Social Constructivism - Research Paper Example

? Vygotsky's Theorization about Social Constructivism Within his Human Development Theory Vygotsky attempted to study the stages of children's cognitive development throughout early childhood years. His approach was different from other theorists, like Piaget, in the significance given to social surroundings of children in determining the development of the child. In "Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes" (1978), Vygotsky writes that culture is extremely important in the context of child development, as it gives the child the important cognitive tools that are needed for development. For Vygotsky, the significance and the importance of those tools in child development have a much greater impact than Piaget believed they have. In that sense, the role of adults, such as parents and teachers, in the process of child development is stressed much more in Vygotsky's theory than in other human development theories. As indicated by Wertsch and Tulviste (1996), for Vygotsky, tutors and parents are conduits for the tools of the culture that impact the child, including language. Vygotsky cites several tools which the culture provides for the child, such as background history, social context, and language. Vygotsky attempted to study the stages of children's cognitive development throughout early childhood years. However, Vygotsky's approach was different from other child development theorists, such as Piaget, in the significance given to social surroundings of children in determining the development of the child. In "Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes" (1978), Vygotsky writes that culture is extremely important in the context of child development, as it gives the child the important cognitive tools that are needed for development. For Vygotsky, the significance and the importance of those tools in child development have a much greater impact than Piaget believed they have. In that sense, the role of adults, such as parents and teachers, in the process of child development is stressed much more in Vygotsky's theory than in Piaget's. As indicated by Wertsch and Tulviste (1996), for Vygotsky, tutors and parents are conduits for the tools of the culture that impact the child, including language. Vygotsky cites several tools which the culture provides for the child, such as background history, social context, and language. In his attempt to define the role of adults in the development process of children, Vygotsky identifies what he terms "the zone of proximal development (ZPD)." The ZPD is the difference between what the child can do without help and what he or she can do with the help of the surrounding adults, as explained by Tharp and Gallimore (1991). Within the ZPD, Vygotsky explains that the child usually follows an adult's example, whether a parent or a tutor, and gradually develops his or her own ability to do certain tasks without the help of adults. Since Vygotsky's original conception of the ZPD, it has been modified, expanded upon, and fine tuned recurrently into new concepts, by such theorists as Nancy Balaban, Ann Brown, and others. Closely related to the ZPD is the concept of scaffolding, which is usually linked to Vygotsky's theory of child development, although he himself never developed the idea explicitly. Scaffolding was developed by other theorists, in particular, in the 1950s by Jerome Bruner, a famous cognitive psychologist. Philips and Tolmie (2007) point out that scaffolding is the process through which a tutor assists the student within the ZPD as necessary. The process is gradually modified to shift the responsibility onto the child. In the context of education, scaffolding is usually referred to as instructional scaffolding, referring to the provision of sufficient aid to students to promote learning when new concepts and skills are introduced to them. These aids may include many factors, such as resources, compelling tasks, as well as guides and templates. It is during this stage when children can develop their own cognitive skills. Therefore, the core of Vygotsky's child development theory is the concept of social constructivism. Wertsch and Tulviste (1996) write that Vygotsky emphasizes the role of the surrounding community on the process of development of children. As these children grow up, they start to develop significant social changes. In Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism, a child's mental development is dependent greatly on the kind of education given to him or her at the schooling age. That is to say, children tend to behave rationally if they are taught to use reason correctly, during their learning process. For Vygotsky, discovery and creativity are the bases of learning (Meadows, 2006). In this sense, Vygotsky agrees with Piaget, as both stress the role of discovery and creativity for children. One of the magnificent quotes by Piaget, regarding the significance of the concept of discovery in education, reads as follows: "To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by rediscovery and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition" (Philips, S. & Tolmie, A., p. 151). Thus, both Piaget and Vygotsky can be understood as constructivists, with Piaget stressing the mental development of children, while Vygotsky stressing the role of tutors in aiding children within their process of cognitive development. Vygotsky's theorization about social constructivism can best be understood in his explanation of language acquisition. Schutz, R. (2006) writes that to Vygotsky, a