1. Current Perspectives
and Application of
Vygotsky’s Theory
p.222-230
Kaitlyn Arnold, Megan Freel, Chelsea Javorowsky,
Christine Kelly, Zach Owens

2. Scaffolding
Support
mechanism,
provided by a more
competent
individual, that
helps a child
successfully
perform a task
within his or her
zone of proximal
development.

3. Social Construction of Meaning
 Mediated Learning Experience: A discussion
between an adult and a child in which the adult
helps the child make sense of an event they have
mutually experienced.
 Not only does it take place as a student-teacher
discussion, students
may also use the
mediated learning
experience in a
student-to-student
discussion.

4. Guided Participation
 Active engagement in adult activities, initially with
considerable direction from an adult or other more
advanced individual and subsequently with
opportunities for increasing responsibility and
independence.
 Other people that can engage children in guided
participation include: parents, siblings,
grandparents, friends, etc.
 Guided Participation Example

5. Apprenticeships
 Mentorship in which a novice works intensively with
an expert to learn how accomplish complex tasks in
a particular domain.
 These tasks become increasingly more difficult as
the student progresses.
 Students learn both the skill sets and the language
of the trade (i.e. master weavers – warp, weft,
shuttle, and harness).

6. Cognitive Apprenticeship
 Mentorship in which an expert and a novice work
together on a challenging task and the expert
suggests ways to think about the task.

7. Reciprocal Teaching
 Approach to teaching reading comprehension in
which students take turns asking teacher-like
questions of their classmates.
 Four Effective Reading Strategies:
 Summarizing
 Questioning
 Clarifying
 Predicting

8. Authentic Activities
 Instructional activity similar to one that a child
might eventually encounter in the outside world.
 Enhances students mastery of future career paths
and classroom subject
matter.
Examples:
Politics – debating
Science – experiments
Media – video production

9. Activity: Guided
Participation