LEV VYGOTSKY WAS AN RUSSIAN PSYCHOLOGIST WHO PROFOUNDED THE SOCIO-CULTURAL THEORY.HE WAS DESCRIBED AS STRUCTURALIST.
THEORY OF SOCIO-CULTURE
Over the past few decades, a lot of study and theory on cognitive development—particularly what is now known as socio-cultural theory—have been built upon the work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978).
He was the creative minded person who explained cognitive development of students based on social and cultural theories.According to him,community plays a central role.
Socio-cultural theory based on three important aspects :
👉SOCIAL INTERACTION- He explains that children acquire guidance from society and develop their cognitive development and make this process of development on the basis of imitation.
👉 LANGUAGE-He represent language as a tool of communication with society and culture.
👉 CULTURE- Culture develops moral values in child,encourage to behave courteously and respectfully.
Child interact with with society and develop himself.
Ideas like the zone of proximal development, private speech, and culture-specific tools are all part of Vygotsky's theory.
Vygotsky thought social and cultural influences had an impact on cognitive development. He placed a strong emphasis on the contribution that social interaction makes to children's mental development, including speech and reasoning.
Vygotsky was adamant that community is essential to the act of "making meaning."
Through cooperative conversations with more experienced members of society, children learn cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving techniques as part of the socially mediated process of cognitive development.
One who possesses more skill or knowledge than the learner about a certain work, procedure, or idea is known as the more knowledgeable other (MKO).
In order to help a child acquire abilities within their zone of proximal development—the space between what they can accomplish on their own and what they can accomplish with assistance—the MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer.
Engaging with individuals who possess greater knowledge not only expands a child's vocabulary and skill set but also influences the development of higher-order cognitive processes like formal reasoning. Higher mental capacities could only emerge by connection with others who have greater mental capacities, according to Vygotsky.
In Vygotsky's view, adults in society help children develop cognitively by involving them in worthwhile and demanding tasks. Children learn from adults how their culture perceives and reacts to the outside world.
people display the significance people give to things, occasions, and life events. They teach the child how to think (the processes, the instruments to think with) as well as what to think (the information).
Children can learn collaboratively and cooperatively with peers or teachers thanks to Vygotsky's theory. Reciprocal teaching and scaffolding are two powerful educational techniques that draw on Vygotsky's theories.
By scaffolding, a teacher can help pupils acquire abilities that are just a little bit above their present level by offering support structures. Teachers and students alternately lead talks using techniques like summarizing and clarifying when they practice reciprocal teaching. In keeping with Vygotsky's theories, scaffolding and reciprocal teaching both place an emphasis on the collaborative creation of knowledge.
Vygotsky emphasized the role that language plays in the development of cognition. External speech is used to communicate with other people, while inner speech is used for mental reasoning.
These processes take place one after the other. A youngster uses words socially before the age of two; they do not have an internal language.
But as language and thought come together, the social language is absorbed and helps the child reason. The social environment is therefore deeply embedded in the child's education.
Culture's Impact
Vygotsky placed a strong emphasis on how a child's social environment affects their cognitive development.
According to Vygotsky, infants possess the "elementary mental functions," or foundational skills for intellectual development (Piaget emphasizes motor reflexes and sensory capacities). These arise from direct environmental exposure throughout the first two years of life.
Among the basic mental functions are;
👉Attention
👉Feeling/ sensation
👉Observation/ perception
👉Recollection/ memory
These eventually grow into more complex and efficient mental processes—what Vygotsky terms as "higher mental functions"—through interaction within the socio-cultural environment.
Social Factors Affecting Cognitive Development
Like Piaget, Vygotsky thinks that early children are inquisitive and actively engaged in their own education, as well as in the process of forming new schemas and understandings.
On the other hand, Piaget placed more emphasis on self-initiated discovery, whereas Vygotsky highlighted the roles that society played in a child's growth.
Vygotsky (1978) asserted that a youngster learns a great deal through social interaction with an experienced instructor. The tutor may give the youngster verbal instructions or serve as an example of appropriate behavior.
This is what Vygotsky calls collaborative or cooperative dialogue. The youngster looks to the tutor—typically a parent or teacher—to understand the actions and directions given, internalizes the knowledge, and uses it to direct or control their performance.
Shaffer (1996) uses the story of a small child who receives her very first jigsaw puzzle. When she tries to solve the puzzle by herself, she doesn't do well. After that, the father sits down with her and goes over some fundamental techniques with her, such finding all the corner/edge pieces. He then gives her a few pieces to put together on her own and gives her support when she succeeds.
The father gives his child more freedom to work on their own as they gain proficiency.
The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), two of Vygotsky's central ideas, are essential to comprehending his views on cognitive development.
☑ More knowledgeable other
The term "more knowledgeable other," or "MKO," very much speaks for itself; it designates a person who is more proficient than the learner at a given task, procedure, or idea.