clear understanding of the interrelations between thought and language is necessary for the understanding of intellectual development. Language is not merely an expression of what the child has acquired. There is a critical interrelation between thought and speech in terms of one providing resource to the other; language becoming essential in forming thought and determining personality features, as noted by Schutz, R. (2006). Thus, according to Vygotsky, the role of tutors in accelerating children's cognitive development is crucial, especially in the fields of language acquisition and skill development. Rusbult (2005) argues that Vygotsky's theorization about social constructivism can be stressed significantly in the classroom experience, where children learn their basic talents and skills with the support of tutors and teachers. Rusbult (2005) believes that the learning process itself may have some negative impacts on the process of development for children. He explains that educational experiences may encompass many aspects of stress for students. As noted by Tharp & Gallimore (1991), exams, quizes, and memorization tasks all involve moments of stress for students in schools. They declare that one of the most serious defects in some education systems in is the coverage of a relatively large amount of educational materials during the early school years. In this context, Wertsch & Tulviste (1996) write that while Vygotsky assumes that the learning process for the child should adequately meet his or her mental abilities with the appropriate assistance of tutors when needed, some education systems do not clearly identify the ZPD, as explained by Vygotsky, in determining the right amount and quality of material covered in this early age of students. Therefore, Rusbult's study reaches a valid conclusion about Vygotsky's child development theory. That's because it is built on a comprehensive experiment, with a large sample of school students. The study gives significance to the social aspect in Vygotsky's theory; and it gives a great deal of realism and trust to the overall theorization about child development, much more than in the case of Piaget. Wood, D., Wood, H., & O'Malley, C. (1995) note that children at the first two stages of Piaget's theory of child development are exposed to an innumerable number of social situations that are recognized by Vygotsky . During the period from birth to the age of 10 years, the child experiences a process of socialization and social development. Young children go through a process of social development since their early childhood, as Meadows (2006) notes. In this context, parents are usually advised to encourage their children to try new things. For example, as soon as the baby steps towards the toddler stage, parents should give the child the opportunity to play with other children at the same age. This can be considered as the first act of socialization for the child. On the other hand, Vygotsky also believes that the kind of education affects the way a child during the latency age behaves and thinks. Cole (1978) points out to Vygotsky's assertion that "children learn scientific concepts out of a 'tension' between their everyday notions and adult concepts. Presented with a preformed concept from the adult world, the child will only memorize what the adult says about the idea. To make it her property the child must use the concept and link that use to the idea as a first presented to her. But the relation between everyday notions and scientific concepts was not a straight development to Vygotsky" (Cole, 1978). In that sense, Wood et al. (1995) observes that cognitive modifiability can be assessed through Dynamic Assessment (DA), which is a dynamic form of evaluation that takes place through a mediated teaching process. The main role of this assessment is to assess the aspects of learning such as perception, ability of problem-solving patterns and thinking functions, within the child’s ZPD, as Feuerstein et al. (1979) observes. For example, in their early days in the classroom, ordinary children make some progress towards detaching their thought from the physical world, although they do not yet develop logical or operational thought, which they will develop in later stages, as Butterworth & Light (2005) argue. The key characteristic for this stage, according to Piaget, is intuitive and egocentric thinking. Actually, there are a set of tasks, which reveals and examines the intuitive and logical aspect of the preoperational child's thought. Such tasks usually examine child's ability of conservation. Wood et al. (1995) declare that one way a teacher may benefit from Piaget's child development theories is to design the classroom tasks that fit every stage of child development, as put by Piaget. For example, the teacher may design conversation tasks, which present children with simple physical experiments to see if they understand the basic logical principle that, as one aspect of a situation changes, another stays the same. If a child fails in such a test, it is probably that he or she suffers from a thinking disability as a form of learning disabilities. Understanding Vygotsky's concepts of ZPD and scaffolding, Tharp and Gallimore (1991) explain, can help teachers identify the most appropriate time when they should provide assistance to students, and the time when they have to stop this assistance. Through the sound implementation of ZPD and scaffolding, teachers can help students enhance their problem solving capacities. Wertsch & Tulviste (1996) observe that the lack of