sey053

When studying learning and cognition in graduate school, I was drawn to the theories of Lev Vygotsky, a Russian Psychologist from the early 1900s that presented a sociocultural approach to learning and cognition.  He offered a theory that I believe presents optimal classroom instruction for all learners. What is Vygotsky’s Theoretical Lens? At the heart of Vygotsky's theoretical lens is that social interaction plays a key role in the development of learning and cognition. Vygotsky claimed: "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.”   A second key feature of Vygotsky's theory is that one’s potential for learning depend...