Zone of Proximal Development - Essay Example

ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT al Affiliation ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT Zone of proximal development is one of the famous psychology theories that show the relationship between learning and development within the school environment. The theory states that there exists a big difference between the development of a learner who does not have an aid and one who does. While traditional learning theories subscribe to the notion that the learners can acquire education naturally, this theory suggest that learning is social and that a learner will develop more rapidly when they have a helper or actively interact with the peers. The theory has garnered a lot of attention as scholars seek to understand the best learning methods and the best approaches that can be used to stimulate development within the school environment. The theory upholds the formation of community of learners as one of the best teaching approaches that enhances development. The efficiency of this learning approach is related to the ability to provide supported learning and foster creativity among learners. However, this process may be regarded as slow in restricted school schedules. However, there is evidence that there is no one learning method that is idea, hence the need for use of more than one modes of learning. The Zone of proximal development theory was developed by Vygotsky a prominent American author. Vygotsky defined the Zone of proximal development 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 (Barohny, Knotek & Heining-Boynton, 2008). The implication of this theory is that the level of development for learners is different depending on the help that they get. Students who are left to grow alone and learn independently develop at a slower rate that those who are supported by other members of the society. He perceives learning as a social process that takes place within a community and one that depends on active interaction between the peers. Vygotsky gives the example of two children, one who gets support and another who learns independently. The learner who acquires support from peers and other mature people is likely to reason and be creative that one who does not. Therefore, the theory explicitly suggests that learning should be enhanced through active interaction, which will accelerate the reasoning potential. Often the applicability of this perspective within the learning environment has become a matter of interest. Particularly, the role of a teacher within the learning environment has become more important. While teachers are endowed with the responsibility of delivering the syllabus to the learner, there seems to be different approaches through which they can provide curriculum instruction. The teacher may decide to provide direct instructional approaches, which excludes the participation of the learner, or minimally guided approaches. While some researchers feel that direct instructional methods are superior in developing and inducing knowledge in a learning environment, other feel that minimally guided methods would be more effective. However, it is notable that just as the world continues to change, the learning needs also change and change is a necessity. Therefore, it has become essential to decide the best approaches to teaching as the instructors aim at enhancing rapid development of the learners (Barohny, Knotek & Heining-Boynton, 2008). Since learning has a direct relationship to maturity, there is need to develop approaches to teaching to develop maturity among students. In this respect, in a dynamic learning environment, its not either the direct instruction methods or the minimally guide methods that should be used. A community of learners is one of the learning approaches have supported the notion that was developed by Vygotsky. Communities of learners are the concept that describes a situation where learning takes place through a social setting with each part taking an active role in the process. In community learning, the members of the community are categorized into two different groups; mature and less mature members (Brown, 1997). The mature members may comprise the teachers while the less mature members comprise the learners within the same environment. The approach aims at stimulating active interaction between the mature and mature members, between mature and less mature as well between less mature and other less mature members. Therefore, every member of group is active and contributes to the learning process. This method is completely different from the direct-instruction approach where the instructor becomes the source of knowledge and the learner the recipient of that knowledge (Rogoff, 1998). In this approach, the teacher plays the role of a mentor and guides the learners to discover new knowledge while listening to the needs of the learner, while the learner receives knowledge and together with the peers digests such information. Therefore, the approach helps to focus on the specific needs of the learners and promotes development. The efficiency of community learning is attributed to ability to foster self-learning and to challenge learners to become creative. Community learning procedures recognize that there is a place for other methods other than direct instruction. The theory appreciates that direct instruction provides learners with the necessary knowledge, but on the other hand fails to stimulate self-learning that is considered a valuable perspective. Therefore, there is need to accommodate discovery learning methods. The superiority of these methods lies in its ability to develop an incentive to learn within the learners (Daniels, Cole & Wertsch, 2007). By giving them an opportunity to learn by themselves, they become discoverers and can be able to use their critical mind skills to resolve academic problems. For instance, community learning provides the learners with an opportunity to share ideas discuss and discover. When they handle group assignments, they can reason together and see different perspective to the same problem. Since