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Vygotsky 's Theory And Theory Essay

Decent Essays

I. Introduction Learning, according to De Houwer, Barnes-Holmes, & Moors (2013), “has been defined functionally as changes in behavior that result from experience or mechanistically as changes in the organism that result from experience”. Throughout the years, a number of psychologists have come up with different theories to try and explain how young children develop and learn. Lev Vygotsky, a Russian theorist and psychologist that was born in 1896, constructed his own child development and learning theory that has strongly influenced the world of education (Nordlof, 2014; Dahms, Geonnotti, Passalacqua, Schilk, Wetzel, & Zulkoqsky, n.d.). His theory is created from concepts of both behaviorist and constructivist. Vygotsky’s theory suggests that learning and development occurs through social function as well as intentional teaching (DeVries, 2000; Nordlof, 2014; Slavin, 2015).
II. Learning Theory and Its Importance
Vygotsky first became interested in educational psychology and child development when he worked as a teacher in 1917 (Dahms et al., n.d.). During this time, he concluded that the use of social exchange, cultural context, and “mastering higher order” all contribute to a child’s development (Bruner, 1997). Vygotsky noticed that social exchange, which is the interaction with others, mediates and contributes to one’s speech as well as one’s cultural context (Bruner, 1997).
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There are two significant characteristics of Vygotsky’s theory that

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