Vygotskys socio-cultural theory

SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF LEARNINGObjectivesDiscover specific ways by which the zone of proximal development can be used effectively to improve students learning.Discuss the social and cultural influences on learning.Explain the theories, concepts, and elements of situated learning.IntroductionLearning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others. Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to collaborate with others on instructional tasks. Learning settings that allow social interactions, and respect for diversity encourage flexible thinking and social competence.Social and Cultural Influences on LearningIn interactive and collaborative instructional contexts, individuals have an opportunity for perspective taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher levels of cognitive, social and moral development, as well as self-esteem. Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust, and caring can increase the learners sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate for learning.Family influences, positive interpersonal support and instruction in self-motivation strategies can offset factors that interfere with optimal learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a particular subject, high levels of test anxiety, negative sex role expectations, and undue pressure to perform well. Positive learning climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Such contexts help learners feel safe to share ideas, actively participate in the learning process, and create a learning community.

Culture is a broad and encompassing concept. Often, we equate culture with race or ethnic identity but that is not always the case. Culture refers to characteristics of the individual/society or of some subgroups with the society(it) includes values, beliefs, notions about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and other socially constructed ideas that members of the culture are taught are true.(Garcia,1994) It is also defined as the shared products of a human group of society. Although culture is shared, it must be learned by each new generation, through the process of social instruction.The sociology of culture shows that our way of thinking and categorizing, our hopes and fears, our likes and dislikes and our beliefs and habits are social creations, strongly influenced by the time and place in which we live. Even so, culture does not dictate thoughts and behavior- it leaves room for action.Each culture is different because it is adapted to meet a specific set of conditions both physical and social factors help shape a particular cultureIn short, culture governs how we think and feel. It shapes our beliefs about what it important in life and our interpretations of what events mean. As our world continues to change, students interact with others with quite different backgrounds from their own, especially in the classroom.

The manner in which they respond to others who seem different can have an impact on their success in school, work and harmonious relationship with others. If they take time and make the effort to understand these differences, they may develop better relationships and succeed academically.

Social ConstructivismLev Vygotskys theory focuses on socio-cultural dimensions of learning and development emphasizing that individual cognitive processes are continuously embedded in a social and cultural context. It is referred to as Social Constructivist Theory In order to understand and the influence of Lev Vygotskys work addressing socio cultural dimensions of learning and development. It is important to understand the three central concepts in his theory which have all direct implications for the classroom. These are the concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development, Scaffolding and the Socio-Cultural Context of Learning.Zone of Proximal DevelopmentVygotsky believes that learning takes place when children are working within what he called their zone of proximal development. This refers to an area in which a child or adolescent would have trouble solving a problem alone, but can succeed with help from someone more knowledgeable. One way of thinking about the ZPD is that it is an area of potential significant advance in a child or adolescents thinking. That is, within this area, a child or adolescent is ready to master new concepts or ideas but simply needs help in doing so.ScaffoldingAn important concept for social constructivists is that of Scaffolding which is process of guiding the learner from what is presently known to what is to be known. For Vygotsky, Scaffolding is the process of providing a child or adolescent with a good deal of support during the time they are learning something. This support is reduced as the learners becomes able to deal with the task independently resulting in his taking on increasing responsibility for his learning. Support for a learner can take the form of cooperative learning environments, or strategies for helping students organize new material and relate it to prior knowledge. Vygotsky particularly emphasized the ways in which adult support and learning among peers could assist children and adolescents to master concepts they could not yet learn alone.

Socio-cultural context of knowledge.Vygotsky emphasizes the important role of culture in influencing how individuals learn and think. His thinking has had a significant impact on research demonstrating that cognition is situated occurs in a context. We have learned from Vygotskys work that we need especially to understand and respond to the cultural contexts which surround childrens knowledge and which significantly affect their expectations about their roles as learners and what Luis Moll refers to as their funds of knowledge. Vygotsky particularly emphasizes the role of culture in mediating learning that is in providing tools (words, conventions, symbols, signs, etc.) through which knowledge is mediated and communicated. This means that learning and knowledge are to a large extent culturally and socially influenced.

Theories of Situated LearningSituated learning is a general theory of knowledge acquisition. It has been applied in the context of technology-based learning activities that focus on problem-solving skills. Lave (1988) argues that learning as it normally occurs is a function of the activity, context and culture in which it occurs. This contrasts with traditional classroom learning activities which involve knowledge which is often presented in an abstract form and out of context.Social interaction is a critical component of situated learning learners become involved in a community of practice which embodies certain beliefs and behaviors to be acquired. As the beginner or newcomer moves from the periphery of this community to its centre, he becomes more active and engaged within the culture and hence assumes the role of expert or oldtimer.In the situated learning approach, knowledge and skills are learned in the context that reflect how knowledge is obtained and applied in everyday situations. Situated cognition theory conceives of learning as a socio-cultural phenomenon rather that the action of an individual acquiring information from a decontextualized body of knowledge.

