Assessment Post 1: Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky was a Russian developmental psychologist whose work focused particularly on child development and education. He asserted that social interaction was the major determinant of human development.
Through a child’s constant interaction with a variety of adult figures in their lives they develop communication skills; initially through private speech. According to Vygotsky private speech plays a critical role in cognitive development and he suggested four stages in the development of thought (Marsh, 2004 p 25):
1. Nonverbal thought and conceptual speech
2. Beginning of a merging between thinking and speech:
3. Egocentric speech (overt)
4. Egocentric speech becomes covert

The zone of proximal development is another important facet of Vygotsky’s work. This zone is defined as the distance between actual development level, as determined through individual problem-solving, and the potential development through interaction and problem solving with adults ( http://vygotsky.afraid.org/#EgocentricSpeechInnerSpeech ).
Vygotsky’s findings are of great value to me as a teacher as they suggest that students will learn best through interaction with their peers. Individuals will construct knowledge using their personal experience, the experiences of their peers and through discussion with their peers. This suggests that in order to effectively teach my students my classroom will have to be interactive and interpersonal with a direct focus on developing peer relationships and promoting discussion. Such a classroom could be achieved through the implementation of group based assessment, class discussion or simply small group work. My aim would be to create a social constructivist classroom in which students are both learners and teachers. This would satisfy William Glasser’s suggestion that students should be given responsibility within their classroom environment. A classroom with a focus on the sharing of knowledge between peers would also satisfy Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences which suggests that some students will learn best through peer based discussion (Interpersonal intelligence). My aim would be the creation of a collaborative classroom where the role of learner and teacher are shared ( http://www.literacy.unisa.edu.au/JEE/Papers/JEEVol6No1/Paper%208.pdf ).