Sibonga Community College

Poblacion, Sibonga, Cebu

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EDUC 3: FACILITATING LEARNER-CENTERED TEACHING

Module 4-- Chapter 3: Cognitive Learning Theories
Lesson 2: Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:

 explain the sociocultural theory of cognitive development;

 discuss the major terms and concepts related to the theory; and

 cite classroom implications of the theory.

THINK

Sociocultural Theory
The sociocultural theory of cognitive development was formulated by Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a
Russian psychologist. Its major argument is that social interaction, mediated through language, is a key
factor in the child's development. From the child's interaction with others, concepts and social behavior are
formed (social level), and he or she later thinks internally (see Figure 7). The theory underscores his belief
that children's thinking is affected by their knowledge of the social community, which Vygotsky
considered as learned from either technical or psychological cultural tools (Vygotsky, 1978). By cultural
tools, it meant real tools (like measuring instruments, calculators, etc.) and symbol systems (like numbers,
language, etc.) that allow people to communicate, think, solve problems, and create knowledge (Woolfolk,
2016).

Cultural Context
Figure 7. Key components of sociocultural learning.

The Role of Social Interaction

Vygotsky emphasized the significance of social interaction in one's thinking. Children learn from the
more knowledgeable others (MKOs), which include parents, teachers, adults, and more advanced peers. An
MKO is anyone who has a higher skill level than the learner in terms of the specific task to perform. For
instance, a child who is guided by verbal clues by the mother learns how to tear off the plastic covering of the
cookies. In another case, children playing "Chinese garter" abide by the rules that they agree with. This is
called a co-constructed process as the children negotiated to create an acceptable rule on how to play the
game.

The Role of Language

Vygotsky's theory emphasizes that language plays a central role in the theory of human cognitive
development. Language plays multiple roles, including culturally shaping the overt behavior of individuals as
well as influencing their covert behavior, such as thinking (Burkholder & Pelaez, 2000). Through language,
human cognitive development and higher mental functions are initiated from social communications. As
people engage in social activities, they are involved in mental and communicative functions (Vygotsky, 1986).

The three stages of speech development (see Figure 8) were identified by Vygotsky (Johnson, 2014). These
are as follows:

Figure 8. Stages of speech development.

1. Social or external speech. At this stage (birth to approximately age 3), thinking is not related to
speech at all. Instead, thinking is primarily in the form of images, emotions, and impressions.
Speech only occurs on the external or social level to express a desire or to convey simple emotions
such as shouting or crying. For instance, a child would tell "Dede" or milk if hungry. At this stage,
speech is merely a tool to make things happen in the external world.

2. Egocentric speech. At this stage (approximately age 3—7), children think out loud or talk to
themselves as they are doing something. For instance, as Paul plays with his toy car and it does not
run, he tells himself "Sira na" or "It's destroyed." Called egocentric speech, it is used to guide
behavior and help to solve problems. It is an important part of the transition to inner speech and
more sophisticated thinking.

3. Inner speech. Inner speech is soundless speech or thought. Here, speech becomes internalized and
is used to guide thinking and behavior. It eventually leads to higher levels and more complex types
of thinking.

Zone of Proximal Development

One major feature of Vygotsky's theory is the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as illustrated by
Wheeler (2013) in Figure 9. He argued that at any time, children find difficulties in performing tasks or
problems posed to them as they are not yet matured enough to handle them. With the guidance of the MKOs,
like their parents or elder siblings, they could perform the task. Scaffolding, the provision of cues, clues,
modeling, and demonstrations of the MKO, can assist the children in successfully performing the task. The
goal of the ZPD is to help the child move from the level of current independent performance (the competence
demonstrated to do a task alone) to the level of potential performance (the competence achieved with the
guidance of others).
 Figure 9. Scaffolding as intervention to reach the zone of proximal development.

Source: Wheeler (2013)

For instance, a difficult word is used in a sentence. Asked about its meaning, the children could not
provide the meaning on their own. When the teacher reminds them that the context or the neighboring words
or phrases could reveal the meaning, they begin giving synonyms or related words to the difficult word. The
teacher's reminder scaffolded the children to arrive at the correct answer.

