Zone of Proximal Development Vygotsky\'s

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky's Theory on Development

For ambitious, talented and motivated teachers, whose desire it is to encourage, create and measure levels of cognitive development, author Amy Chak - in her Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior research - has a strategy worth emphasizing in this paper. Chak believes that the role of adults in the process of a child's learning and development should be - and will be - greatly enhanced through the thoughtful application of ZPD, the well-established model originally launched by Lev Vygotsky.

Chak turns to a pertinent Vygotsky quote about the ZPD ("zone of proximal development") to establish the tone for her journal presentation: ZPD, Vygotsky wrote, is "...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."

There is a strategy that is useful to embrace during the process of explaining ZPD, and it is done through three components, Chak explains; "the concept of development, the social agent, and problem solving." The relationship between what is being learned and the actual development of an individual is the "interweaving of two lines of development," Chak continues. Those two lines are "biological origin and sociocultural origin."

Chak uses another Vygotsky quote, giving him full credit as asserting that "learning awakens a variety of internal development processes" and that "properly organized learning results in mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes." The ideal way in which to put the ZPD model to its best effect is when a capable person in a peer group, or an adult, interacts with the child's "rudimentary form" that will enhance that child's development.

And a proven, strategically sound way to enhance the child's cognitive development is through adult-directed play; "...in play a child behaves beyond his or her average age," Chak quotes Vygotsky as saying, and moreover, play "creates a ZPD of the child."

That having been said, it is nonetheless true that without a competent, trained peer or qualified adult to initiate and supervise the play - and, in the process, to facilitate the learning - ZPD cannot be a successful process. Chak alerts interested teachers that the child who is part of a ZPD setting is "not merely a passive recipient," nor in this setting is the adult "only a technician." There is a joint bond that must form, a bond using the glue of negotiation and reconstruction of goals between the child and adult, Chak continues. And keys to the success of ZPD are those "flexible directions towards a desirable process or outcome" for the child, Chak adds.

The basic bottom line objective in the process of carrying out adult-child interactive instruction - what can be alluded to as the "central task" that must be administered and followed through with - is "problem solving." The momentum for the child's cognitive development, or, the ZPD goal, is, Chak writes, facilitating a process of "gaining awareness and control over one's cognition"; and the strategies and skills conveyed in the process of actualizing the ZPD are designed to assist the child in building a capacity for abstract thinking.

Meanwhile, in the e-Book Learning, Teaching & Technology (Lipscomb, et al., 2004), it is pointed out that as the student's cognitive abilities and knowledge expands, the ZPD is "always changing." Vygotsky, Lipscomb explains, believed basically that "humans use tools that develop from a culture, such as speech and writing, to mediate their social environments"; also, Vygotsky clearly understood the relevance of a teacher becoming an actual collaborator with her students in a positive process, rather than merely "dictating her meaning...for future recitation..."

This is a very cogent point that needs to be established and emphasized when reviewing and critiquing ZPD, because many teachers cannot remove themselves from "old school" teaching, which is to stand in front of a class of students (or one-on-one in tutoring environments) and basically dictate what should be, and must be, learned, and in many cases, memorized.

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." It was time for ZPD to make its debut.