vygotsky

comprehensive account of [|Vygotsky] at wikipedia

[|the blog of proximal development] (Konrad Glogowski) is a very interesting attempt to put the principle of Vygotsky into practice by using blogs for student writing

This blog takes its title from the concept developed by Lev Vygotsky. The Zone of Proximal Development, as defined by Vygotsky, is

"the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

The Zone of Proximal Development refers to those skills that are in the process of maturation. Vygotsky refers to these potentialities as “buds” of development.

Konrad Glogowski documents that to create a real community of learners who interact with meaningful semantic relationships takes two years. This correlates with my experience at Paralowie where I taught the same class home group, maths and science for two years (year 8 and 9) in the same room with a bunch of old XT computers, some without hard drives. See [| ISDP]. This was done in the first year but my memory is that things took off and flew in a joyful way in the second year. IMO the same experience cannot be emulated by taking a class on a single line to a computer lab one lesson a week.

Read all of Konrad's post, [| Progressive Discourse], to get the full flavour of what he has achieved.

Extract: "Then, for a while, they kept composing individual responses. While certainly aware of the community around them, they continued to write as solitary writers. Then, one day at the end of April, it all changed. They started linking to each other’s work because they found other entries meaningful and relevant. No, I do not mean that they linked to entries that explored the same topics. No. They started linking to entries that helped them expand their own understanding of issues that they were struggling with. I began to see semantic relations."