knowledge about ZPD and scaffolding may lead to a deterioration in the problem solving abilities in children, as tutors become unaware of the most suitable time to aid children in enhancing their cognitive abilities. One of the major defects in some school education systems is that it does not work on enhancing problem solving abilities in the minds of students. Accordingly, Wood et al. (1995) state that school curricula should adequately focus on mathematical subjects and problem solving, and the lacking of such subjects in school curricula would make students unable to solve any problem they may face in their social surroundings. Rusbult (2005) declares that "an important goal of education is helping students learn how to think more productively by combining creative thinking to generate ideas and critical thinking to evaluate ideas."  An efficient education system, Olson (2000) writes, is to design classrooms where tutors are well-trained to enhance problem solving in the syllabus of schools. Also, the use of problem solving soft wares would be extremely important as a visual aid for school students, as Olson (2000) argues, as he states that the education system in the United States "places an emphasis upon cognitive activity, problem solving, intellectual discipline, and academic self-discipline." The use of these materials that enhance problem solving in students copes with modern development theories that are put by Piaget and Vygotsky, who conducted various studies that concluded that "involvement with materials and tools in the environment allows children to wrestle with problems about real things," as indicated by Rusbult (2005). Therefore, a sound syllabus for school students is the one which includes subjects and programs that enhance problem solving in students, coping with the child development theories that are administered by both Piaget and Vygotsky. In conclusion, while Vygotsky approaches child development from a different perspective than other child development theorists, he makes an insightful analysis into the process of development for children, suggesting many recommendations for tutors in classrooms. Vygotsky attempted to theorize about the process of child development, although he makes a stronger emphasis on the role of the social surroundings on the process of development, putting greater responsibilities on teachers to interfere efficiently in the process of cognitive development of learners. That's why his theories are always referred to as "social constructivism," as opposed to the "individual constructivism" of Piaget. However, the debate about the various roles that can be played by tutors to help their students develop their minds efficiently is not fully settled yet. As Damon (1984) come up with another interesting contribution to the debate about tutors and learners, arguing that the kind of interaction needed between tutors and children is directly related to the nature of the cognitive shift the child has to make. Therefore, Damon strengthens the perception of the relative complexity of the debate. What may be "an efficient" practice in classrooms may still remain a subtle blend of content and culture-related of various tools, as McInerney (2005) explains. However, Vygotsky has contributed significantly to the area of child development, and so his theories can be extremely beneficial for teachers and tutors. Finally, in this research paper, it is argued that neither Vygotsky's theories alone can not conceivably explain the ideas of cognitive development and learning comprehensively. Rather the extreme complexity of the issue requires an amalgamation of his theoretical approaches in addition to other insightful contributions made by later theorists (Siegler and Alibali, 2005). Lastly, it can be said that the main line of argument here is the emphasis put on the elements that are perceived as essential to Vygotskian theories relevant to his significance to educational practice and the performance of tutors in classrooms. References Butterworth, G. & Light, P. (2005). Social Cognition: Studies of the Development of Understanding. The Development Body and Mind, Number 2. Harris, M. and Butterworth, G. (2002). Developmental Psychology. A Student's Handbook. Psychology Press. Hove and New York. Huitt, W. & Hummel, J. (2003). Cognitive Development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Meadows, S. (2006). The Child as Thinker: The Development and Acquisition in Childhood. Second Edition. Philips, S. & Tolmie, A. (2007). Children's Performance on and Understanding of the Balance Scale Problem: The Effects of Parental Support. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Rusbult, C. (2005). Thinking Skills in Education: Methods to improve Problem Solving. Siegler, R. and Alibali, M. (2005). Children's Thinking. Pearson Education International. Prentice Hall. Tharp, R & Gallimore, R. (1991). A Theory of Teaching as Assisted Performance. London: Routledge. Tomasello, M. (2000). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Edited by Cole, M., Steiner, V. , Scribner, S., and Souberman, E. Wertsch, J. & Tulviste, P. (1996). L. S. Vygotsky and Contemporary Developmental Psychology. An Introduction to Psychology. London: Routledge. Wood, D., Wood, H., & O'Malley, C. (1995). On Becoming a Tutor: Toward an Ontogenetic Model. Cognition and Instruction. 13 (4). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Woodhead, M., Faulkner, D., & Littleton, K. (2001). Cultural Worlds of Early Childhood. London and New York in association with The Open University. Read More