VYGOTSKY CONTRIBUTION TO

CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
LEV VYGOTSKY

 Learning is construction
of knowledge by learner
through social interaction

 Learner does not develop

and learn

 Learner learns and

develop
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY
 Social interactions are critical; knowledge is co-constructed
between two or more people.
 Self-regulation is developed through internalization
(developing an internal representation) of actions and
mental operations that occur in social interactions.
 Human development occurs through the cultural
transmission of tools (language, symbols).
 Language is the most critical tool. Language develops from
social speech, to private speech, to covert (inner) speech.
 The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the difference
between what children can do on their own and what they
can do with assistance from others. Interactions with adults
and peers in the ZPD promote cognitive development
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
 Social process is central to learning and cognitive
development. Knowledge is a social construct.
 Social Aspect includes language, culture, everyday
practices, material objects, interpersonal
interaction, peer interaction, tools and symbols.
 Cognition is socially situated.
 Learning and development occur as a result of
internalization from outside ( social background)
 Cultural tools are used for meditiating and
construction of knowledge.. which may be physical
or psychological.
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
Learner cannot do

Learner can do with guidance

(Zone of proximal
Development)

Learner
can do
unaided
 The ZPD refers to the difference between
what a learner can achieve without help and
what he can achieve with guidance and
encouragement from a more knowledgeable
person. Thus, the term “proximal” refers
those skills that the learner is “close” to
mastering.
 "the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level of
potential development as determined through
problem-solving under adult guidance, or in
SCAFFOLDING

 Check prior knowledge

 Break down task into
steps
 Use peer knowledge
and experience
 Have high expectation
from the students
 Support by scaffold
TEACHING STRATEGIES
 Teacher gives students simplified version of tanks
and gradually increases the complexity.
 Describe or illustrate the lessons in multiple ways
to enhance their understanding
 Giving students a model or exemplar of
assignment they are to complete
 In English, giving vocabulary lessons before
starting the lessons.
 Connecting new lessons with the previously learnt
knowledge
 Describing the purpose, direction to be followed
and goals that they are to achieve in learning
Activity
 BRUNER CONTRIBUTION TO
CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
 outcomes of learning include
not just the concepts,
categories, and problem-solving
procedures invented previously
by the culture, but also the
ability to "invent" these things
for oneself.
 Cognitive growth involves an
interaction between basic
human capabilities and
"culturally invented technologies
that serve as amplifiers of these
capabilities."
 The aim of education should be
to create autonomous learners
(i.e., learning to learn).
 THREE MODES OF REPRESENTATION
 Enactive (0 - 1 years)
 This appears first. It involves encoding action based
information and storing it in our memory. For example, in the
form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby might
remember the action of shaking a rattle
 Iconic (1 - 6 years)
 This is where information is stored visually in the form of
images (a mental picture in the mind’s eye). For some, this
is conscious; others say they don’t experience it. This may
explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often
helpful to have diagrams or illustrations to accompany
verbal information.
 Symbolic (7 years onwards)
 This develops last. This is where information is
stored in the form of a code or symbol, such as
language. This is the most adaptable form of
representation, for actions & images have a fixed
relation to that which they represent.
 In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored primarily
as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol
systems.
 Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective
when faced with new material to follow a progression
from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this
holds true even for adult learners.
 Bruner's work also suggests that a learner even of a very
young age is capable of learning any material so long as
the instruction is organized appropriately.
 Bruner’s work suggests the importance of language as it
increases the ability to deal with abstract concepts.
Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free
an individual from the constraints of dealing only with
appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible
cognition.
DISCOVERY LEARNING
 Bruner believes that students must be active—
they must identify key principles for themselves
rather than simply accepting teachers’
explanations.
 This process has been called DISCOVERY
LEARNING
 The teacher provide the students with what
they need without organizing it for them.
 Learner builds on past experience
 Students interact with environment
 Discovers facts and relationships on own
 Students create own construct of knowledge
through narrative Teaching method
 Inquiry based process
 Focuses on learning through experience
 Inductive Reasoning – using specific examples to
formulate a general principle.
DAVID ASUBEL CONTRIBUTION TO
CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
DAVID PAUL ASUBEL
 learning of new knowledge
relies on what is already
known. Construction of
knowledge begins with our
observation and recognition
of events and objects through
concepts we already have
 stresses the importance of
reception and meaningful
learning.
 understanding concepts,
principles, and ideas are
achieved through deductive
reasoning
 MEANINGFUL LEARNING
 According to meaningful learning theory, to learn
meaningfully, individuals must relate new knowledge to
relevant concepts they already know. New knowledge
must interact with the learner’s knowledge structure.
 Meaningful learning involves a recognition of the links
between concepts, it thus has the privilege of being
transferred to long-term memory.
 The most crucial element in meaningful learning is how
the new information is integrated into the old knowledge
structure.
 Knowledge is hierarchically organized; that new
information is meaningful to the extent that it can be
related (attached, anchored) to what is already known.
 ADVANCED ORGANISER
 Ausubel advocates the use of advance organizers as a mechanism
to help to link new learning material with existing related ideas.
 Advance organizers are helpful in the way that they help the
process of learning when difficult and complex material are
introduced.
 Ausubel’s theory of advance organizers fall into two categories:
 Comparative Organizers - The main goal of comparative
organizers is to activate existing schemas and is used as
reminders to bring into the working memory of what you may
not realize is relevant.
 Expository Organizers “In contrast, expository organizers
provide new knowledge that students will need to understand
the upcoming information”.
AUSUBEL’S MODEL OF MEANINGFUL LEARNING
MEANINGFUL RECEPTION THEORY LEARNING
A concerned with how
students learn large
amounts of meaningful
material from verbal/textual
presentations in a learning
activities
Meaningful
Reception
Theory
Meaningful learning results
when new information is
acquired by linking the new
information in the learner's
own cognitive structure
Learning is based on the
representational,
superordinate and
combinatorial processes that
occur during the reception of
information
A primary process in learning
is subsumption in which new
material is related to relevant
ideas in the existing
cognitive structure on a non-
verbatim basis (previous
knowledge)
PROCESS IN MEANINGFUL RECEPTION LEARNING
 Derivative subsumption - Describes the situation in
which the new information pupils learn is an instance or
example of a concept that pupils have already learned
 Correlative subsumption – Learners collect new
information that extends from their existing knowledge
base. It enriches the higher-level concept
 Superordinate learning - You already knew a lot of
examples of the concept, but you did not know the
concept itself until it was taught to pupils.
 Combinatorial learning - It describes a process by which
the new idea is derived from another idea that is comes
from his previous knowledge