Is ZPD about development Nikolai Veresov Monash University

Is ZPD about development? Nikolai Veresov, Monash University, Australia nikolai. veresov@monash. edu 1

Mental development of children in a process of learning , 1935 Умственное развитие ≠ mental development Умственное развитие = intellectual development ОБУЧЕНИЕ (OBUCHENIE) ≠ learning 2

Давыдов В. В. ВИДЫ ОБОБЩЕНИЯ В ОБУЧЕНИИ. (Логико-психологические проблемы построения учебных предметов). 1972 Soviet Studies in Mathematics Education Volume 2. Types of Generalization in Instruction: Logical and Psychological Problems in the Structuring of School Curricula. V. V. Davydov Translated by Joan Teller. Published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston Virginia. , 1990. ОБУЧЕНИЕ (OBUCHENIE) ≠ INSTRUCTION 3

Learning and development: looking from Vygotsky’s perspective: 1. What is ОБУЧЕНИЕ? 2. What is development? 3. How ОБУЧЕНИЕ relates to intellectual development? 4

What is ОБУЧЕНИЕ? ОБУЧЕНИЕ EVERYDAY USE OF THE TERM “ОБУЧЕНИЕ” THE USE OF THE TERM “ОБУЧЕНИЕ” IN VYGOTSKY’S TRADITION 5

EVERYDAY USE OF THE TERM ОБУЧЕНИЕ NOUN – ОБУЧЕНИЕ VERB – ОБУЧАТЬ = TO TEACH VERB – ОБУЧАТЬСЯ = TO BE TAUGHT EXAMPLES: МЕТОД ОБУЧЕНИЯ = METHOD OF TEACHING СРЕДСТВА ОБУЧЕНИЯ = TEACHING TOOLS САМООБУЧЕНИЕ = AUTODIDACTICS «didaktikos» — διδακτικός = WHAT TO TEACH AND HOW TO TEACH 6

THE USE OF THE TERM ОБУЧЕНИЕ IN VYGOTSKY’S TRADITION ОБУЧЕНИЕ Learning Teaching 7

ОБУЧЕНИЕ STUDENT TEACHER STUDENT-TEACHER INTERACTIONS (COOPERATION) STUDENT-TEACHER LEARINING ACTIVITY 8

What is development? Development is not just a simple change Development is not an organic growth Developmental is a complex process of qualitative reorganisation of certain system: • • • Sources Moving forces Main directions Specific features Results Law (laws) Metaphor: fruit and tree 9

• What makes CHT unique is that every concept refers to a certain aspect/aspects of the complex process of development of the higher mental functions. • Therefore, cultural-historical theory provides a system of interconnected instruments for theoretical analysis of the process of development in its wholeness and complexity. • Concepts are analytical tools (lens) to investigate the process of development 10

CULTURAL-HISTORICAL THEORY IS: a system of theoretical concepts and principles related to The process of genesis (origins and development) of HMF: • • • sources character moving forces main directions specific features results 11

The social environment is the source for the appearance of all specific human properties of the personality gradually acquired by the child or the source of social development of the child (Vygotsky. 1998, p. 203). “. . . every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first between people as an intermental category, then within the child as a intramental category. . . (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 106) “…every higher mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal strictly mental function; (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 105) 12

Development of higher mental functions how the social becomes the individual 13

Metaphor: fruit and tree HIGHER MENTAL FUNCTIONS IN CHILD • FLOWER STAGE • BUD STAGE • FRUIT STAGE Vygotsky – “embryonic stage”: All psychological prerequisites are ready 14

Learning and development: looking from Vygotsky’s perspective: 1. What is ОБУЧЕНИЕ? • Learning/teaching = student-teacher interactions (Vygotsky), • Learning/teaching = student-teacher collaborative activity (Davydov) 2. What is development? • Complex process • From social to individual • Some functions are at embryonic stage 3. How ОБУЧЕНИЕ relates to intellectual development? 15

How OBUCHENIE relates to intellectual development? Level of teaching should correspond to the level of intellectual development • stages of development - universal • from individual to social J. Piaget (1896 -1980) Main concept which connects learning and development is “equilibrium”. . . occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation). …is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation). DEVELOPMENT DRIVES LEARNING 16

Level of obuchenie should correspond to the level of intellectual development L. Vygotsky (1896 -1934) • mental age (умственный возраст) = intellectual age • Individual developmental trajectory • from social to individual Main concept which connects obuchenie and development is? ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD) 17

Every child has at least 2 levels of development- Actual and Level of potential development. • Actual – what a child is able to do at the given time • Potential - What they will able to achieve with help from a more knowledgeable other be that adult or peer. What is wrong? 18

Zone of proximal development (ZPD) The zone of proximal development was defined by Vygotsky as: . . . the distance between the actual developmental 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 smarter peers (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86, originally Vygotsky, 1935, p. 42) What determines what? 19

