Presented by Sara Schaner & Mary Fritz
Background Info
November 5th, 1896 born in Orsha,
Belorussia
Was raised in the city of Gomel
“Little Professor”
1917 – Graduated from Moscow
University
1917 - 1924 – Taught at two schools,
diagnosed with a disease
1924 – Phenomenal lecture &
Marriage to Rosa Smekhova
June 10th, 1934 – Died at the age of 38
1936 - 1958 – Works banned
Orsha
Gomel
Vygotsky’s Theory of Social
Development
Stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the
development of cognition
Social learning tends to precede development
He argued that, “learning is a necessary and universal
aspect of the process of developing culturally organized,
specifically human psychological functions” (The
Educational Theory of Lev Vygotsky, 2010))
Vygotsky developed a socio- cultural approach to
cognitive development.
Social Influence on Cognitive
Development
Vygotsky believed that young children are curious and actively
involved in their own learning and the discovery and development
of new schema, placing emphasis on social contributions to the
process of development
Important learning by the child occurs through social interaction
with a skillful tutor
The tutor may model behaviors and/ or provide verbal
instructions for the child. He refers to this as co-operative or
collaborative dialogue.
The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided
by the tutor then internalizes the info using it to guide or regulate
their own performance.
Cultural Sign System and
Psychological Tools
Vygotsky refers to tools of intellectual adaptation that allow children to use
the basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively, and these are
culturally determined.
He proposed that people create “psychological tools” to master their own
behavior
He refers to psychological tools:
Speech
Writing
Numbering System
Memory and memory aids
Through interaction within the socio-cultural environment, these are
developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes/strategies
which he refers to as Higher Mental Functions
Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic materials/abilities for
intellectual development.
Speech
The most important sign system is speech.
It frees our thought and attention from the immediate situation.
It enables us to reflect on the past and plan for the future.
Speech separate us from other species
Two types of speech
Egocentric speech is talking to themselves aloud- prevalent to 47
Inner-speech is a kind of silent dialogue we have with ourselves
Writing and Numbering
System
Writing enables people to keep permanent record of
information.
Numbering systems enables to quantify objects by sight
alone.
Two Principles of Vygotsky’s
Theory
Two main principles of Vygotsky’s work:
More Knowledgeable Other
Zone of Proximal Development
More Knowledgeable Other
MKO: refers to someone who has a better
understanding or a higher ability level than the learner,
with respects to a particular task, process, or concept.
Vygotsky notes that the older adult or teacher is not
always the more knowledgeable one.
Zone of Proximal Development
ZPD is the concept that skills can be too difficult for a child to master
on his/her own, but can be done with guidance and encouragement
from a more knowledgeable person.
Related to the concept of MKO. This relates to the difference
between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can
achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.
Vygotsky sees the ZDP as the area where the most sensitive instruction
or guidance should be given- allowing the child to develop skills they
will then use on their own- developing higher mental functions
Vygotsky also views interaction with peers as an effective way of
developing skills and strategies
Memory
Growth of the mind is so strongly influenced by the
cultural line of development in the sign systems the
culture provides Memory aids: Psychological tools
Through his experiments in this field, he explored
children thinking led to metacognition- the awareness
people have of their own thought process aka
metamemory
Vygotsky’s Works
Educational Psychology
Mind in Society: The Development
of Higher Psychological Processes
Thought and Language
Our Research
We went to North Hills Preparatory School for our
observations and experiment.
We were researching Vygotsky’s theory on Memory and
how children used memory aids to help them recall
We paid attention to the use of inner-speech and egocentric speech
We paid attention to their ages and what Vygotsky says is
prevalent in specific age-groups
We paid attention to how each child organized the aids
Hypothesis
We hypothesize that the children will organize the
memory aids in four groups. Each group will have four
pictures. Animal, baby animal, food, and resting place.
We hypothesize that the children will use ego-centric
speech and inner speech to help them remember.
The older children will remember more than the
younger children.
Child One
3rd
Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 8
Amount of Time = 2:50
How Many Recalled = 16
put things into pairs:
milk and kitten
puppy and dog house
cat and cat castle
dog and bones
horse, foal, hay
barn, chicken coop, seeds,
chick, chicken
Child Two
2nd
Grade
Gender = Female
Age = 8
Amount of Time = 2:56
How Many Recalled = 13
Put everything into one line
across the table
Barn, coop, seeds, hen,
chick, doghouse, puppy,
bone, dog, cat, cat castle,
milk, kitten, horse, foal, hay
Child Three
1st
Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 7
Amount of Time = 0:40
How Many Recalled = 4
Just laid all the cards out
randomly on the table.
Child Four
4th
Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 10
Amount of Time = 1:08
How Many Recalled = 10
Put the cards into the order that we
hypothesized
Horse, foal, hay, barn
Dog, puppy, bones, doghouse
Cat, kitten, cat-castle, milk
Chicken, hen, seeds, chicken coop
Child Five
1st Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 6
Amount of Time = 1:04
How Many Recalled = 0
Did nothing.
Child Six
2nd Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 8
Amount of Time = 1:38
How Many Recalled = 11
Separated all the animals from
all of the objects.
Dog, Puppy, Cat, Kitten,
Horse, Foal, Chicken, Chick
Hay, Seeds, Bones, Milk,
Barn, Cat-Castle, Doghouse,
Chicken Coop
Child Seven
1st
Grade
Gender = Male
Age = 6
Amount of Time = 0:42
How Many Recalled = 6
Took the pile of cards into his
hands and then would look at
each card then flip the card
upside onto the table
Child Eight
Kindergarten
Horse, Barn, Foal, Hay
Gender = Male
Dog, Bones, Puppy
Age = 5
Cat and Kitten
Amount of Time = 1:37
Chick, Chicken, Chicken
Coop
How Many Recalled = 13
Milk and Seeds
Cat-Castle and Doghouse
Child Nine
2nd Grade
Cat, Kitten, Cat-Castle
Gender = Male
Horse, Hay, Foal, Barn
Age = 8
Chicken, Chick, Chicken
Coop
Amount of Time = 1:25
How Many Recalled = 14
Bone, Doghouse, Milk,
Seeds, Puppy, Dog
Child Ten
2nd Grade
Gender = Male
Put all the animals with
their home
Bone with the dog group
Age = 8
Hay with the horse group
Amount of Time = 1:14
milk and seeds
How Many Recalled = 8
Child Eleven
Horse and Foal
2nd Grade
Barn and Hay
Gender = Male
Chicken and Chick
Age = 7
Seeds and Bone
Amount of Time = 0:54
Cat and Kitten
How Many Recalled = 11
Doghouse and Chicken Coop
Dog and Puppy
Milk
Cat-Castle
Child Twelve
4th Grade
Gender = Female
Age = 9
Amount of Time = 0:47
How Many Recalled = 15
Put all the animals with
their food
All the living places in
another group
Results
1) Only one child used the grouping method that we
hypothesized
Some of the groups were consistent
Most of the children who recalled majority of the pictures,
organized the memory aids into a consistent group
2) Evidence of inner-speech and ego-centric speech.
3) Our data shows that this hypothesis was false.
BK
&
LV