I’m sometimes accused of being too wordy. As a break from that, here’s an explanation of Zone of Proximal Development from a couple years back.
Zone of Proximal Development is one of those buzz phrases you hear bandied about a lot in ed psych. It’s often mis-understood and probably needs some clarification. I think better with pictures so I drew some pictures to talk about ZPD. We tend to think about what we know like the picture below.
ZPD is one of the concepts I believe that teachers need to understand completely and too often don’t.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 PM
I find that his is great example of how visual along with explaination is a great method. I had that picture in my head all day and I am sure that I will always remember it now. That is why you need to teach something multiple ways to reach everyone. A student needs that foundation to build upon. That is why it is so vital for early intervention in reading. Parents start laying that foundation at home by reading books, teaching letters, and singing songs, and ect. Those children that didn’t get that foundation at home is now behind all the children that did. We have to build from that and some children need that extra help. Laying foundations come first and then we build upon it. Foundations does not have to be something we teach, it can be experiences.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Pictures say more than words (often). Looking at the pictures definitely helps people understand more about ZPD. But, I think that (over time) the known circle should grow. We learn stuff everyday so what is known increases.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 PM
True, but the unknown grows faster, so if you’re looking for some kind of dynamic representation, it’ll actually be shrinking in relation to the universe of unknown.
October 5th, 2008 at 4:00 AM
These pictures help explain what ZPD. This shows how well pictures can explain harder to explain topics. Also the picture give you something visual to remember about the topic.