Socio-constructivist

**Team members:** Caroline Magunje Gerald Henzinger Helen Nkabala Nambalirwa
 * Socio-constructivist Learning Theory **

**1. Introduction ** Vygotsky the key theorist of social constructivism earned a law degree from Moscow University in 1917. His studies included philosophy, psychology and literature. In 1924 he presented a paper at the Russian Psycho–neurological Congress. This led to his joining the Psychological Institute of Moscow University. His work was banned for political reasons and was not to emerge until the 1950's. Vygotsky lived between 1896-1934.  His work has formed a foundation for constructivist theories. By the time of his writing, Russia was still a closed community and his books were burned from the public by the dictator Joseph Stalin for political reasons. This explains why Vygotsky's w ork reached the west more slowly as compared to the works of Piaget's(1896-1980). Vygotsky died of Tuberculosis at an early age of 37, leaving the theory incomplete but his works continued with the help of his students Alexander Luria and Alexei Leontiev who worked together to create the body of work known as the Vygotskian approach.

**Main theorist ** Vygotsky. **Important to Note**: Leont'ev based on Vygotsky's Mediation Triangle to found the 1st generation of Activity Theory. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">This later influenced Engeström's 2nd Generation Activity theory with a further modification of the triangle <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">**Others who have been Influenced by** Socio Constructivism **include:** **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Wenger who founded **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> the Situated Learning also known as Community of Practice. **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Sometimes the the following are considered to be Soci-Constructivists: ** **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Piaget:- **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">but he is more concerned about knowing other than the learning process so he is more of a Cognitive-Constructivist. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Social constructionism is sometimes called: <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">a movement, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">at other times a position, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">a theory, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">a theoretical orientation, <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">an approach; psychologists remain unsure of its status (Stam, 2001:294**).** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">- Social constructivism focuses on the connections between people and the social cultural context in which they act and interact in shared experiences (Crawford 1996)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">But his Students: - **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Luria and Leont'ev founded the Vygotskian school.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Pask:- **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">because he calls for a mediating tool but practically he is more concerned with what is happening in the mind by asking the question Why? from the How?
 * 2. Definition of Socio-constructivist Learning Theory**

- Learning Impacts development:- according to Vygotsky, the child can do more in collaboration that he can do independently. (Vygotsky 1987:168,9,216). - Learning occurs in a meaningful context :- The teacher should create a context in which students can become engaged) - Teachers guide (Mediation) students (Advises and encourages them think more)  -Social constuctrictivist perspective focus on the interdependence of social and individual processes in the co-construction of knowledge. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">- Development cannot be separated from social cultural context: - the Social cultural context influences more than just attitudes and beliefs but also profoundly influences how a particular group thinks and what they think. Vygotsky was interested in the inter-relationships between the macro and micro social influences. <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">- Central to a Vygotskian perspective of development is the understanding that learning is a culturally based social endeavour. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">- "Culture creates special forms of behaviour, changes the functioning of mind, constructs new levels in the developing system of human behaviour...In the process of historical development, a social being changes the means and methods of his behaviour, transforms natural inclinations and functions, develops and creates new, specifically cultural, forms of <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">behavior"(Vygotsky, 1983). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">- Language plays a central role in mental Development:- Gave strategies to assist children to help them further their intellectual capacities (e.g. Scaffolding:- Children’s should be guided /assisted through explanation, demonstration and work). For Vygotsky, learning from others more competent was a capstone to his theory. He even criticized Piaget’s position that Children’s development must precede learning because for him, the development process lags behind the learning.
 * 2. Key principles of Socio-constructivist Learning Theory**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">-Vygotsky’s work emphasizes the processes necessary for children to regulate their own internal and external behavior. (Children can draw what they are experiencing, talk to each other about it, write about it enables them to move towards being independent learners

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Central to a Vygotskian perspective of development is the understanding that learning ( and hence teaching) is a culturally based social endeavour. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">GENERAL GENETIC LAW- higher cognitive functions, thinking, reasoning and problem solving begin as real relations between people (interpsychologically) before being internalised (intrapsychologically) (Hardman, n.d.).
 * 3. Analysis of the learning theory of Vygotsky**

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Vygotskian theory stipulates that the development of the child's higher mental processes depends on the presence of mediating agents in the child's interaction with the environment. Vygotsky himself primarily emphasised symbolic tools-mediators appropriated by children in the context of particular socuocltural activities, the most important of which he considered to be formal education (Kuzolin) The theory focus on the interdependence of social and individual process in the co-construction of knowledge

