Vygotsky’s philosophy

Constructivism is a learning theory about how people learn, based on the idea that humans actively construct new understandings. Vygotsky focused on how children construct their knowledge and develop language Constructivism can help engage and motivate the students by making them take a more active role in their own learning process.  Moreover, Vygotsky (1978) believes that learning is a continual movement occurs in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as a result of social interaction. ZPD is the difference between what a student can do without help and what they can do with help.

Normally in a traditional classroom, the teacher is the center of a classroom, but with constructivism, learners would be central portion in their own learning process.

It's important to highlight that in constructivist teaching we must we must develop the curiosity in our students, creating an environment that motivate the student to go further, because nurturing this curiosity allows for them discover and build their own learning with the experience.

Examples:

v  In the reading section a student take a book about "superheroes" that is his favorite topic, and he starts to read, suddenly he finds a unknown word, the student asks his teacher for help, the teacher goes and asks the student to re-read paragraph; giving the possibility of deducing the meaning by context. If the student has not been able to grasp the meaning, then the teacher must give him ideas that approximate the true meaning, the teacher can use mimics or expressions with synonyms until the student is able to have the meaning and continue reading his book.

It is important to help them discover solutions and not just give them the answers.

v  The teacher forms groups of four people, the first student will be the model and his or her partner will be in charge of describing his or her partner who is the model, another student writes the description on a large piece of paper and finally the last member of the group read the description in front of the class. Collaborative learning is promoted through collaboration among students, and between students and teacher.

v  Involving students in interesting "real" activities in learning about, plating in, or solving problems on an environment that has rules or patterns.

David L, "Social Development Theory (Vygotsky)," in Learning Theories, July 23, 2014, https://www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html


Mayerly Santiago

Audio comment from a classmate:
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0tZZK1GJx8g

 

Concepts and opinions on Vygotsky's theory

Vygotsky tells us that each person is able to build their own knowledge through the social and cultural environment in which the individual is developing, every human being has the ability to learn naturally, the individual internalizes their social relations, what Vygotsky tells us is that he has the ability to choose the method that the individual considers most appropriate for said learning, at his own pace, under his own rules and with which they are more comfortable, in this way it is constructing meanings for each lived experience, instead of memorizing and repeating contents.


                                       

Example 

• An exchange student travels from his native country to a foreigner, he is learning not only the new language of the place where he has arrived, he is also learning from this new culture, through what he sees, hears and speaks as he goes socializing with the people belonging to this place, as he sees new things, the student internalizes the received knowledge and makes it own, is coupled to him at his own pace and with the help of his teachers, colleagues and other people around him, so late that early you will feel that he also belongs to this place.

• As an experience, I have to say that I have a teacher that I know a few years ago, taught us to be independent and responsible people of our own knowledge, gives us the necessary guidelines of the basics that we should know about a specific topic and we either in group or individually we must go further and explore what it is about, how it is used, in what cases it does not serve and that others do not, etc. The teacher only guides us so that we miss the correct path of the topic to be discussed. In a normal class activity, she gives us the subject and tells us what we should do, many times they are expositions where we must investigate on the subject, understand it and explain it, other times they are essays in which we must also investigate and recreate with our own words what we want to tell the author and other times even plays we have performed, all under our responsibility and under his guidance as a tutor, feel we have been able to learn a lot and we have discovered ourselves which is the method of study that best fits our needs as students.

I remain attentive to your comments

Monica Sanabria 

Student course FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING 551018A_14 

Audio classmate comment:

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1pMBq8on1jh

• https://innovemos.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/la-teoria-del-aprendizaje-de-vygotski/
• International Education Journal, 2005, 6(3), 386-399.ISSN 1443-1475 © 2005 Shannon Research Press.http://iej.cjb.net.

Lev Semionovich Vygotsky

Ingrid Castillo

Lev Semionovich Vygotsky - Constructivism.

For the Philosopher Lev Semionovich Vygotsky, constructivism is a theory of learning which refers to the people constructing concepts of the context in which they live. According to Vygotsky we each form our own understanding, own rules and mental models with which we give meaning and meaning to our experiences and actions. Cognitive development is linked to the social interaction of people. According to this philosophy each student has the ability to learn according to their level of development, but there are learning that are out of reach and must be developed with the help of an adult or more expert children. 

In this space between what the student can learn by himself and what he can learn with the help of others, is what is called ZPD. The subject is situated in the real development zone and evolves through social interactions until reaching the potential development zone, which becomes a real development zone and creates a new potential development zone (Vygotsky, 1988). For example, if we are teaching a topic in the English class, it is important for the teacher to perceive which children have a high cognitive development and not to group them and assign them roles in the groups. Knowledge of some and the experience of others complement learning.

Audio contribution from classmate Mayerly Santiago





  https://vocaroo.com/i/s04FVjQSDgvx