Republic of the Philippines

ILOILO STATE COLLEGE OF FISHERIES

School of Graduate Studies
Tiwi, Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo

EDUCATION 500-Foundations of Education

SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

I. CONSTRUCTIVISM

Is an approach to teaching and learning based on the

premise that cognition is the result of "mental construction".
In other words, students learn by fitting new information
together with what they already know.

Constructivists believe that learning is affected by the

context in which an idea is taught as well as by students'
beliefs and attitudes.

The learner actively imposes organization and meaning

on the surrounding environment and constructs knowledge in
the process.

The teacher's role is not only to observe and assess but

to also engage with the students while they are completing
activities, wondering aloud and posing questions to the
students for promotion of reasoning.

II. LEV SEMONOVICH VYGOTSKY

-Vygotsky was called "The Mozart of Psychology.

-He was born in 1896- same year as Piaget - in the small

Russian town of Orsha.

-Middle-class Jewish family.

-He entered into a private all boys secondary school known

as a gymnasiuma secondary school that prepared students
for the university.

-In 1913 entered Moscow University through lottery.

 -In December of 1917, he graduated from Moscow
University with a degree in law.

-Vygotsky completed 270 scientific articles, numerous

lectures, and ten books based on a wide range of Marxist-
based psychological and teaching theories.

-He died on June 10, 1934, at the young age of thirty-seven

after long battle with TB.

-Vygotskys work did not become known in the West until

1958, and was not published there until 1962.

III. INTRODUCTION : The sociocultural theory:

A. Suggests that human learning is largely a social

process.

-Looks at the important contributions that society

makes to individual development.

-Focus on the child as a product of social interaction,

especially with adults (parents, teachers).

-Stresses the interaction between developing people

and the culture in which they live.

-Social world mediates children's cognitive

development.

B. Focus on DYADIC INTERACTIONS

C. People's thinking differs dramatically between

cultures because different cultures stress different
things.

IV. VYGOTSKYS VIEWS ON LEARNING

A. Learning has its basis in interacting with other

people. Once this has occurred, the information is
then integrated on the individual level:
"Every function in the child's cultural development
appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the
individual level; first, between people (interpsychological)
and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies
equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to
 the formation of concepts. All the higher functions
originate as actual relationships between individuals."

B. Children are born with basic biological constraints

on their minds. Each culture, however, provides
what he referred to as 'tools of intellectual
adaptation'.

C. The only good learning is that which is in advance

of development.

D. Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental

processes that are able to operate only when the child is
interacting with people in his environment and with his
peers. learning is not development; however, properly
organized learning results in mental development and sets
in motion a variety of developmental processes that would
be impossible apart from learning. Thus learning is a
necessary and universal aspect of the process of
developing culturally organized, specifically human,
psychological functions.

V. HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE THEORY

Wertsch(1991) proposed three major themes in

Vygotskys writings that elucidate the nature of this
interdependence between individual and social processes in
learning and development.
A. Individual development, including higher mental
functioning, has its origins in social sources.

B. Human action, on both the social and individual

planes, is mediated by tools and signs semiotics.

C. The first two themes are best examined through

genetic, or developmental, analysis.

VI. THEORYS PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS

1. Children construct their knowledge

2. Learning is mediated

3. Language plays a central role in mental development

4. Learning appears twice

 5. Development cannot be separated from its social
context

A. ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

-"the distance between the actual development 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" (Vygotsky, 1978).

B. MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER (MKO)

-someone who has a higher level of knowledge than the
learner
-provides the critical guidance and instruction

C. SCAFFOLDING
-the temporary support given to the child by More
Knowledgeable Others, usually parents or teachers, that
enable the child to perform the task until such time that
the child can already perform the task independently.

D. SOCIAL INTERACTION
-Vygotsky believed that peer interaction was an essential
part of the learning process. In order for children to learn
 new skills, he suggested pairing more competent students
with less skilled ones.

E. LANGUAGE
- a means of communicating to the outside world
-the main means by which adults transmit information to
children
-language becomes a very powerful tool of intellectual
adaptation

VII. EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS

A. COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
- suggests that group members should have different levels
of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced
members operate within their ZPD.

B. SCAFFOLDING AND APPRENTICESHIP

- a more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a
task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

C. DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT
- a term used to characterize a number of distinct
approaches that feature guided learning for the purpose of
determining a learners potential for change.

D. RECIPROCAL TEACHING
- used to improve students ability to learn from text
-teachers and students collaborate in learning and
practicing the four key skills-summarizing, questioning,
clarifying and predicting.

E. TASK-BASED APPROACH
- emphasizes the importance of social and collaborative
aspects of learning

F. INQUIRY-BASED APPROACH
- teachers and students are co-inquirer but with teachers
mediating among students personal meanings emerging
from collective thinking and talk of students, and culturally
established meanings of the wider society.

VIII. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

 1. Teachers and parents can take advantage of this by
continually providing educational opportunities that are a
slight stretch of a childs existing knowledge and skills.

2. Abilities that are in the process of development are

identified.

3. Can help attempt to predict what the learner will do

independently in the future.

4. There is attention to discourse, norms and practices

associated with particular discourse and practice
communities.

5. The goal of instruction is to support students to engage in

activities, talk, and use of tools in a manner that is
consistent with the practices of the community to which
the students are being introduced.

6. Situational specificity of literacy practices are understood

by educators.

7. Shifting of focus to multimodal literacy.

8. Increased importance given to the active role of students in

their own learning process.

9. Learners are provided with socially rich environment in

which to explore knowledge domains with their fellow
students, teachers and outside experts.

10. Use of ICT to support the learning environment by

providing tools for discourse, discussions, collaborative
writing, and problem solving and by providing online
support systems to scaffold students evolving
understanding and cognitive growth.

IX. REFERENCES

Cherry, K. (2016). What is Sociocultural Theory?. Retrieve from

https://www.verywell.com/what-is-the-zone-of-proximal-
development-2796034, January 12, 2017

Cherry, K. (2016). What is Zone of Proximal Development?. Retrieved

at
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January
13, 2017

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.phpURL_ID=26925&URL_DO=
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IC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Retrieved on January 11, 2017

http://www.psychologynoteshq.com/vygotsky-theory/. Retrieved on
January 11,
2017

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/a-task-based-approach.
Retrieved on
January 11, 2017

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/reciprocal_teaching. Retrieved
on
January 11, 2017

McLeod, S. A. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html on January 10, 2017

Scott, S. and Palincsar, A. (2013) Sociocultural Theory. Retrieved at

http://www.education.com/reference/article/sociocultural-theory/,
January 11, 2017

Shaffer, D. R. (2009). Social and Personality Development. Belmont,

CA:
Wadsworth. Cited at https://www.verywell.com/what-is-
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Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.
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Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT

Press.
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Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher

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Copyright 2003-2009 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Reported by:

RUSSEL M. YAMIT, BSEd

ANNELIE P. PASAPORTE, BSEd
MILE-English Students

Presented and Submitted to:

PROF. IMELDA MAMON-ARENGA, RGC

Professor/Lecturer