Vygotsky

Full article coming soon. Below is a short overview that will be replaced.

Zone of proximal development

The distance between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with help from a more capable person. Vygotsky argued that instruction should aim at this zone, not at what the learner has already mastered. See Mind in Society (1978).

Mediation and cultural tools

Human thinking is shaped by tools and signs, language above all. A child does not meet the world directly. They meet it through the symbols their culture hands them.

Internalization

Higher mental functions appear twice, first between people and then inside the individual. Thinking begins as social activity and turns into private mental activity.

Private speech

Children talk to themselves while solving problems. Vygotsky read this as speech turning inward into verbal thought, against Piaget’s view that it is a sign of egocentrism. See Thought and Language (1934).

A note on scaffolding

The term comes from Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976), not from Vygotsky. It is a later way of putting his idea into practice, and it is often credited to him by mistake.