Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching

(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora

Faculty, College of Education

Free Elec a (Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching)

Module 7
COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES
(Lesson 2: Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development)

A. INTRODUCTION

The term cognitive learning derives its meaning from the word cognition, defined
by an electronic dictionary, as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.’ Thus, learners are viewed
to learn by using their brains. In the process, they are actively engaged in mental activities
involving perception, thinking, and relying on their memory as they process new
experiences.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this Module, challenge yourself to attain the following learning development

theories.

• Explain the sociocultural theory of cognitive development

• Discuss the major terms and concepts related to the theory; and
• Cite classroom implications of the theory.
•

DISCUSSION

Sociocultural Theory
The sociocultural theory o cognitive development was formulated by Lev
Semenovich Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist. Its major argument is that social
interaction, mediated through language, is a key factor in the child’s development.
From the child’s interaction with others, concepts and social behavior are formed
(social level), and he or she later thinks internally. The theory underscores his belief
that children thinking is affected by their knowledge of the social community, which
Vygotsky considered as learned from either technical or psychological cultural tools
(Vygotsky, 1978) By cultural tools; it meant real tools (like measuring instruments,
calculators, etc.) and symbol systems (like numbers, language, etc.) that allow people
to communicate, think, solve problems, and create knowledge (Woolfolk, 2016).

1
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

The Role of Social Interaction

Vygotsky emphasized the significance of social interaction in one’s thinking.
Children learn from the more knowledgeable other (MKOs), which include parents,
teachers, adults and more advanced peers. An MKO is anyone who has a higher skill
level than the learner in terms of the specific task to perform. For instance, a child who is
guided by verbal clues by the mother learns how to tear off the plastic covering of the
cookies. In another case, children playing “Chinese garter” abide by the rules that they
agree with. This is called a co-constructed process as the children negotiated to create
an acceptable rule on how to play the game.
The Role of Language
Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes that language plays a central role in the theory of
human cognitive development. Language plays multiple roles, including culturally shaping
the overt behavior of individuals as well as influencing their covert behavior, such as
thinking (Burkholder & Pelaez, 2000). Through language, human cognitive development
and higher mental functions are initiated from social communications. As people engage
in social activities, they are involved in mental and communicative functions (Vygotsky,
1986).
The three stages of speech development were identified by Vygotsky (Johnson,
2014) These are as follows:

2
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

1. Social or External speech (Pre-intellectual). At this stage (birth to approximately age

3), thinking is not related to speech at all. Instead, thinking is primarily in the form of
images, emotions, and impressions. Speech only occurs on the external or social level to
express a desire or to convey simple emotions such as shouting or crying. For instance,
a child would tell “Dede” or milk if hungry. At this stage, speech is merely a tool to make
things happen in the external world.
2. Egocentric speech. At this stage (approximately ages 3-7) children think out loud or
talk to themselves as they are doing something. For instances, as Paul plays with his toy
car and it does not run, he tells himself “Sira na” or “It’s destroyed”. Called egocentric
speech, it is used to guide behavior and help to solve problems. It is an important part of
the transition to inner speech and more sophisticated thinking.
3. Inner speech. Inner speech is soundless speech or thought. Here, speech becomes
internalized and is used to guide thinking and behavior. It eventually leads to higher level
and more complex types of thinking.
Zone of Proximal Development
One major feature of Vygotsky’s theory is the zone of proximal development (ZPD)
as illustrated by Wheeler (2013) the figure below. He argued that anytime, children find
difficulties in performing tasks or problems posed to them as they are not yet matured
enough to handle them. With the guidance of the MKOs, like their parents or elder
siblings, they could perform the task. Scaffolding, the provision of cues, clues, modeling,
and demonstration of MKO, can assist the children in successfully performing the task.
The goal of the ZPD is to help the child move from the level of the current independent
performance (the competence demonstrated to do a task alone) to the level of potential
performance (the competence achieved with the guidance of others).

3
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

For instance, a difficult word is used in a sentence. Asked about its meaning, the
children could not provide the meaning on their own. When the teacher reminds them that
the context or the neighboring words or phrases could reveal the meaning, they begin
giving synonyms or related words to the difficult word. The teacher’s reminder scaffolded
the children to arrive at the correct answer.
Teaching Implications of Vygotsky’s Theory
The theory of sociocultural learning has greatly influenced practices in facilitating
learning Vygotsky’s theory promotes learning contexts in which students play an active
role in learning. His theory requires that the teacher and student are collaborators in the
learning process, with the teacher as facilitator or guide in learner’s construction of
knowledge and development of skills. The process makes learning a reciprocal
experience for both the teacher and learners.
Citing research findings (e.g. John-Steiner & Mann , 2003; Weeb, 2008; Slavin,
2014), Slavin (2018) proposed the following teaching practices for consideration by the
facilitator of learning. In the use of ZPD, teachers can organize classroom activities in the
following ways:
1. Instruction can be planned to provide practice within ZPD for individual children or
groups of children. For example, hints and prompts that helped children during a
preassessment could form the basis of instructional activities.
2. Scaffolding provides hints and prompts at different levels. In scaffolding, the adult does
not simplify the task, but the role of the learner is simplified “through the graduated
intervention of the teacher”.
3.Cooperative learning activities can be planned with groups of children at different levels
who can help each other to learn.

