Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
When you find a weakness within yourself in an area, you feel much better tackling the task with someone along side you that knows how to accomplish it better than you do. Lev Vygotsky took this idea and broadened it with his concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The Zone of Proximal Development is a concept that there are certain things that cannot be mastered alone, that you need someone who is wiser and more learned in that area to assist you. (Levykh, 2008) The higher the ZPD, the more assistance you would need, the lower the ZPD, the more you would be able to learn it on your own. Through social interaction, learning can be further established and concrete. In context, if the ZPD is too high, the student will become frustrated at having to go it alone and will most likely give up on the endeavor. If the ZPD is too low, however, the student is more likely to lose interest and not care.
The trick here is to find the perfect balance. In my own classroom, I will strive to find the equilibrium of ZPD and assistance for my students. For instance, if I notice that I have several students struggling with the difficult vocabulary of a work of Shakespeare that we are reading in class, I may decide to pair students up. I would see that the ones that were struggling with the vocab be paired up with the ones that were excelling. For the next couple weeks, I would continue to pair in this manner until, gradually, I would lessen the need for the pairing. This would hopefully help the students struggling to have grown in their ZPD enough that supporting them with the stronger students would be no longer needed. Here with ZPD, I will be displaying my depth of understanding of sub-standard 1.4.
Sub-standard 1.4-knowledge of types of student diversity (e.g., cultural, economic, and linguistic background; gender; religion; family structure), and the ability to use this knowledge to promote learning and development for students with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and needs
The trick here is to find the perfect balance. In my own classroom, I will strive to find the equilibrium of ZPD and assistance for my students. For instance, if I notice that I have several students struggling with the difficult vocabulary of a work of Shakespeare that we are reading in class, I may decide to pair students up. I would see that the ones that were struggling with the vocab be paired up with the ones that were excelling. For the next couple weeks, I would continue to pair in this manner until, gradually, I would lessen the need for the pairing. This would hopefully help the students struggling to have grown in their ZPD enough that supporting them with the stronger students would be no longer needed. Here with ZPD, I will be displaying my depth of understanding of sub-standard 1.4.
Sub-standard 1.4-knowledge of types of student diversity (e.g., cultural, economic, and linguistic background; gender; religion; family structure), and the ability to use this knowledge to promote learning and development for students with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and needs