DIDACTICS II

THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

Many psychologist, scientist and teachers have tried to understand how the learning process takes place in life. As everybody faces the challenge of learning something new every day, we have to consider the importance of this phenomenon. For that reason the famous psychologist Lev Vigotsky outlined his own theory called the Zone of Proximal Development.

Using psychological testing in schools, Vigotsky defined the Zone of Proximal Development as the distance of what a person can achieve both with and without help. Therefore, the zone of proximal development goes to reach the zone of potential development. This process has two important phases: the first one discusses the assistance a person receives from others who are more capable while the second one consists of the assistance provided by the self. After these two phases the person demonstrates the level of mastery on the subject. Although every day we learn something new through experience that becomes part of the zone of potential development, we also have to experience this process every day by creating a new zone of proximal development. In other words, this process never ends.

As we analyze the zone of proximal development, we realize that the socialization is essential for the learning process. We can observe this when children are unable to solve a problem or tackle a task. They often look for a more knowledgeable person who can help. Based on this, Vigotsky said that what a child can do with assistance today he will be able to do by himself tomorrow”. For that reason some psychologist argue that every function on the child first appears on the social level, which is known as inter-psychological level and then in the individual level also known as intra-psychological level.

As Vigotsky said that the cognitive processes are the result of social and cultural interaction, we can think that without these two important processes students will not be able to achieve some goals and that´s why teachers try to facilitate development through cooperation. Some experts say that children tend to improve their learning when they are with others who are more skilled on a topic but when they interact with a person who is less competent on a topic the result of that interaction should be regression. But as each kid is different and has different abilities, we can say that the learning process is not in front them but around them but considering that kids learn through experience, we can talk about tree types of tasks:

· Those which are able to be performed independently by the student.

· Those that cannot be performed even with help.

· Those that can be performed with help from others.

To better understand Vigotsky, we should consider the following key aspects:

The child is viewed as an active seeker of knowledge.
The child and environment interact together enabling cognitive development in a culturally adaptive way.
The mind is perceived to be socially constructed.
The child is born with basic attentional, perceptual and memory capacities.
Development occurs as a direct result of contact with the environment.
Child as self communicator – leads to higher order thinking.
Language and thought develop independently, but eventually merge and interact.
The community plays a central role.