds what is already known and can be done. The new is built on top of the known as the learner develops, and over time the supports can be removed as the learner can independently actualise the knowledge, behaviour or skill. Each new learned skill asset becomes a level in the learner’s constructed schema and this becomes the foundation for extending the learner’s ongoing development.
Figure 1 Zone of Proximal Development
The concepts of the ZPD and scaffolding are central to how individuals develop using e-learning: how these concepts can be implemented will be explored in a later blog entry.
References:
de Freitas, S. & Mayes, T. (2005). JISC e-Learning Models Desk Study Stage 2: Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models. [Online] London, JISC. Available from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/
Stage%202%20Learning%20Models%20(Version%201).pdf
[Accessed 15th January 2007]
Fry, R. & Kolb, D. A. (1975) Toward an Applied Theory of Experiential Learning. IN: Theory of Group Processes. (Cooper, C. ed). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc
Gagne, R. (1985). The Conditions of Learning (4th ed). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society. Edited by Cole, M. John-Steiner, V. Scribner, Souberman, E. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press
January 09 2008 11:31 am | e-learning
One Response to “Constructivism Pt.7: Social Learning cont’d”
Constructivism in Workplace Learning and Development | E-Learning Curve Blog on 10 Mar 2010 at 3:31 pm #
[...] upon the work of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, Bruner developed a number of cognitive and constructivist psychological approaches [...]