Question on Lev Vygotsky's ZPD

"... the gap between performance and the potential level, and shows that in the gap -in the zone of proximal development - children are assisted to move beyond what they have shown they can do in everyday activities by having their learning scaffolded, using cultural tools,..."

This is from Introducing Vygotsky by Sandra Smidt (2009) which is actually written for early childhood educators. ZPD is defined as the gap between performance and potential. It is in this zone that children are helped to move beyond what they can do with scaffolding.

That means at the performance level, children can do some things on their on but they are not able to do, say, X. In the zone of proximal development, they are able to do X with help. The potential is that the children can do X on their own.

Let's look at a few other explanations of ZPD.

From Wikipedia:
The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help.

Vygotsky stated that a child follows an adult's example and gradually develops the ability to do certain tasks without help or assistance. Vygotsky's often-quoted definition of zone of proximal development presents it as "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."

Vygotsky among other educational professionals believes the role of education to be to provide children with experiences which are in their ZPD, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning

From H Coffrey (UNC School of Education) wrote
The zone of proximal development is the gap between what a learner has already mastered (the actual level of development) and what he or she can achieve when provided with educational support (potential development).

From L Vygotsky (translated by M Cole)
It 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. (p. 84)

Reference: Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between Learning and Development (pp. 79-91). In Mind in Society. (Trans. M. Cole). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Initiatives in Teaching & Learning 2

Tonight we focused on understanding TLLM (Teach Less, Learn More) better. What constitute the 'less' in Teach Less? The problems - Tiles Problem, Structure Problem, and Circle Problem gave us insights into the focus on a few big ideas - generalization, visualization, number sense, abstraction, metacognition.

We ended the lesson by examining how the pedagogies suggested in the PERI Report could help students develop these big ideas.

Initiatives in Teaching & Learning 1

After four weeks of research and independent learning with your team members, we are ready to meet again to study more about initiatives in primary mathematics education.

Today we discussed the idea that it is not what we teach and how we teach it that is important.

We did three four problems today for the class to have common experience to understand how initiatives by the Ministry of Education and the mathematics curriculum goals go hand-in-hand.

We did the arrange the cards problem as well as play the salute game to improve recall of multiplication facts. Also, use digits 0 to 9 to make a multiplication sentence. And explore the winning strategies for the takeone take two game.

I am quite glad one of the teacher shared the lattice multiplication that led to the concluding discussion on it is not what we teach that is important but how we teach it - one core idea of initiatives in teaching and learning.

Key question for reflection - after experiencing four problems taught in a way to engage learners, what are your thoughts on this - it is not what we teach that matters, it is how we teach it.