While it is implied that the MKO is an older adult or a teacher, this isn't always the case. Often, the people with greater knowledge or experience are a child's peers or an adult's offspring.
For instance, a youngster or their parents are more likely to be knowledgeable about the newest teen music groups, the best ways to win at the newest PlayStation game, or the proper way to execute the newest dance fad.
The MKO doesn't even have to be a human. Electronic performance support systems are being used by some businesses to assist employees in their learning process.
☑ Proximal Development Zone(ZDP)
The zone of proximal development, Vygotsky's second key idea, is connected to the idea of the more informed other.
This crucial idea has to do with the distinction between what a youngster can accomplish on their own and what they can accomplish with the help and support of an experienced partner.
As a result, Vygotsky places a lot greater emphasis on social interaction as a learning aid, contending that children will develop on their own, but not to their full potential.
For instance, the child would not have been able to solve the jigsaw puzzle in the example above on their own and would have needed a lot of time, if at all. However, the child was able to solve it after working with the father and has since become proficient in this ability, which they will use to solve other jigsaw puzzles.
☑ SCAFFOLDING
The child needs a framework to learn i.e ladder that can take him to that peak of learning.The peak that they reach to solve all problems that comes under their way of learning.
This framework is vital for the development of the experience,skill and knowledge of the students,under which students systematically develop their cognitive development.
Language And Vygotsky
According to Vygotsky, language is developed for communication purposes through social interactions. According to Vygotsky, language is man's most useful means of interaction with the outside world.
Vygotsky (1962) asserted that language is essential to cognitive development in two ways:
1-It is the primary way that adults give youngsters information.
2The language itself turns into a very effective instrument for cognitive flexibility.
According to Vygotsky (1987), there are three types of language:
1-Social speech is exterior communication that people use to converse with each other (usually starting at age two);
2-Private speech, which is self-directed and has an intellectual purpose, and usually begins around age three;
3-Silent inner speech-Once private speech assumes a self-regulating role and becomes quiet inner speech, it becomes less audible and disappears (usually around the age of seven).
Implications for Education
Vygotsky’s approach to child development is a sort of social constructivism, based on the premise that cognitive functions are the outcomes of social interactions.
According to social constructivism, learning happens via social interactions in a historical and cultural context, and knowledge is built.
By creating knowledge via social bargaining, Vygotsky highlighted the collaborative aspect of learning. He disagreed with Piaget's premise that learning could be isolated from its social environment.
Teaching approaches anchored in constructivism represent a purposeful move from traditional, didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centered approach.
Schools have historically been unable to create learning environments where students actively engage in their own education as well as that of their peers. But according to Vygotsky's theory, when it comes to collaborative learning, both the teacher and the pupils need to take on unconventional roles.
CRITISICM
Because translating Vygotsky's work from Russian takes a lot of effort, it has not been subjected to the same amount of close examination as Piaget's work.
Furthermore, it is more difficult, if not impossible, to refute Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective than Piaget's theory because it offers fewer concrete assumptions for testing.
One of the primary objections to Vygotsky's work may be related to the notion that it is applicable to all cultures. The notion that Vygotsky's theories are culturally universal is rejected by Rogoff (1990), who instead claims that scaffolding—which mostly relies on verbal instruction—might not be as helpful in all situations.
Indeed, there are situations where acquiring a skill through practice and observation may be more successful.
Social contact and culture are given a lot of attention, but many other facets of development are overlooked, like the significance of emotional factors—for example, how learning can be motivated by the satisfaction and sadness of failure as well as the joys of success.
Vygotsky placed too much emphasis on sociocultural elements and ignored the role of biology in shaping cognitive development. This theory is unable to account for the fact that research conducted across cultural boundaries reveal that the phases of development—aside from the formal operational stage—occur in the same sequence across all cultures, indicating that cognitive growth is the result of a biological maturation process.
VYGOTSKY VS.PIAGET
1. Vygotsky value society and culture while piaget holds place for age for development.
2. Vygotsky was a person of social structure And piaget with cognitive structural ideas.
3. Vygotsky considers the guidance necessary for learning while Piaget Consider learning as a part of self activity.
4. According to Vygotsky, there is a born of first idea in child then language ,while piaget considered vice versa.
CONCLUSION:
The contributions made by Lev Vygotsky to developmental psychology have had a long-lasting influence. His sociocultural approach highlighted the significance of culture and social context while emphasizing the role of social interactions in cognitive development. Deeper knowledge of how learning takes place within a social framework is fostered by Vygotsky's notions, which continue to influence educational methods globally. These concepts include the zone of proximal development and scaffolding. To sum up, Vygotsky's research has had a substantial impact on our understanding of human growth, learning, and the complex interactions between social and individual elements.
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