4
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

Moreover, Karpov and Haywood (1998) recognized that for the curriculum to be
developmentally appropriate, the teacher must plan activities that encompass not only
what children are capable of doing on their own but what they can learn with the help of
others.

LEARNING ACTIVITY/ ASSESSMENT TASK

Activity 1: Tell whether the statements depicts practices supportive of cognitive

development according to the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky. Write S (supportive) if the
stated action support s cognitive development, NS is not supportive. Write your answer
on the space provided before each number.
______1. Father models to his son how to saw wood.
______2. Mrs. Reyes permits the learners to use trial an and error to solve a difficult task.
______3. Mr. Cruz requests Jose’s parents to tutor their son.
______4. Kenneth seeks the help of his friend, Mario, the math wizard, to teach him to
divide.
______5. Ann asks why Mom has to peel the carrot; her mom has no time to explain.
______6. After one example of adding binomial, Mr. Agnes gives board exercises.
______7. Instead of confiscating cellphones, Mr. Cruz uses them to test spelling among
learners.
______8. Expensive toys bought by the mother are just for display, not for her child’s
play.
______9. Miss Melad groups the class by two’s, with members critiquing each other’s
work.
______10. Mr. Rivad relies on peer tutors in enhancing poor learner’s achievement.

5
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

CHALLENGE
1. “Playing house” is part of kids’ childhood experiences. How beneficial is it in cognitive
development?

2. Research has shown that learners from low-income groups are at a disadvantage
because parents cannot provide educational toys and entertainment media. How
important are these technological tools at an early age?

3. Recall your past teachers whom you labeled as good teachers. What were their
practices that could be labeled as scaffolding? How were these helpful in understanding
difficult lessons?

Feedback

How did you go so far with this module?

The concepts and principles of Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning theory found

credence in many experiments. Tutoring as a form of scaffolding is an effective
instructional intervention. In the study of Wood et al. (1976) for instance, 3-, 4-, and 5-yr-
olds were tutored in the task of constructing a pyramid for complex, interlocking
constituent blocks. The results indicate that some of the properties of an interactive
system of exchange in which the tutor operates with an implicit theory of the learner’s
acts to recruit his attention, reduces degrees of freedom in the task to manageable limits,
maintains “direction” in the problem solving, marks critical features, controls frustration,
and demonstrates solutions when the learner can recognize them.
Meanwhile, the role of the advanced Iranian English as Foreign Language (EFL)
learners’ private speech production characterized as being the externalization of the
process of reasoning during carrying out reasoning-gap tasks was tested (Mirzaee &
Maftoon, 2016). While performing the reasoning-gap task, the EFL learners produced four

6
Module in Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
(Free Elec a) Dr. Mylene C. Padora
Faculty, College of Education

types of private speech—repetition, translation, filler, and question—in both their L1 and
L2, which enhanced learners’ reasoning. The finding supported the earlier assertion that
private speech plays a mediational role problem-solving and self-regulatory processes.

The scoring for your activities and assessment tasks will be rated using a rubric.

Summary

The theory of sociocultural learning provides insights useful to the teacher. Expected as
individual who is more knowledgeable in the classroom, the teacher can do much to help
learners achieve in school. The goal is for the learners to reach the ZPD through the
various scaffolds provided to them, especially for tough lessons. In the process, teachers
should communicate with the learners in an understandable manner as language guides
their thinking.

Suggested Readings

If you want to have more exercises on the topics in this module, you may log on to
the following links;

https://youtu.be/SsmwTelZvlc
https://cambridgecommunity.org.uk/professional-development/gswmeta/index.html
https://www.activelylearn.com.post/metacognition

References

Goh, C.C. (2008). Metacognitive Instruction for Second Language listening development
theory, practice and research implications. RELC Journal, 39(2), 188-213
Liu, X.L., & C. Goh (2006), Improving second language listening: Awareness and
involvement. In T.S.C. Farrell (ed.), Language Teacher Research in Asia (Alexandria, VA:
TESOL):91-106