Zone of Proximal Development
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The “zone of proximal development” (ZPD) was a concept coined by Lev Vygotsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky), a Russian psychologist who used this term to denote tasks that may be beyond an individual child to master alone but which may be achieved with the support of those with more skills in that particular realm of learning. The lower limits of this zone involve the skills acquired by the child working independently; the upper limit is enabled with the assistance of an able instructor, who helps the learner construct a clearer and more logical sense of the domain field. This approach considers the child’s emotional, cognitive, and social learning needs.
Learning happens in two steps in this theorist’s model. First, an ability emerges between people in an “interpsychological” way (Vygotsky’s 1983 concept). Then, individuals master this ability, which then becomes an “intra-psychological” function (within the individual).
These concepts have been appropriated into applications with adult learners, and the zone has been conceptualized as a beneficial learning space between novices and subject matter experts (SMEs).
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Scaffolding
An important concept of supporting the learning of novices here involves “scaffolding,” or escalating the level of support for various learner tasks. Scaffolding may refer to the developmental learning stages for particular contents. This scaffolding concept suggests a movement of novice learners into observers and then participants and ultimately active contributors in communities through their apprenticeship in interactive spaces with expert teachers. They move from practice fields to participation and then form in situ meanings of the particular domain field—along a scaffolding continuum. Novices move from the peripheries then more to the center of the zone, and they make advancements in their learning. Scaffolding may ameliorate learner anxiety (Linder, Abbott, & Fromberger, 2006), in part by meeting learners where they’re at and with what learners are already able to do. B.J. Reiser suggests the importance of sometimes scaffolding to make tasks more engaging, challenging, and difficult for learners--to keep their attention and to add learning value (2002).
Authenticity can be observed when students construct meanings and use disciplinary-oriented inquiry processes in their learning (Edelson, 1996, as cited in Hung, 2005, p. 227). In other words, they learn the standards of the discipline in terms of acquiring new learning.
Instructional scaffolding refers to temporary support structures to enable new learners to acquire the lead-up steps to higher learning achievements. These supports fall away because they are not necessary after a certain point of achievement and learning. However, without them, the learning itself may be too difficult or frustrating for necessary progress. The supports may involve the design of appropriate assignments. They may involve proper feedback loops for each level of learning. Human facilitation may be part of the scaffolding, or the social support of a group may provide the necessary supports.
Computer Supported Collaborative Work
The connectivities of mediated virtual communities enhance the practices of the ZPD, based on the research in computer supported collaborative work (CSCW), and the spinoff computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). “Theories undergirding CSCL include distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1991), knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1992), Vygotsky’s social-cultural theories of the mind (Vygotsky, 1982), cognitive flexibility (Spiro & Jehng, 1991), and other social constructivist forms of learning” (Hung, 2005, p. 227).
Scaffolding involves the augmentation of learning with informational resources, practices, visualizations, opt-in help supports, computerized (or human) advisement, digital learning artifacts, artificial intelligence pedagogical or tutor / peer learning agents / or demonstration agents (Sklar & Richards, 2006), and avatar-based personaes, data-mining, and other feedback loops. Other systems may include memory enhancing tools. Still others may involve the note-taking tools to enhance learner reflection and record-keeping. Technological tools may move a community “towards more advanced learning activities through an expansive learning cycle” (Engeström, 1987, as cited in Lipponen, 2002, p. 77).
The Importance of Dialogue and Communications
Dialogue between the novice and the expert enhances the conceptualizations and skills acquisitions of the less-experienced learner. Dialogue or communications between individuals help surface the contradictions and limitations in the naïve mental model and contrasts the differences between that and the expert conceptual model. Said another way, discourse as a “substrate for group cognition” (Stahl, 2005, p. 633). Learners have to be able to articulate their own views, and in so doing, may reflect on the implications of their own ideas. The interactions enhance all communicators’ points-of-views by offering a range of different conceptualizations.
Researchers note that for advancements in most fields, there is usually cognitive division of labor, with disparate individuals and groups contributing to the advancements.
The Social Context of Learning
Social context is an important part of the learning in the constructivist vein—with individuals creating their mental models and co-constructing shared models. Collective communications and collaborations may enhance group progress in knowledge creation, and in communities of learners and communities of practice. The culture of the group will inform its practices and the distributed cognition.
The work of the group may lead to group efficacy: “To the extent that members internalize skills that have been developed in collaborative interactions or acquire cognitive artifacts that have been mediated by group activities, the members preserve the group learning and can bring it to bear on future social occasions, although it might not show up on tests administered to the individuals in isolation” (Stahl, 2005, p. 633).
The ZPD suggests that there are ways to be strategic in moving groups forward for greater levels of co-learning. Learners (from different disciplines) themselves may scaffold the space for each other, and for themselves, in some open ended group projects (Hauer & Daniels, 2008). Communications tools may be provided to facilitate positive collaborations around group problem-solving (Pata, Sarapuu, & Archee, 2005). Even dyadic "apprenticeship" teamings of a novice with an expert in problem-solving encounters may enhance novice learning (Rogoff, 1990, as cited in Ritterfeld, Weber, Fernandes, & Vorderer, 2004, p. 3).
Implications for Online Learning
The zone of proximal development points to efficiencies in learning that may be achieved beyond self-discovery self-driven learning to the building of sense-making and meanings in mixed groups. Here, learners are social actors who all may have something to contribute to the group. The affordances of a virtual community may bring out these various contributions and capture the new knowledge building as the group itself grows in efficacy.
These concepts affect ways that collaborative work and learning spaces may be designed, to support the work of the mix of learners. The enhancement of meta-cognition for learners may also support the efficiency of learning and enhance learner self-regulation and their internalization of domain knowledge, values, skills, and practices.
Instructors who facilitate online learning need to clearly understand their learners’ progress in order to tailor the scaffolding and supports to each to promote their advancement. Learners need to achieve successes in their learning to build their sense of self-efficacy.
See Also
References
Hauer, A. & Daniels, M. (2008). A learning theory perspective on running open ended group projects (OEGP). In the proceedings of the Tenth Australasian Computer Education Conference: Wollongong, Australia (pp. 85 - 91).
Hung, D. (2005). Preserving authenticity in CoLs and CoPs: Proposing an agenda for CSCL. In the proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Taipei, Taiwan (pp. 227 – 231).
Linder, S.P., Abbott, D., & Fromberger, M.J. (2006). An instructional scaffolding approach to teaching software design. Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges: Northeastern Conference (pp. 238 – 250).
Lipponen, L. (2002). Exploring foundations for computer-supported collaborative learning. In the proceedings of the Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL 2002): Boulder, Colorado, USA (pp. 72 – 81). Association of Computing Machinery.
Pata, K., Sarapuu, T., & Archee, R. (2005). Collaborative scaffolding in synchronous environment: Congruity and antagonism of tutor/ student facilitation acts. In the proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Taipei, Taiwan (pp. 484 – 493).
Reiser, B.J. (2002). Why scaffolding should sometimes make tasks more difficult for learners. In the proceedings of the Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL 2002): Boulder, Colorado, USA (pp. 255 - 264).
Ritterfeld, U., Weber, R., Fernandes, S., & Vorderer, P. (2004). Think science! Entertainment education in interactive theaters. ACM Computers in Entertainment: 2(1), 1-58.
Sklar, E. & Richards, D. (2006). The use of agents in human learning systems. In the proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS '06): Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan (pp. 767 - 774). ACM.
Stahl, G. (2005). Group cognition: The collaborative locus of agency in CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning). Association of Computing Machinery. 632 – 640.