Teaching Implications of Vygotsky's Theory

The theory of sociocultural learning has greatly influenced practices in facilitating learning.
Vygotsky's theory promotes learning contexts in which students play an active role in learning. His theory
requires that the teacher and student are collaborators in the learning process, with the teacher as facilitator or
guide in learner's construction of knowledge and development of skills. The process makes learning a
reciprocal experience for both the teacher and learners.
Citing research findings (e.g., John-Steiner & Mann, 2003; Webb, 2008; Slavin, 2014), Slavin (2018)
proposed the following teaching practices for consideration by the facilitator of learning. In the use of ZPD,
teachers can organize classroom activities in the following ways:
1. Instruction can be planned to provide practice within the ZPD for individual children or groups
of children. For example, hints and prompts that helped children during a preassessment could
form the basis of instructional activities.
2. Scaffolding provides hints and prompts at different levels. In scaffolding, the adult does not
simplify the task, but the role of the learner is simplified "through the graduated intervention of
the teacher."
3. Cooperative learning activities can be planned with groups of children at different levels who
can help each other to learn.
Moreover, Karpov and Haywood (1998) recognized that for the curriculum to be developmentally
appropriate, the teacher must plan activities that encompass not only what children are capable of doing
on their own but what they can learn with the help of others.

EXPERIENCE
The concepts and principles of Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory found credence in many
experiments. Tutoring as a form of scaffolding, is an effective. instructional intervention. In the study of
Wood et al. (1976) for instance, 3-, 4-, and 5-yr-olds were tutored in the task of constructing a pyramid from
complex, interlocking constituent blocks. The results indicate that some of the properties of an interactive
system of exchange in which the tutor operates with an implicit theory of the learner's acts to recruit his
attention, reduces
 degrees of freedom in the task to manageable limits, maintains "direction" in the problem solving, marks
critical features, controls frustration, and demonstrates solutions when the learner can recognize them.

Meanwhile, the role of the advanced Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' private
speech production characterized as being the externalization of the process of reasoning during carrying out
reasoning-gap tasks was tested (Mirzaee & Maftoon, 2016). While performing the reasoning gap tasks, the
EFL learners produced four types of private speech—repetition, translation, filler, and question—in both their
Ll and 1.2, which enhanced learners' reasoning. The finding supported the earlier assertion that private speech
plays a mediational role in problem-solving and self-regulatory processes.

Lesson 3: Information Processing Theory

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:

 explain the major features of the information processing theory;

 cite teaching implications derived from the theory; and
 identify teaching strategies that facilitate the storing and retrieving of information.

THINK

Nature of Information Processing

Developed by American psychologist George A. Miller, the information processing theory (IPT) of
cognitive development pertains to the study and analysis of what occurs in a person's mind as he or she
receives a bit of information (Miller, 1956). Other theorists enhanced Miller's theory, although the different
theories that followed share common assumptions (Schunk, 2012). First, information processing occurs in
stages that intervene between receiving a stimulus and producing a response. The form of information, or how
it is represented mentally, differs depending on the stage. The stages are qualitatively different from one
another. Second, information processing is analogous to computer processing. The mind receives and
represents/encodes the stimulus from the environment, processes the information, stores it, locates/retrieves it,
and gives a response to it. Learning is a change/revision in the knowledge that has been stored by the memory.
Analyzing the way persons learn something new is important as there is a fixed pattern of events that
take place in learning something new (Miller, 1956). In explaining the concept of chunking, Miller argued that
a person could only store five to nine meaningful units in the short-term memory.

Basic Components of the IPT Model

The information processing theory model has three major components, namely: sensory memory,
short- term memory, and long-term memory (see Figure 10). As seen in the figure, each has a particular
function (Schunk, 2012; Woolfolk, 2016).
 Sensory memory is the state in which the stimuli sensed (heard, seen, touched, smelled, tasted) are
temporarily held in mere seconds for the information to be processed further. As a person is Presented a lot of
stimuli at a given time, the sensory memory serves as a filter on what to focus on. When viewing a basketball
game, you can see one person focused on the one in possession of the ball, while another one's attention is
centered on the guard's action. Selective attention is the individual's ability to choose and process information
while disregarding the other stimuli or information. Schunk (2012) cited several factors that influence
attention:

1. The meaning is given by the individual to the task or information.

2. The similarity between competing tasks or source of information.
3. The difficulty or complexity of the task as influenced by prior knowledge.
4. The ability to control and sustain attention.
As the information held in the sensory memory is for about three seconds only, unattended stimuli are
forgotten. The information the person gave attention to is transferred to the short-term memory.

