Lev Vygotsky is a psychologist who is most famous for his theory of cognitive development. Vygotsky believes that a child's development is influenced by both their surrounding environment and their social experiences. I agree with Vygotsky's view of development because I think he places an appropriate amount of importance on how a child's development is affected by their learning atmosphere and their social interactions. Jean Piaget, another well know psychologist who focused on cognitive development, would disagree with Vygotsky. Piaget believes that cognitive development is strictly biological and is not influenced by experience or environment. For me, Piaget's theory of development is too limiting and disregards the effect that a safe environment or an influential teacher might have on a child's development.
Vygotsky believes that teachers play a significant role during a child's cognitive development. As a future teacher, I agree with Vygotsky's view of development because it stresses the importance that environment and social experience have on the rate and timing of a child's development. These are two things that teachers have a lot of influence over during a child's many hours at school. The environment of a classroom, the way in which material is presented, and the type of assessment all can have a positive or negative effect on a child development. This means that it is within a teachers control to enhance each child's development with their style of teaching. Vygotsky believes that as a child or adolescent develops a new skill, they go through three zones. Vygotsky calls these zones the anxiety zone, the learning zone, and the comfort zone. It is a teachers responsibility to help a child through the anxiety zone, where they are very uncomfortable with the material, into the learning zone, so the student can develop new skills, and bring them into the comfort zone. Once in the comfort zone, a child can adequately perform a particular skill. I am curious to learn more about Vygotsky's theory and dive deeper into the subject matter through articles and the readings in our textbook. As I move toward my teaching career I am looking forward to incorporating Vygotsky's theories of development into my teaching style.
I completely agree about the need of a comfort zone!! Too much stress on a student is never good, and neither is not enough stress! Its far too easy to sit back and relax when the lesson is too simplistic. Being challenged in the classroom is essential for growth. However, this is hard to implement when you are teaching one lesson to an entire class when everyone may be at different levels. How would you implement this into your future classroom with that in mind?
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that it will be difficult to challenge each student appropriately while teaching to a classroom full of students who have different ability levels. I hope to incorporate personalized learning into my classrooms so that I can individualize learning as needed for students who might need a higher or lower level of difficulty within each lesson.
DeleteI also agree about Vygotsky's view and I also think that it is important durring the adolescent stage because their brains are like sponges for learning. How might you implement this for assessments?
ReplyDeleteSimilar to what Madison and Kelsey have already said, I agree with the idea that teachers should make it a point to help their students make their way to/maintain a space in their comfort zones. A positive social experience is one thing that can help students reach this zone so if a teacher makes themselves available to help, students will be more apt to reaching a comfortable state where their learning can thrive.
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