ZPD: HAVE WE GOT IT RIGHT? “…[the ZPD] is perhaps one of the most used and least understood constructs to appear in contemporary educational literature” (Palincsar, 1998, p. 370). Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development is more precise and elaborated than its common reception or interpretation (Chaiklin, 2003, p. 43). zone of proximal development is not concerned with the development of skill of any particular task, but must be related to development (Chaiklin, 2003, p. 43) 20

Mind in society (1978), p. 87 The zone of proximal development furnishes psychologists and educators with a tool through which the internal course of development can be understood. By using this method we can take account of not only the cycles and maturation processes that have already been completed but also those processes that are currently in a state of formation, that are just beginning to mature and develop. Thus, the zone of proximal development permits us to delineate the child's immediate future and his dynamic developmental state, allowing not only for what already has been achieved developmentally but also for what is in the course of maturing. Intellectual development of children in a process of obuchenie (1935), p. 42 The zone of proximal development furnishes psychologists and educators with a possibility through which the internal course of development can be understood; we can take account of not only the cycles and maturation processes that have already been completed but also those processes that are currently in a state of formation, that are just beginning to mature and develop. Thus, the zone of proximal development permits us to delineate the child's nearest future and his dynamic developmental state, allowing not only for what already has been achieved developmentally but also for what is in the course of maturing. 21

How obuchenie relates to development in children of school age is the most central and fundamental question. Without an answer to this, problems of pedagogical psychology and analysis of the pedagogical process can neither be properly resolved nor even stated. (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 1). 22

Vygotsky on Piaget: Obuchenie is always tied to the tail of development, development always strides ahead of obuchenie. Any possibility of discussing what role obuchenie might have in the development and maturing of these functions and in their activation is thereby excluded in advance. Their development and maturing is taken rather as a premise than as a result of obuchenie. Obuchenie is built upon development, changing nothing essential in it. (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 5) 23

We have two children of an equal mental age, seven, but one of them with a minimum of help solves a problem of a nine-year old, while the other reaches only seven-and-half. Is the mental development of these two children the same? From the point of view of their independent activity it is the same, but from the point of view of proximate possibility it differs sharply. (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 18) 24

We need to define at least two levels of a child’s development, which we must know before we can find the true relationship between the child’s development and its capacity to learn in each concrete instance. The first we shall call the level of actual development. We have in mind the level of development of the child’s psychological functions formed by definite developmental cycles already having taken place. (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 11). 25

What the child is able to do with the help of an adult points to its zone of proximal development. This means that with the help of this method we can take into consideration not only the process of development up to the present moment…but also those processes which are taking place now and are beginning to grow and develop (Vygotsky, 1935, 18 -19). 26

What the child can do today with the help of adults, it will be able to carry out tomorrow on its own. In this way the zone of proximate development will help us to define tomorrow’s achievements and the dynamics of the child’s development, taking into account not only what it has already mastered, but also its process of growth. The two children in our example show the same mental age from the point of view of the developmental cycles they have completed, but the dynamic of their development is quite different. (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 1819) 27

Obuchenie oriented on already completed cycles of development is futile from the point of view of a child’s general development. Rather than advancing a process of development, it remains tied to its tail. As against the old point of view the concept of the zone of proximate development gives prominence to the opposite formula which states that the only good method of obuchenie is that which runs ahead of development (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 15). 28

Obuchenie creates the zone of proximal development, awakens and puts in motion a whole range of inner developmental processes which, initially existing in a sphere of relations with others… then undergo an inner development and become part of the child’s own self (Vygotsky, 1935, p. 16). Memory (Vygotsky) KEY POINT Executive functions (Fleer, Walker, Veresov) 29

In this sense obuchenie is not development, but obuchenie organized on the right basis entails (leads) the child’s intellectual development, bring to life a whole range of developmental processes which outside of teaching would not be at all possible. Just as a child of deaf-and-dumb parents, who does not hear the spoken word in his presence, must remain dumb although he has all the natural prerequisites for speech, and will not develop those higher mental functions connected with speech, so every process of obuchenie is the source of development, calling into being a series of processes, which in the absence of teaching would not arise at all. (Vygotsky, 1935, 16 -17) 30

…developmental processes and obuchenie processes do not coincide, that the processes of development follow the process of obuchenie which creates zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1935, 18). 31

From this point of view the traditional attitude to the relationship between obuchenie and development has to change… From the new point of view it only begins at this moment. To show the mastery of four arithmetical sums can give rise to a whole series of very complex inner processes in the development of a child’s thinking constitutes the basic task … in analyzing the pedagogic process. Our hypothesis establishes the unity, but not the identity of obuchenie processes and the inner processes of development, It presupposes the transition from one to the other. (Vygotsky, 1935, 18). 32

"Scaffolding refers to the way the adult guides the child's learning via focused questions and positive interactions. " (Balaban, 1995, p. 52) 33