I have a 18 year old intern student, Jo Turner-Attwell, working forme. When I was in Vienna at the ECER conference, I left her the task oflooking at Vygotky’s work in relation to Personal LearningEnvironments. This is part of the research we are undertaking in the Mature-ip project. And here is her summary. Pretty good start I think!
“Vygotsky died in 1934, almost a century ago,however his theories are becoming more relevant than they ever wereduring the course of his live. In particular the Zone of ProximalDevelopment and the theories developed from this idea are moreimportant than ever before. In addition to this his strong themes ofthe importance of social interaction and learning with assistance arebeing more closely looked at.
The zone of proximal development is the areabetween what an individual can achieve on their own and what they canachieve with assistance. Vigotsky’s definition is ‘the distance betweenthe actual developmental level as determined by independent problemsolving and the level of potential development as determined throughproblem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with morecapable peers’.It is easy to understand through the idea of school text books. Thosethat are not too hard and not too easy, so challenging whilst not beingbeyond a students capabilities, are the optimal level of difficulty andright in the zone of proximal development. Vygotsky believed thatlearning shouldn’t follow development, but rather should lead it. Astudent should constantly be reaching slightly beyond theircapabilities rather than working within them.
The method of scaffolding has been developed fromVgotsky’s theories. This is the concept that teachers or trainers,should simply assist their student until they are ready to act alone. Agood example of this is a bike, moving from stabilisers, to someonerunning behind, to riding alone. This overlaps with the concept of azone of proximal development, where some forms of scaffolding work forsome people and not for others. Zones of proximal development vary andoften different types of scaffolding are needed to reach the same goal.Vygotsky’s theories suggest students should lead their learning andteachers simply assist and rather than judging students on what theyknow in standardised tests, learning should be done through lookingclosely at their zone of proximal development. This allows learning tobe developed around the needs of the learner, rather than learnerstrying to fit their needs into current standardised curriculums. Thisis particularly important as the current examination system can fail tosupport students who struggle in examination conditions, or excel inthe practical side of learning.
This links in well with the concept of PersonalLearning Environments or PLEs. The idea that the student themselvescreates a virtual space to manage their own learning, whilst allowingroom for social networking as a support system. This could combine theinformal areas of learning with a more academic e-portfolio typesystem. This in theory is a fantastic idea, particularly in the way ofsocial networking, which I do think it is important teachers begin torecognise more as a good teaching support method. However I do believethat this would have to be specific to formal learning. Types ofinformal learning would continue on separate social networking siteswhere students could interact privately among themselves. During my ALevel studies it was not uncommon for teachers to assist their studentsthrough current informal online social networking systems as teachersbegan to take on a more friend-like role. However for my 14 year oldsister this sort of student teacher relationship would be unthinkable.Not because I feel it would be inappropriate but more because I knowthat she would see it as an invasion of her privacy. This need forprivacy in addition to support I believe would also exist withinemployer and employee relationships. This can clearly be seen fromcurrent issues of employers judging people’s employability on theirfacebook sites. I know I personally present myself differently upon myfacebook site to the way I like to be seen in my work environment, butstill feel I benefit from areas where I can communicate with myemployer online, currently I use skype. Therefore I believe there isthe need to keep formal learning environments and informal learningenvironments apart. Limiting the room for PLEs to grow.
A more significant problem I had was how onestandardised PLE system could be used to support different types ofstudents, particularly those who were better with practical studies. Ifthe idea of a Personal Learning Environment was that an individualinvented it, then how could teachers assist with the development ofthis? How could it be standardised? Also surely teaching this wouldturn it into formal education and would students still see it as theirown space, and could teachers cope with only having access to certainareas? How could student that need more help receive that help througha similar model to a student that needed less?
However this is only one area where I feel thatVgotsky’s theories are relevant. I believe that judging students ontheir zone of proximal development and their potential for learningcould allow students that struggle under exam pressure and to workwithin time limits to receive the grades they deserve. I know manystudents far smarter than myself who when put in an exam situationstruggled and received lower grades than me. My mind being bettersuited to the remembering of large amounts of data, rather than menecessarily understanding the work better. When first asked thequestion of how we could measure this I drew a blank. But in fact partof Vygotsky’s theories is less capable students being shown things bymore capable students, therefore why couldn’t students understanding bemeasured on their ability to convey the information they have learnt,maybe even after being shown how by a more able other. Allowing astudent to reach the top of their Zone Of Proximal development. In myown admission this also has its flaws in that some of the mostintelligent people struggle with teaching and I’m no educational expertso do not have the answers to these flaws. However this did lead metowards ideas of widening the way people are assessed, meaning ongoingassessment of a students progress and a students ability teach couldsimply make up parts of achieving a grade along with traditionalexaminations and coursework. If informal learning is as important asformal learning varying the way students are assessed can only work intheir favour. However this does again lead into difficulties, as withanything, in that students may receive closer grades, and it may bedifficult to differentiate from students who previously would have beenplaced in very different catorgories.
Also at the root of many of the differentiationof students who may excel in informal learning but not in formal is thesubjects that are classified as worth studying. What is worth learning?I found this question upon one of the sites on which Vygotsky’s workwas studied and it made me think. School curriculums are so very narrowin comparison with the potential in university courses where theopportunities of what to study are endless. Technology in particular Ifeel is under represented. When I first came to Pontydysgu I had noidea what a learning platform or PLE were and couldn’t work many of thestandard systems on a Mac. These technological systems seen at theforefront of education are barely heard about within education systems.In a technological age I cannot help but wonder why this sort ofimportant knowledge is not being taught, why students aren’t studyingthe more complex area of technology. We use technology everyday,probably know more than many of our teachers, yet it is not part of anystandardised curriculums, it is all informal. I had to quickly learnhow to edit audio and video, work a spreadsheet, funnily enough mainlythrough scaffolding techniques. Audio and video in particular is thekind of technology that only my peers who learnt informally would beable to do. This is most likely because of the lack of knowledge ofteachers, not as a criticism of them but rather an emphasis on the factthat the technology we use so often today has mostly come about sincemany of them finished learning. This to me suggests the need for somesort of lifelong learning system, which again the PLE can support.Although the problems of standardising appear again, there is clearly aneed for the general population to have a way to keep up to date withfast changing technologies as technology is moving on before it has theopportunity to be properly implemented. Even in my sixthform a studenthimself bought in a wireless rooter due to the lack of one, so thatstudents could use their laptops and access the school network.Although moving a long way from Vgotsky the roots in his theories canstill be seen in that social interaction is needed for this sort oftechnology to be fully accessible to everyone. Different people willneed different methods to help them grasp these sort of technologicalsystems, particularly as I believe teachers would struggle as much as,if not more, than students.”
