Vygotsky and some thoughts about his thoughts,
Harriet Smith
A challenge for this week was to condense and make sense of the reading into relatively few words for this blog post. In order to do this, I decided to pick out what I considered key points or more so interesting ones and try to discuss them a little.
The role of social interaction in developing cognition
A prominent aspect of the Vygotsky reading this week was the idea that human development preceded, and is greatly influenced by, social interaction. This was in contrast to Piaget’s argument that development precedes learning. Something that stood out to me in relation to this topic is the idea that individuals can interact, and learn from society, but can also modify and change society. The initial quote of the chapter somewhat hints at this complex ability of the individual to modify and construct, but fundamentally must interact with his/her environment in order to develop. Although I am not sure if this is an exact example, when I read this section of the article I immediately thought of how a child born into an English speaking household will pick up the language that he/she is immersed in, likewise a child born to Chinese speaking parents will pick up, without even taking specific language lessons, the language of their environment. This leads me to the next point that I believe to be important is the idea of tools and signs.
Tools and Signs within learning
Vygotsky’s use of the vocabulary terms ‘tool’ and ‘sign’ are descendants of Engels conception. What I can comment on as being the difference between the two terms is that a tool is employed by the individual to assist ‘as the conductor of human influence’ on the activity and is externally oriented (p.55). Tools are objects that are used by the individual to enact change on another object. In contrast, a sign is internally oriented and has no influence on the object of interest for the individual. Examples of such ‘signs’ could be, as given in the article, tying a knot in a handkerchief as a reminder, the knot itself is not the sign, but what the knot represents, to evoke a reminder of something else is. On a base level, I understand the differences between these two, but as the article goes on and discusses the relationship between them being more complex but not analogous, I am a bit confused by this concept of a higher psychological function (p.55). Did anyone else have a stronger understanding of this? Another question I pose to the class is how do you interpret the use of the tool word in this article related to last weeks readings and the use of a tool within cognitive apprenticeship? Are there any crossovers in meaning? What do you consider to be different?
Experimentation
Another important point I drew from the reading was the focus on how Vygotsky undertook research and experimentation. In opposition to American psychology at the time, ‘for Vygotsky, the object of experimentation is ..different. The principles of his basic approach do not stem from a purely methodological critique of established experimental practices; they flow from his theory of the nature of higher psychological processes and the task of scientific explanation in psychology’ (p.12). Experimentation was a study of change over time, and did not explicitly focus on an end goal or outcome, but rather how the subject went about achieving that goal or outcome ‘a central tenet of this method is that all phenomenon be studied as processes in motion and change’ (p.7). An example of such would be giving a set of tasks to a student and then studying the way in which that individual went about making sense of and answering those problems. Additionally, these experiments would involve adding a second challenge dimension that would cause the student to have to approach the problem in a way that was different from the norm, such as collaborative learning with another student who speaks a different primary language. ‘Vygotsky believed that the experimental could serve an important role by making visible processes that are ordinarily hidden beneath the surface of habitual behavior. He called this method ‘experimental-genetic’ method,’ (p.12). The use of a twofold form of stimulus is later described as the double-stimulation method. I linked this evidence back to the initial critiques Vygotsky had for the ‘crisis in psychology,’ where none of the existing schools of psychology provided a unified theory of human psychological processes, or, one of the current theories could explain problem-solving behaviors in individuals.
VygotskiJ, Cole, M., Scribner, S., John-Steiner, V., & Souberman, E. (1981). Mind in Society, Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
Harriet, I liked your discussion of tools and signs. As the reading went on, I too found the complex (but not analogous) relationship of tools and signs a bit confusing. I am sure we will dig into it on Wednesday :). Last week, our “scientist toolbox” contained tools like using models, making observations, and scientific discourse/language. To me, these tools seem at least partially internally oriented. Do you think that in Vygotsky’s model tools are always externally oriented?
Harriet, I also found it interesting that Vygotsky created a new approach to experimentation at the time. Rather than just looking at behaviors from stimulus-response experiments, he wanted to analyze higher order thinking processes in humans. At first, I felt that Vygotsky’s work was almost contradicting that of Skinner. Skinner looked only the external behaviors: a student is given a question or task, reinforced along the way, and then the end behavior is seen as correct or incorrect based on a set of standards. Vygotsky is almost stating that rather than looking at just the end result, we need to think about what occurs along the way to get to such result. But this lead me, as I was reading this article, to wonder how Vygotsky’s model could be applied to real-life contexts, i.e not in lab settings that he worked in. For example how can teachers account for jumps in student understanding, because as Vygotsky states “Our concept of [child] development implies a rejection of the frequently held view that cognitive development results from the gradual accumulation of separate changes” (p. 73). And are students expected to make such jumps at the same time (i.e. more a developmental age or school year jumps)? This then got me thinking how teachers in today’s society can utilize signs and tools (as you mention in your post) to gain higher order thinking processes in their students?