Vygotsky

            This week’s reading taught me a lot of important information that is useful to know in education.  I had a few key takeaways which will directly impact my practice as a teacher.  

My biggest takeaway from this week’s reading is the importance of play.  It is important to allow students to play as part of their learning.  Playing allows them to learn more about themselves and others around them, all while learning the content that’s being taught.  Play is the learning while the work is the application of that learning.  We should allow students to play and learn through play which they’ll apply later when they’re working on that task or in the future.  When designing my lessons, I will include more opportunities for students to play.  This play doesn’t always have to be students playing with tangible items.  It could also be opportunities for students to play with digital products or programs.  This play time will allow students to learn about themselves, others, the product/program in use, and the connection between those things and the world around them.  Providing students with opportunities to play throughout my lessons allows them to learn about the world around them. 

Another takeaway I had this week was the importance of the zone of proximal development.  If we provide students with too much support in the ZPD, they could develop things such as learned helplessness and not know how to solve a problem without support from adults or others around them.  The zone of proximal development is the distance between what students are ready to learn and their potential to learn with adult guidance or peer collaboration.  In order to assist the student through their ZPD, we must model things for them and coach them.  Once they’re beginning to master the skill, we must fade the modeling and coaching and allow students to work through that task/skill independently.  When designing lessons, I will model and coach students through the skill then allow them opportunities to work through that task/skill independently.

With this week’s reading, I am able to design my lessons to provide students ample opportunities to learn through play and support students to move through the zone of proximal development.