DevelopmentCulture

Social InteractionLanguageFigure 5. The interrelationship among social interaction, language and culture.As an instructional strategy, situated cognition has been seen as a means for relating subject matter to the needs and concerns of learners. Learning is essentially a matter of creating meaning from the real activities of daily living. By embedding subject matter in the on-going experiences of the learners and by creating opportunities for learners to live subject matter in the context of real-world challenges, knowledge is acquired and learning transfers from the classroom to the realm of practice. To situate learning means to place thought and action in a specific place and time. To situate means to involve other learners, the environment, and the activities to create meaning.

A situated learning experience has four major premises guiding the development of classroom activities:Learning is grounded in the actions of everyday situations or in how learning occurs everyday; Knowledge is acquired situationally and transfers only to similar situations;Learning is the result of social process encompassing ways of thinking, perceiving, problem solving, and interacting in addition to declarative and procedural knowledge; andLearning is not separated from the world of action but exist in robust, complex, social environments made up of actors; actions and situations.These four premises differentiate situated from other experiential forms of acquiring knowledge. In situated learning, students learn content through activities rather than acquiring information in discrete packages organized by instructors. Content is inherent in the doing of the task and not separated from the noise, confusion, and the group interactions prevalent in real work environments. Learning is dilemma-driven rather than content driven. Situations are presented that challenge the intellectual and psychomotor skills learner will apply at home, in the community, or the workplace (Lankard, 1995).Situated learning uses cooperative and participative teaching methods as the means of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is created or negotiated through the interactions of the learner with others environment. Subject matter emerges from the cues provided by the environment and from the dialogue among the learning community. The structure of the learning is implicit in the experience rather than in the subject matter structured by the instructor. Knowledge is obtained by the process described (Lave, 1997) as way in and practice. Way in is a period of observation in which a learner watches a master and makes a first attempt at solving a problem. Practice is refining and perfecting the use of acquired knowledge. Applied to the classroom, situated learning is not only reflecting upon and drawing implications from previous experiences, but immersion in and with the experience.

Elements of Situated LearningSituated learning places the learner in the center of an instructional process consisting of content the facts and processes of the task; context the situations, values, beliefs and environmental cues by which the learner gains and master content; community the group with which the learner will create and negotiate meaning of the situation; and participation the process by which learners working together and with experts in as social organizations solve problems related to everyday life circumstances (Brown, Collins, and Daguid 1989; Lave 1988; Shor 1987) Learning becomes a social process dependent upon transactions with other placed within a context that resembles as closely as possible the practice environment. Situated learning in the classroom integrates content, context, community, and participation.

Content. Situated learning emphasizes higher-order thinking processes rather than the acquisition of facts independent of the real lives of the participants (Choi and Hannafin, 1995). Content situated in learners daily experiences becomes the means to engage in reflective thinking (Shor, 1996). Retention of content is not the goal of learning. By placing content with the daily transactions of life, the instructor, in dialogue with learners, negotiates the meaning of content, frames it in terms of the issues and concerns within the learners, provides opportunities for learners to cooperate in investigating problem situations, and makes content applicable to the ways in which learners will approach the environment. Application rather than retention becomes the mark of a sound instructional encounter.

Context. Learning in context refers to building an instructional environment sensitive to the tasks learners complete to be successful in practice. Context embraces notions of power relationships, politics, competing priorities, the learners interaction with the values, norms, culture of community, organization or family (Courtney, Speck, and Holtorf, 1996). Boud (1994) describes context as drawing out and using experiences as a means of engaging with and intervening in the social, psychological, and material environment in which the learner is situated. Context is not just bringing life events to the classroom but re-experiencing events from multiple perspectives. Learners are in the experience rather than being external to the event (Wilson, 1993). Context provides the setting for examining experience; community provides the shaping of the learning.

Community of Practice. Through community, learners interpret, reflect, and form meaning. Community provides the setting for the social interaction needed to engage in dialogue with others to see various and diverse perspectives on any issue (Brown, 1994). Community is the joining of practice with analysis and reflection to share the tacit understandings and to create share knowledge from among the participants in learning opportunity. Community also refers to the body of knowledge created by an individual entering an area of inquiry. Jacobson (1996) identifies practitioner knowledge and cultural knowledge as communities in which a new member must learn to perceive, interpret, and communicate experience through interaction with other members of that community. Community provides the opportunity for the interaction; participation provides the learner with the meaning of the experience.

Participation. Participation describes the interchange of ideas, attempts at problem solving, and active engagement of learners with each other and with the materials of instruction. It is the process of interaction with others that produces and establishes meaning systems among learners. From a situated cognition perspective, learning occurs in a social setting through dialogue with others community. Learning becomes a process of reflecting, interpreting, and negotiating meaning among the participants of a community. Learning is the sharing of narratives produced by a group of learners. Orner (1996) shares her story illustrating how narratives arising from the live experiences of students become the data for dialogue and situate the meaning of content for the class. Learning comes about through reflecting on experience, engaging in dialogue with others, and exploring the meaning of events in a particular space and time; ie.,the context.