Describe features of social-constructivist classrooms, including the three educational themes used in these settings

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

New approaches to education, grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, capitalize on the rich social context of the classroom to spur children's learning. In these social-constructivist classrooms, children participate in a wide range of challenging activities with teachers and peers, with whom they jointly construct understandings. As children appropriate the knowledge and strategies generated from working together, they become competent, contributing members of their classroom community and advance in cognitive and social development. Vygotsky's emphasis on the social origins of higher cognitive processes has inspired the following educational themes:
– Teachers and children as partners in learning. A classroom rich in both teacher–child and child–child collaboration transfers culturally valued ways of thinking to children.
– Experience with many types of symbolic communication in meaningful activities. As children master reading, writing, and mathematics, they become aware of their culture's communication systems, reflect on their own thinking, and bring it under voluntary control.
– Teaching adapted to each child's zone of proximal development. Assistance that both responds to current understandings and encourages children to take the next step helps ensure that each student will make the best progress possible.