Short-term memory serves as a temporary memory while the information is given further
processing before it is transferred to long-term memory. Information in this stage is 15-20 seconds only and
can hold from 5 to 9 bits of information only at a given time. Before the information is transferred to long-
term memory, there are two strategies involved: rehearsal and encoding or elaboration.

Maintenance rehearsal involves repetition of the information to sustain its maintenance in the short-
term memory. The use of ABC songs and number songs serve as rehearsal strategies among children.
Meanwhile, elaborative rehearsal is the process of relating t given further processing before it is transferred to
long-term memory. Information in this stage is 15—20 seconds only and can hold from 5 to 9 bits of
information only at a given time. Before the information is transferred to the new information to what is
already known and stored in the long-term memory to make the new information more significant. One
scheme is organization, the process of classifying and grouping bits of information into organized chunks. For
instance, memorizing the mobile number involves grouping the Il numbers into sets of numbers, like
XXXX — YYY — ZZZZ. Arranging information into hierarchies is another scheme. For instance, flora
and fauna are grouped into phyla/divisions, classes, orders, families, genera, and species.

The use of mnemonic devices is also helpful. Mnemonic devices elaborate information in different
ways. For instance, learners are taught the acronym "ROYGBIV" to recall that red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, and violet are the rainbow colors. To differentiate stalactite and stalagmite found in caves,
learners are taught that the "g" in stalagmite tells that the calcium carbonate deposit is located on the floor
(ground), whereas the letter "c' in stalactite gives away its location (ceiling).
Imagery is a strategy that involves the memory taking what is to be learned and creating meaningful
visual, auditory, or kinesthetic images of the information (Schunk, 2012). For instance, it is easy to locate
Apayao in the Philippine map because it looks like the bust of a former president of the country. An example
of kinesthetic imagery is associating that the left hand on the waist illustrates a less than value; the right hand
on the waist indicates a greater than value.
Information that is not rehearsed and maintained in the short-term memory is forgotten. It also
involves the relationship between the new information and what is already known.
The long-term memory is the storehouse of information transferred from short-term memory. It has
unlimited space. Varied contents of information are stored, namely:
1. Semantic memory is the memory for ideas, words, facts, and concepts that are not part of the person's
own experiences. Individuals with good semantic memory include those who know the capital of
countries in the world, many words and their meanings, the order of planets, and other facts.
2. Episodic memory includes the memory of events that happened in a person's life, connected to a
specific time and place. An example is a student who can explain the details of his or her most
embarrassing moment (who were involved, when, where, why, and how it happened).

3. Procedural memory accounts for the knowledge about how to do things. A student teacher who recalls
the step-by-step process of presenting the lesson to the class has procedural memory.

4. Imagery refers to mental images of what is known. For instance, beginning readers use configuration
clues, shape, and appearance of words to help in word recognition. Associating a familiar image to the
name of a newly introduced person, like giraffe, guides one to recall the name of Gigi, a long-necked
beautiful lady.

Retrieving Information from the Long-term Memory

Retrieving information from long-term memory involves locating the information and transferring it
to the short-term memory to be used for a purpose. Studies (e.g., Bransford & Johnson, 1972) have shown
that a person remembers a lot less of the information stored in long-term memory. The quality of how the
information was stored influences its access and retrieval.
Retrieval of information from the long-term memory entails bringing to mind the previously acquired
information to understand some new input or to make a response. Schunk (2012) mentioned two ways of
information retrieval. One is recalling, which is either free recall or cued recall. In free recall, the person has
to rely on the information previously learned purely by memory. In contrast, the cued recall involves the
provision of cues and clues to the person to help in the recall of the information. It is observed that whatever
hints the person used to encode the information, the same would likewise facilitate its retrieval. Elementary
learners can recall the letter in the alphabet if its image is accompanied by a picture of an object whose name
begins with that letter.
Recognition is another way to retrieve information. It involves providing the learner's with stimuli as
choices to make a decision or judgment. In a multiple-choice test item, the difficulty of retrieving the correct
answer is reduced because the examinees have options to choose from. Guided by their long-term memory',
they would eliminate those options that are not plausible, to eventually arrive at the correct answer.
Based on the primacy and recency effect principle, the information presented close to the start of the
experience, and those that are close to the end are most remembered by learners.

