Vocab Exposure/ Assessments/ Peer-Peer Collaboration

Vocab

The earlier sections of the chapter caused me to think a lot about laying the early foundations of concept development through exposure to stories and vocabulary words, particularly words that are beyond children's immediate understanding.  I found that many of Vygotsky's claims reinforced my thinking about vocabulary instruction through whole group book readings in early childhood settings.  It had planned to write my entire blog post about making a case for more robust and meaningful vocabulary exposure/instruction in the early grades through the medium of combining storybook readings (to first expose children to the words and concepts) and then play-based collaboration (to facilitate some form of early internalization of the words and concepts children were exposed to in stories).  It feels to me like in a lot of educational settings, play is the missing link that can facilitate a more effective mechanism for facilitating the understanding and internalization of concepts. Play, I think, could be a really effective means for obtaining what Vygotsky calls "the mastery of living knowledge" instead of "the learning of dead and empty verbal schemes."

Could both exposure to a broad swathe of vocabulary and their reinforcement through play lay a foundation that helps avoid the verbalism that Vygotsky notes as an early barrier to learning scientific concepts? Could this be an effective way of paving the way for the "saturation with the concrete" that is needed for the learning of scientific concepts.  

Later in the chapter, Vygotsky notes that children aren't really ready for this phase of learning until they are betwen 7-11 years old.  I'm not sure how to rectify this, or if I completely buy it (see Vygotsky's description of learning the concept of 'flower' vs. 'rose' on page 13).  While younger children are not ready to fully grasp the complexity of some concepts, I think a foundation can be laid through early exposure.  As Vygotsky points out,

"Like the formation of spontaneous concepts, the formation of scientific concepts is not completed but only begun at the moment when the child learns the first meanings and terms that function as their carriers. This is a general law of the development of word meaning."

An Aside About Assessments

That was more or less going to be my blog post.  Then I got to the later section of the chapter about zonal-proximal development.  A few things Vygotsky noted really stood out to me.  He notes that in modern psychology, "the sole basis of determining a child's level of development are tasks that the child solves independently."  He goes on to point out that in order to fully evaluate a child's development, we must also examine "those [functions] that are in the process of maturing."  He goes on to overview the concept of zonal-proximal development and highlight the importance of collaboration both as a means of facilitating child development and as a way to solve tasks that are too difficult for an individual.  

A lot of testing takes place on the large scale research studies with which I have been involved; a lot of testing takes place in schools already.  If Vygotsky's claims are true, and they feel like they are, we need to revisit and overhaul the system for evaluation being used in early education settings to better understand where childeren are and foster their development.  If assessment is an essential part of the modern education system, at the very least more sophisticated evaluation tools should be developed that allow children to approach and solve complex tasks with an adult, a peer, and in a group so that a full picture of their development and potential can be more accurately captured.  I know testing is a very sensitive topic, and I think that often less is more with the use of assessment tools--but if assessments are required, it seems that perhaps traditional one-on-one assessments that are universally used (at least in public schools) are inadequate.

For as Vygotsky points out: 

"The child’s potential for moving from what he can do to what he can do only in collaboration is the most sensitive index of the dynamics of development and the degree of success that will come to characterize the child’s mental activity."

Peer-to-Peer Collaboration

A lot of peer-peer time takes place in early childhood settings as well as early grades.  Through a lot of classroom observations, from my experience I've often found that the majority of children's interactions in these settings are with their peers and not with their teachers.  This was on my mind a lot as I read Vygotsky's descriptions of the role of instruction as well as zonal proximal development.  

Collaboration is an essential component of facilitating child development.  As we've discussed in class, all development starts as external.  With this in mind, more emphasis should be placed on the opportunities that children have to collaborate with their peers in meaningful ways.  I think there are efforts being made by some educators to push children to collaborate more, but those that I've seen are often superficial at best.  Things like write this paper together, play at this station together, do this activity in a group are all well and good.  But I think more emphasis should be placed on the kinds of activities and opportunities that are provided to children as they develop.  Perhaps this is one of the roles of a good educator--not just providing instruction and helping kids to develop, but providing really meaningful and formative opportunities for children to collaborate with their peers.  There is a fair amount of research on this, but it then goes without saying after reading Vygotsky's description of zonal proximal development, that in these settings in which the majority of collaboration and learning takes place between children and their peers, not just what children are doing, but who they are doing it with is a huge factor in their development.  This is a tricky issue, particularly in early childhood settings that are increasingly moving toward a mixed age model.  It is complicated further by the increasing number of mandates by districts that educators are not allowed to tell children who they have to play with.  

When placing Vygotsky's overview of zonal proximal development within the educational settings that I have seen and experienced, it feels that perhaps some essential ingredients are missing that could be really helpful for children.  Those are opportunities for really formative peer collaboration, careful consideration of who children are collaborating with and how the pairings and groupings affect each of their development, and sophisticated measurement tools that contain an index for what children can do in collaboration.