CURRICULUM GUIDE FOR S.C. TEACHER CADET COURSE | EXPERIENCING EDUCATION, TENTH EDITION
Social Cognitive Development: Lev Vygotsky
Social Cognitive Theory
Culture is the primary determinant in learning. Activity, language,
culture, society, and social interaction are important in cognitive
growth.
ZPD
Zone of Proximal Development: The difference between what the
child can do on his own and what the child can do with help.
Impact of Culture
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•
•
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Implications for
Teaching
• Interaction between adults and children is vital in the learning
process.
• Adults provide support and assist the child in becoming an
independent learner through scaffolding--adjusting support as
needed for the child to become independent.
• Children should be assessed at just above their level of ZPD.
Importance of Play
• Play, especially in the use of symbolic forms, contributes
significantly to the child’s intellectual development.
• Play is essential to social, personal, and professional activities.
Self Talk
• “Internalized talking” is important because it provides
self-guidance.
Conscious
Awareness
• Awareness of self, language, concepts, place in the world –
these are what make man human and social, linking history and
culture.
Testing
• Tests measure students’ current level of ability (what they can do
independently). What students can do with the help of others
might be a truer measurement of their abilities.
Culture provides the content knowledge (what to think).
Culture defines the means for thinking (how to think).
Children learn through experiences shared with others.
Language is a primary factor in this interaction between the child
and others (adults).
• Children cannot learn by themselves; they need the interaction
between the child and the adult--the transmission of culture and
cultural values.
Source:
(Adapted from PACE II Curriculum, SC Department of Education, 2004.)
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Theme I: Experiencing Learning
Unit 3: Growth and Development
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who studied cognitive learning theories in the 1920s
and 1930s. Vygotsky concluded that culture was a primary determinant in learning and that language was the primary method of conveying knowledge. Therefore, Vygotsky concluded that
learning could only take place in social situations; students cannot learn in a vacuum. Likewise,
children learn best with the assistance, guidance, and encouragement from adults. Vygotsky
is very similar to Piaget in the emphasis on language and the importance of play in learning and
passing on culture. Vygotsky was unlike Piaget in that he did not collapse cognitive development by age or stages; he defined learning differences by the ZPD, or Zone of Proximal Development.