Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education
Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 2008) 59 - 67
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task with this assistance. Students, who are in the
ZPD, need active teaching. “It’s a waste of time to
teach kids what they already know and what they
cannot do even with assistance” (Utah Education
Network, 2005, p. 11). Therefore, Vygotsky’s
theory promotes the belief, “What is learned must
be taught” (Wilhelm, 2001, p. 8). Teachers should
be explaining, modeling, and using guided practice
in the classroom. By modeling what they want their
students to do, students will be better able to work
through their assigned tasks. Think-alouds, an
instructional strategy that allows students to talk
through new steps of an endeavor aloud, can be
used with upper elementary and middle school
students, who are in the ZPD. This strategy assists
students’ thinking about how they make meaning.
During think-alouds, students listen to a skilled
reader using “strategies to comprehend text, and
their teachers’ thinking become visible to them”
(Beers, 2003, p. 43). Students need time to try out
various strategies, so they can develop answers or
responses. At the same time, teacher questioning
techniques should guide the social interactions
implicitly or explicitly. Think-alouds help teachers
determine why and how students are experiencing
difficulty in reading. In addition, students can
analyze their own thinking about their reading.
When an administrator walks into a
teacher’s classroom using Vygotsky’s theory to
guide his or her instruction, he or she should see
students engaged in scaffolding, small groups,
cooperative learning, group problem-solving, cross-
age tutoring, assisted learning, and/ or alternative
assessment. Scaffolding is “a form of adult
assistance that enables a child or novice to solve a
problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which
would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood et.
al, 1976, as cited by Daniels, 2001, p.107). The use
of language and shared experience is essential to
successfully implementing scaffolding as a learning
tool. By practicing making inferences, students are
able to determine what and when inferences needed
to be made. Teachers need to provide students, who
are in the ZPD, copies with specific sentences that
have been underlined in a short story. The
underlined sentences will help the students realize
when they need to make inferences. As they read
the story, they can pause and think about what type
of inference they need to make. Thus, students are
able acquire and develop master of complex reading
skills. “Scaffolding involves simplifying the
learner’s role rather than the task.” (p. 107).
Vygotsky’s model of teaching and learning
has significantly influenced “early-literacy”
programs, such as Reading Recovery and Guided
Reading. Yet, this theory is in contradiction to what
is happening in many schools today. Too many
schools have teacher-centered classrooms. The
teacher/information centered model (is)…learning
centered on the information possessed by the
teacher, which flows one way, from teacher to
student (Wilhelm, 2001, p.8). To counter this
prevalent view, Vygotsky maintains meaningful and
productive collaborative activities that need to be
engaged in by both students and teachers. Learning
can occur through play, formal instruction, or work
between a learner and a more experienced learner.
Teachers must actively assist and promote the
growth of their students, so the students can develop
the skills they need to fully participate in our
society.
In today’s classrooms, teachers need to
design lessons that empower students to “make
meaning through mindful manipulation of input”
(Fogarty, 1999, p. 78). Thus, administrators need to
provide teachers with the effective professional
development and supplies they need to be effective.
By successfully incorporating Piaget’s and
Vygotsky’s theories into the classroom,
developmental psychology in elementary education
can positively impact student achievement. “When
our students have the cognitive foundation to learn
how to learn, they can discover what else is “out
there” in our world…” (Garner, 2008, p. 38).
In order to apply the theories of Piaget and
Vygotsky to present day school systems, one would
need to restructure schools significantly.
Administrators and teachers have to work together.
As one continues reading, a model school that
incorporates these theories will unfold. The B & P
Model School is a fictitious school that has been