Vygotsky's Socio-Cultural Theory

Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory (SCT) explains how individual mental functioning is connected to cultural, institutional, and historical context. Therefore, SCT argues that human cognition is essentially a mediated process that is organised by cultural artifacts, activities, and concepts (Ratner et al., 2002). Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, and then combined into the individual’s mental structure.

“Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (inter-psychological) and then inside the child (intra-psychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory,

The ZPD seizes the child’s cognitive skills that are in the process of maturing and can be accomplished only with the assistance of a more-skilled person (Daniels, 2011). Vygotsky argued that to understand the link between development and learning, two developmental levels must be distinguished: the actual and the potential levels of development. The actual refers to those accomplishments a child can demonstrate alone or perform independently; compared to potential levels of development as suggested by the ZPD- what children can do with

Scaffolding means changing the level of support. Over the course of a teaching session, a more-skilled person (a teacher or advanced peer), also known as a more knowledgeable other, adjusts the amount of guidance to the child’s current performance. When the student is learning a new task, the skilled person may use direct instruction. As the student’s competence increases, less guidance is given.

Asking probing questions is an excellent way to scaffold students’ learning and help them to develop more analytical thinking skills. A teacher might ask a student such questions as “Why do you think that is so?” or “How can you connect those?” Over time, students should begin internalizing these kinds of probes and improve monitoring their own work (Horowitz & al., 2005). For instance, good tutoring involves scaffolding. Also, scaffolding is increasingly used when technology is involved in learning (Prinsen & al., 2009). Work on giving just the right amount of assistance. Do not do for students what they can do for themselves. But do monitor their efforts and give them needed support and