Sociocultural Video Analysis Theory Summary

Sociocultural Video Analysis Theory Summary Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of education turns on the process of dialectic, in which, "while admitting the influence of nature on man," one must assert that man, "in turn, affects nature and creates through his changes in nature new natural conditions for his existence" (qtd in John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996, p. 196). That is to say, for Vygotsky, there is no clear division between the self and the external world; rather, both are created interdependently and simultaneously.

This happens by way of what Vygotsky calls internalization, which occurs when "social activities evolve into internal mental activities" (Ormrod, 2011, p. 40).

Internalization is crucial to learning because it provides a reciprocally transformative exchange between mentor and learner that forms a bridge from a learner's actual development level -- which describes the kinds of activities one can successfully complete in isolation -- across the zone of proximal development -- which describes activities one needs assistance or support to complete -- to the level of potential development -- which is the upper limit for the kinds of tasks one can complete with assistance.

The zone of proximal development is crucial for Vygotsky's theory of learning because it centers education on process rather than product. By focusing on "the cyclical determination of differences between teacher and learner," sociocultural theory derives its strength from viewing the mentor-learner relationship as collaborative and transformative rather than hierarchical and transmissive (Ash and Levitt, 2003, p. 6).

One weakness of the theory is a lack of attention to the differences in the knowledge being interchanged and modulated between mentor and learner; that is, the theory does not readily provide a clear account for how the modifications in the mentor's and the learner's separate knowledge systems produce movement across the zone of proximal development. Theory Application Sociocultural theory's emphasis on collaboration and transformation between learner and mentor is demonstrated multiple times throughout the video.

Setting students into pairs to work through the project on crickets is just one example of this. As Ormrod says, mediated learning experience between peers helps them to "make sense of their experiences" (Ormrod, 2011, p. 44). This is seen during the development of the students' hypothesis for the project, where the teacher allows her students the freedom to talk to each other and to work through the relevant constructions of meaning on their own.

This provides them a space to decide for themselves, as around the 22 minute mark, for example, if "hot" or "cold" are appropriate variables for their work. Moreover, the teacher provides varying levels of support to her students, known as guided participation, so as to appropriately move them across the ZPD. For some, she provides only an initial question or gesture and lets them proceed. For others, she offers more structured advice.

During the data collection and observation session, she speaks about having to "rewrite" one pair's project completely so that the students would be able to realize their potential, effectively having to change her "scaffolding tools" to narrow the gap between her expectations and her students' performance (Ash and Levitt, 2003, p. 8). This is an example of learning that is "distributed, interactive, contextual, and a result of the learner's participation in a community of practice" (John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996, p. 198).

This example demonstrates how sociocultural theory can accommodate students from a wide range of capabilities and aptitudes; another example is Christine and Haley, a pair of students who have taken the project on as their own. Lesson Redesign One thing that seemed lacking in the video was attention to the tools and scientific equipment that the students used. One student comments at the end of the video that the most difficult part of the experiment was setting it up, and that the project mostly proceeded by trial and error.

Although trial and error is an important mode of learning, it should not necessarily be the primary one. Perhaps if student learning had better incorporated the "artifacts" of scientific equipment, students would have been better able to focus their work and determine which tools and strategies would have been effective in advance (John-Steiner and Mahn, 1996, p. 199).

To combat this, part of the lesson could have been redesigned to include information on the various equipment students could employ, and, for future work, could include a review of this information at the end of the experiment. Another strategy that could be used to help solidify learning in this community of practice would be to ask the student pairs to report to each other their methods and their findings.

This would further engage students in the crucial "reflective activity" necessary for "joint productive activity [in] the zpd" (Ash and Levitt, 2003, p. 22). Having to compare experiences and discuss their findings (and their interpretations of their findings) would better help them "internalize complex cognitive processes, such as effective reading comprehension and argumentation skills" (Ormron, 2011, p. 45). The teacher could help mediate these discussions by having students write and circulate brief responses to the experiment, thereby asking them to structure and interpret their experiences in intelligible ways.

The first lesson redesign could be accomplished by having the student pairs briefly examine the instruments at their disposal and predicting which would be best for doing what, and then having them compare their initial thoughts on these objects with what they discovered from the experiment. This could be both a formative and a dynamic assessment, focusing, at the first step, on what students already know, then shifting the emphasis to examining how students learned and assimilated their experiences into knowledge.

The second redesign would be primarily formative because it would help the teacher "reflect on their own skills of teaching through inquiry" and then aid student interpretations of.