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Vygotsky emphasizes the use of cultural artefacts or tools in learningKnowledge is co-constructed primarily through semiotic mediation using **language** <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Language therefore serves as a tool in problem solving <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Vygotsky’s **mediation** is understood as the guidance of a more expert peer/teacher to a novice, the central premise being that student accomplish more with assistance than on their own <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Meaning is not something that resides in objects rather meaning is something that we derive through interaction with others. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Guidance should be done within **a space** where learning can fruitfully occur; leaning is only developmental if it is located in the **Zone of Proximal Development**. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The **Zone of proximal development** is the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.(Vygotsky, 1978). <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">Actual development-mental development retrospectively <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">ZPD- mental development prospectively. Zone of proximal development media type="youtube" key="rX8lRh1u5iE?version=3" height="217" width="332"

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; display: block; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Scaffolding **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">is a metaphor to describe the type of assistance offered by a teacher or peer to support learning. <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">It is a bridge used to build upon what students already know to arrive at something they do not know <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">When the student takes responsibility for or masters the task, the teacher begins the process of fading/ withdrawing. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">If scaffolding is properly administered it will act as an enabler and not as a disabler (Hardman, n.d.).

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- Over emphasis on collaboration and guidance have potential pitfalls if facilitators are too helpful in some cases. Some critics argue that some children may become lazy and expect help when they can do something on their own. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">- Social constructionists argue that the world we experience and the people we find ourselves to be are first and foremost the product of social processes. Neither God nor individual consciousness but society itself is the prime mover, the root of experience (Cromby et al, 1999:4) <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;">- The theory also tends to suppose that without the other, learning cannot take place. It ignores the individual’s potential to explorer personal potentials in the absence of the other (Stam, 2001). if I may risk to say it S.C tends to encourage laziness and dependence. However, it does not seem that Vygotsky is against exploration of individual exploration that is the reason he offers a window for the MKO to explore how much the novice knows, and only encourages that the novice be helped to reacher a higher order function. We therefore do not seem to agree with this critique. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">- Adelbert Jenkins criticizes the constructionist enterprise for, among other things, its failure to distinguish content from process. On his account, the content of the self differs radically across cultures but the processes that presumably generate and maintain that self are universal (Stam 2001). <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: justify;">**5. Relation of Vygotsky's learning theory to the use of ICTs in Education** One popular implementation of socioconstructivism in ICT is an Learning Management System(LMS). These Systems provide different tools for the learners. The teacher can implement the learning in a scaffolded way, just for instance Chat, Forum and others. The most famous LMS is Moodle, which was invented by Dougiamas(Dougiamas,1998)
 * 4. Raise some of the key critiques of this theory**

Bad example of seocial contructivist implementation in a class setting. This Video shows a classic teaching situation where the theacher is outside of the ZPD. In the first sequence, the teacher is above the Zone of proximal development. The students cant follow the teacher. In the second sequence, the teacher is teaching below the ZPD of the students. They already know what the teacher is teaching. media type="youtube" key="I9CnZoFUlT0?version=3" height="286" width="346"

This Video is an example of an implementation of socio constructivism in ICT using the Learning Management System Moodle at the Catholic university of Mozambique. The first sequernce shows the bad example of an IT Course and the second sequence shows a good example of a scaffolded course. media type="custom" key="10073409" width="120" height="120"

- <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">ZPD is relevant because students have a level they reach with assistance from the other. This Assistance can be in form of instructions - <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">Students must be availed with activities that create a context and provide expert interaction. I.e. the expert can monitor the student’s progress. - <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">Our E-learning courses should be developed to encourage students reach their full potential of the ZPD. I.e. Tasks must be set to test the different levels of ZPD. First the individual independent level and second, by means of Assistance. Include all the references you cite, using the Harvard style. Crawford, K. (1996) Vygotsikoan approavhes in human development in the information era. Educattional Studies in Mathematics Vol 31: 43-62. From []. com Dougiamas, M.,Taylor, C. Interpretive Analysis of an internet based course constructed using a new course work tool :Moodle. Hardman, J.(n.d.) The development impact of communicative interaction. In Hook, Franks and Bauer (eds) Communication, Culture and Social Change: The social Psychological Perspective : Palgrave [] Kuzolin, A. (1990) Vygotsky's Psychology: A Biography of ideas. Cambridge, M.A.Havard University Vygotsky, L.S.,(1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, M.A.Havard University Press.
 * 6. Recommendations of where this theory may provide a useful explanation for how learning occurs when using particular ICT tools in specific ways**
 * 7. References**