Forgetting
Forgetting is the loss of information, either in the sensory memory, short-term memory, or long-term
memory. Interference is the process that occurs when remembering certain information hampered by the
presence of other information (Woolfolk, 2016). At the sensory' memory, there are other stimuli that bombard
the person. As one stimulus is just the focus at a time, others are forgotten. In the short-term memory, as
rehearsal and maintenance activities are made, incoming new information interferes. The same phenomenon
happens in long-term memory. When new information interferes with recalling the previous information, it is
called retroactive interference. If the old information interferes with recalling the new information, it is
referred to as proactive interference.
In addition to interference, time decay is another factor for the loss of stored information from long-
term memory. Unused information decays and is forgotten. However, some theorists argue that stored
 information in the long-term memory is never lost. To illustrate, a learner who had a traumatic experience in
learning a Mathematics skill may deliberately want to forget the previous learning concepts. After several
years, when those skills are required to learn another subject, those concepts surface again if there is
conscious effort to review them.
This situation is also related to the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. It involves the failure to retrieve the
information, but the person is sure the information is known. The person feels that retrieval is imminent, but
there is difficulty to directly identify it at the moment.

Teaching Implications of the IPT

Following the concepts and principles associated with the IPT, Woolfolk (2016), Slavin (2018), and
Schunk (2012) recommend the following to be used in helping learners to understand and recall what they
have learned:
l. Make sure you have the students' attention. Develop a signal that tells students to stop what they are
doing and focus on you. Make sure that students respond to the signal. Practice using the signal.
2. Move around the room, use gestures, and avoid speaking in a monotone.

3. Begin a lesson by asking a question that stimulates interest in the topic.

4. Regain the attention of individual students by walking closer to them, using their names, or asking
them a question.
5. Help students to separate essential from nonessential details and focus on the most important
information. Summarize instructional objectives to indicate what students should be learning. Relate
the material you are presenting to the objectives as you teach.
6. When you make an important point, pause, repeat, ask a student to paraphrase, note the information
on the board in colored chalk, or tell students to highlight the point in their notes or readings. The use
of mnemonic devices could assist learners' retention of the information learned.
7. Help students to make connections between new information and what they already know. Review
prerequisites to help students bring to mind the information they will need to understand new material.

8. Provide for repetition and review of information. Using graphic organizers for rehearsals can help.

9. Present material in a clear and organized way. Make the purpose of the lesson very clear. Advance
organizers can help.
10. Focus on meaning, not on memorization. For instance, in teaching new words, help students to
associate the new word to a related word they already understand.

EXPERIENCE
Recall your experiences when you want to study and review your lessons. An effort is exerted as you
try to organize lecture notes into comprehensible ones (outlines, graphic organizers, flowcharts, etc.) to
facilitate recall of facts, concepts, and principles. Teaching the same techniques to you? learners could help
them to achieve better.

Studies have shown that whatever learners have retained about 12—24 weeks after instruction, they
may retain forever (Schunk, 2016). Thus, it is important for teachers to integrate prior learning to curren t
lessons, where applicable, for learners to master and retain concepts learned. Lessons must provide fo r
adequate practice to attain mastery.
Moreover, even when items to be learned are not organized, people often impose organization o n the
material, which facilitates recall (Matlin, 2012). Organized material improves memory becaus e items are
linked to one another systematically. Recall of one item prompts recall of items linked to it Research
supports the effectiveness of organization for encoding among children and adults. Moreover' instructional
strategies that actively involve students in lessons contribute to long-term retention (MacKenzie & White,
1982).