Lev Vygotsky was a psychologist who developed a learning theory that is based in social

constructivism. He believed that the actions and learning of an individual is first introduced to

the individual in a social setting. He argues that what someone is exposed to on a social level

determines how they grow and what they develop when. This contradicted other popular theories

that based individual growth and understanding based on age and less on circumstances.

Vygotsky would say that a child who has been around their parents teaching math will have an

initial better understanding of math than a child without that social exposure. Alongside his

constructivist thoughts, Vygotsky also had aspects of his theory associated with behaviorism that

once again contradicted many popular theories. He believed that we as humans could not be

directly compared to the stimuli and resultants from animals. He made his point by saying that

we as humans can respond to more advanced stimuli than an animal can, such as stimuli that is

brought upon someone by themselves. Another important aspect of Vygotsky’s theory is the

inclusion of cultural tools. He believes that cultural tools play a major part in cognitive

development and that the way information is originally presented to someone using the cultural

tool will affect their individual understanding down the road. Within his theory Vygotsky

developed the term zone of proximal development, or the ZPD. The ZPD is the area of

knowledge that he believes needs to be focused on in the classroom. It is the middle ground

between material that is already understood by students, and the material that is too hard for

students to currently understand. The zone contains the currently unknown information that

students, provided with the right tools will be able to learn and understand. The best way to use

his theory in the classroom would be to introduce topics to students socially before having them

work to understand things individually, this can be discussing as a class, in small groups,

partners, or having the social interaction be between the teacher and the students. For example,
doing a STEM activity based on tracking animals, and using relationships found by footprints or

tracks to height, a teacher can put students into groups in order for the students to work together

on the problem. This allows for students to bounce ideas off one another and it also allows for

some misconceptions to be fixed, if only one student in a group has the misconception, they

could work it out with their groupmate. This style of social interaction allows the students to

learn and engage with the topic, allowing for the topic to more easily be added into their

individual knowledge, or memory. A lesson plan involving Vygotksy’s theory can still start with

a pretest as good way to gauge prior knowledge. The teacher can use the results from the pretest

to form groups to start the classwork together. These groups can be diverse in nature, allowing

for more social interaction and discussion when thinking about solutions. The teacher would then

present the groups with their problem, or prompt and allow the students to work freely among

their group. This would build the social aspect that Vygotsky believes is necessary before

individual understanding. This social interaction can be continued in the lesson by having groups

present their solutions to each other and allowing for class discussion about different answers.

This aspect would also allow for the teacher to effectively communicate with the class, which

could help clear any misconceptions and steer the class towards a correct solution. The lesson

would be finished by assessing the group members individually, as Vygotsky says that the social

interaction with the material will improve the individual understanding, this summative

assessment will judge the learning from the lesson.

Readings that support Vygotsky

Bodrova, E., & Leong, D. J. (2007). Tools of the mind: The Vygotskian approach to early
childhood education (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Woolfolk, A. (2007). Educational psychology (10th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. (pp. 39-51)