The reception of Vygotsky in pedagogical literature for Norwegian teacher education (original) (raw)

vygotsky and the classroom

For many years it has been generally agreed that collaborative work in classrooms has positive cognitive and social outcomes. A myriad of research and discussion can be found on this: e.. In their book ' Group Work in the Primary Classroom' Galton and Williamson (1992) cite a number of experiments from the 1980s that provide empirical evidence for successful task completion through group work. Much of this research has its roots in the social-cognitive school of developmental psychology founded on the theories of psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934).

Vygotsky's theory in the classroom: Introduction

There seems to be a certain mystery in the current popularity of Vygotsky's ideas. Why does a theory developed in Moscow a few years after the Russian Revolution capture the imagination of European and American educators at the beginning of the 21 st century?

Vygotsky under debate: two points of view on school learning

Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 2013

Vygotsky's name has never been so evoked as it is at the present time, yet the educational scientific community faces an awkward situation. On the one hand, his works have been used as the basis for certain socioconstructivist school reforms that he would surely have completely disapproved of (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 211). On the other hand, the recent collection of his writings (Yvon & Zinchenko, 2012) and other works (Brossard, 1999, 2004; Schneuwly, 2008b) lead us to another interpretation, in which the internal evolution of didactic content is at the forefront of Vygotsky's precepts. Therefore, although it is unpleasant, we are confronted by different points of view on Vygotsky's work that need to be investigated and exposed. This article sets out to achieve that objective.

A Vygotskian perspective on teacher education

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2005

Contemporary teacher education demonstrates the continued use of competency-based, personality-based and inquiry-based approaches. These approaches are commonly regarded as representing alternative paradigms for designing curriculum and pedagogy. From a Vygotskian perspective, characterized by the use of bridging concepts relating individual functioning and personal development to sociocultural process and setting, these approaches may serve to provide elements for a more comprehensive paradigm of professional development. Drawing on Vygotskian theory, a teacher-education environment offers support to trainee teachers for developing a professional identity. A central element is that trainees explore the practice of teaching for its underlying public meanings and as these meaning relate to their own structures of personal meanings. Such an exploration involves the shaping and testing of personally-meaningful action in professional practice. Commitment to meanings found to be valid and practicable constitutes the core of professional identity. The task students face in developing professional identity on the basis of an assignment of meaning to teaching needs an appropriate teacher-education environment. These conditions are worked out from a Vygotskian perspective on professional development.

Vygotsky and Sociocultural Approaches to Teaching and Learning

Handbook of Psychology, Second Edition, 2012

Even though he was writing over 80 years ago, the work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky is still very relevant to educational psychology today, especially his theories on the interrelationship of individual and social processes in learning and development. In this chapter, we look at Vygotsky's historical background and describe the development of his theoretical framework and methodological approach, focusing on his reliance on the dialectical approach of Marx and Engels. Central to Vygotsky's work is the examination of the unification of thinking processes with language processes. Vygotsky spends most of his last and major work Thinking and Speech describing the nature of verbal thinking -the entity that issues from that unification, and its key role in the development of higher psychological processes. We describe a central, but little known, aspect of his work, the internal system of meaning that is created through the use of language in social interaction and that is central to concept formation. Having described Vygotsky's theory and methodology, we provide an overview of ways that researchers following in his tradition have applied them in practice, particularly in literacy and second language learning research.

Why Vygotsky? : A look at alternative methods of teaching and learning in the English classroom

2008

This paper describes an alternative approach to the teaching of concepts related to the English Curriculum. It combines a shift in the theory of school teaching with psychological theory development. This research was conducted at a private, Catholic Secondary School in Johannesburg over a period of almost six months with a class of twenty Grade Ten students. The research was designed in response to the fact that many traditional, ‘rote’ teaching methods are not effective in the classroom and that an alternative needs to be found. This research aimed at testing the theories of the Sociohistorical school in order to ascertain whether they could provide clues as to methods that might be more conducive to real learning. Vygotsky’s (1978) theoretical construct of the Zone of Proximal Development, Hedegaard’s (1996) idea of a ‘double move’ and the ideas posited by Wells (1996, 1999) and Tharp and Gallimore (1988, 1992) form the theoretical basis for these ‘alternative’ teaching methods. ...