Help giving behavior in ZPD & scaffolding


Reading the Woods, Bruner and Ross (1976) article helped to clarify some of the differences between ZPD and scaffolding. Based on Vygotsky’s description of learning versus training, the idea of scaffolding, especially given how the block task was described, seemed like the latter. I do find myself questioning the role of experts, because Vygotsky too describes meaningful imitation stemming from collaboration with experts. What I think Vygotsky adds that Bruner does not is a broader conception of who can serve as an expert. For Bruner, it sounded like only a teacher/tutor could serve as an expert, while Vygotsky allows for peers in the equation. One place I see this potentially making a substantial difference is when offering help. An example from Bruner really stood out to me, when he described the tutor’s help giving behavior. He writes, “When, for example, she [tutor] offered a block rather than asking the child to find one, she would invariably transgress in this way when the particular child had recently failed several times to follow or understand a more difficult type of instruction.” Several aspects of this observation stood out to me. The first, is a peer who had a higher level of mastery on the task and is therefore occupying “expert” status would not behave in this way when giving help, and I also wonder if help giving would even need to be that explicit in the peer interaction. Though, despite Bruner’s careful craftsmanship, I don’t think this block task was organic enough for us to decide that in this case. The second aspect that stood out to me was that the tutor’s help giving was based on failure. Again, I don’t think peers in collaboration operate on “success” and “failure” in the same way adults do, and this inherently changes help giving behavior. Vygotsky made the following statement, albeit about something else, that I found applicable to this scenario: “No consideration was given to the zone of proximal development. The orientation was toward the path of least resistance, toward the child’s weakness rather than his strength.”

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