each person has a different reasoning capacity, it is possible that each will learn from the other and acquire new ideas. On this ground, community learning eliminates the weaknesses of direct instruction approaches by providing learners with an opportunity to learn from their interactions. Secondly, community learning is supportive and helps the teacher to provide direction to the learning process. With a community of learners, the teacher is the mature member and their role is to show the direction by providing minimal guidance (Brown, 1997). As the teacher is the main player within the learning environment, he or she knows the bulk of information that the learners should acquire and how they should use it within the learning process. Therefore, the active duty of an instructor is to show learners the direction that they should follow while learning. For instance, a teacher who requires to teach learners how to solve mathematical problems may not directly provide examples, but will provide questions which the learners attempt first, before the teacher provide the solution. In this manner, the teacher will support the learner and help them to discover the right path to development. Therefore, this is a minimal-guidance approach that engages the learners’ intellectual skills and challenges them to be more creative in solving social problems. Research indicates that community learning is essential to develop mind creativity and to support critical thinking within the school environment. This is different from direct instructional methods that focus on feeding the students with knowledge but failing to engage their reasoning power. Therefore, the approach is crucial in efficiently developing learners’ minds and intellectual abilities. However, this approach can be termed as inefficient due to a number of reasons. First, the approach limits the optimal engagement of the instructor, which is essential in supporting the student development. For instance, as Vygotsky suggests, aided learning supports development and accelerates students reasoning capacity. Therefore, it is expected that the teachers should as much as possible help the students rather than provide them with an opportunity to learn. Therefore, the direct-instruction approaches are superior since they provide mature members to provide as much as knowledge as possible to the young learners. Secondly, the community learning approach does not provide a framework through which learners can learn complex issues. Since most of the information provided within the syllabus is new to the students, evoking their thinking may not come to any solution (Hedegaard, 1990). However, a counter argument arises as scholars show that community learning is more integrative and does not only provide the learners with new knowledge but also empowers them to synthesize and understand this information. Therefore, it is a more strong approach to educate learners and to give them a platform to become problem solvers rather than information consumers. A critical evaluation of the argument puts forwards as regards direct instruction and community learning methods, it is clear that these methods are beneficial and non can be nullified in a typical learning environment. In their practical application, the challenges would be to use them complementary in such a way that they add value to education (Moll, 1990). In my own opinion, these methods can be implemented without any friction to impact deep level learning in an educational institution. For instance, instructional methods can be used in content delivery to guide the students on the path they should take in their personal research and to deliver the course content. On the other side, the community learning methods should be used to motivate learners in building knowledge on their own. Reading assignments is one way that learners can learn to study on their own or in collaboration with other students. Integrating the two methods will induce effectiveness in the teaching strategies (Daniels, Cole & Wertsch, 2007). Therefore, the zone of proximal development can be increased by balancing the learning approaches and engaging social aspects within the learning process. In conclusion, Vygotsky idea of zone of proximal development is crucial in illuminating the idea of learning as a social issue. According to this theory, learning process is influenced by the support that a learner gets either from their peer or other mature persons. Those who acquire support are likely to mature earlier than those who miss the support. This point melts down to the concept of communal learning that figures out the value for active participation of every member within the learning environment. This learning approach provides learners within an opportunity not only to participate in learning with their peers but also with the instructors. The mature members of the community provide direction and inspire creativity within the learning environment. On the other hand, peer-to-peer interaction provides an opportunity for student to engage in shared-learning. While this method is efficient and provides an opportunity for development, it is not a completely ideal model for learning and other approaches such instruction needs to be implemented to foster development during learning experience. Bibliography Barohny, E., Knotek, S. E., & Heining-Boynton, A, 2008, Reconceptualizing the zone of proximal development: The importance of the third voice. Educational Psychology Review, 20, 133-147. Brown, A. L. 1997, Transforming schools into communities of thinking and learning about serious matters. American Psychologist, 52, 399-413. Daniels, H., M. Cole, M., & J.V. Wertsch, J. V, 2007, The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hedegaard, M, 1990, The zone of proximal development as a basis for instruction. In L. Moll (Ed.), Vygotsky and education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Moll, L.C, 1990, Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Rogoff, B, 1998, Cognition as a collaborative process. In W. Damon (Ed-in-Chief) Handbook of Child Psychology (5th ed) Vol 2. Read More