Confirm Client Development Status Essay Example

joint controlling. Learning first occurs on the social level; the child observes the adult or the adult instructs the child.

Then, learning occurs on the psychological level; the learning becomes part of the child (Watson, 2002). Vygotsky saw this internalization socially rooted and historically developed activities as "the distinguishing feature of human psychology, the basis of the qualitative leap from animal to human psychology" (Goldhaber, 2000). Where Freud and Piaget saw developmental stages, Vygotsky saw zones of proximal development. In other words, there is no single point of development; development occurs within a range.

The zone covers "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult supervision or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Goldhaber, 2000). The lower level in the zone of proximal development is the actual level of development. The individual has already mastered everything below the lower level. The upper level of the zone is the potential level of development. The individual does not yet have the ability to achieve development outside the potential level.

The individual can achieve everything between the actual and potential level of development. Vygotsky's ideas help educators adjust instructions to match the zone of proximal development within a classroom to meet the developmental needs of individual students. Addressing the challenge of applying Vygotsky's ideas in education environments, Watson (2002) says, "A good teacher is someone who can determine the appropriate help to give a student at an appropriate level on a task, with the right amount of examples.

A good teacher must also know when to

withdraw help" to keep challenging the student to progress (p. 199). However, Vygotsky's approach has some problems. Watson says that the zone is a metaphor that is hard to test, and that assessing an individual's dynamically changing zone is an elusive process. In other words, while cognitive-mediation theory can serve as a general guide to development, it lacks the accuracy to serve as a map.