In and out of the Zone of Proximal Development

• The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the state of understanding between a

person's actual experience and their potential development. Development is gained
through by being in both teaching and learning roles.
• In learner-centered teaching it is important for teachers to maintain authority in the
classroom, since they are responsible for the evaluation and student learning, while
allowing students to become independent by having a more active role in their
learning. Similarly, Mulnix highlights the importance of learner-centered teaching
where the students have control over their own learning process in What My Cadaver
Dog Taught Me About Teaching and Learning.
• Teaching is also learning: if a teacher just “deposits” information into their students,
for them to then regurgitate this information in a test setting, it would not allow for the
co-learning of both the teacher and students.
• Intelligence comes from environmental and social influences through one’s
development, rather than from predetermined genetics.


Dialogue points:
• Students learn through conversation and activity: group activities that align with
teaching material encourage thinking and learning.
• Allowing students to model examples and teach each other provides a social
experience and application for learning. 


• Behaviorism is learning through the formation of habits in response to environmental

stimuli. Learning and development occur at the same time in response to stimuli.
• “Exercising” the mind like muscles, using techniques such as memorization, may lead
to limitations on application abilities and higher level thinking.
• Prolepsis is the prediction of one’s development before the individual has become
internally aware of this development.
• Scaffolding is a metaphor for education: instructional support is analogous to the
building frame, allowing for access and support, while the subject matter fills out the
spaces.
• ZPD is not a linear ascent but waves of up and down: the down, or backwards
development, is a restructuring step for the next developmental wave of learning.
• Role play allows a child to act in a mature way, as they pretend or play the role of an
adult, and therefore allows the child to practice skills before internalizing and
developing the knowledge.
• Internalization is the reorganization of information in a way that makes sense to a
person in order for it to become knowledge; externalization is the ability to then
explain this information in one’s own words. Three stages of learning language:
1. Identity - reading text while internally playing the role or taking the identity of
the writer.
2. Discourse acquisition - mastering identity of the author using “tools” such as
questions and answers, emotional expressions and other applicational
activities in a learning environment.
 3. Authoring - presenting or performing the information in a form of art in front of
a real audience, truly becoming the author externally.
• Mentors can’t teach art, but they can create an experience which allows the student
to become inspired and/or learn creativity on their own.
• Dynamic assessment uses many different kinds of tests to make sure the content has
been both internalized and externalizer in the ZPD. Often this includes a pre-test
which can be used to clear up confusion before a post-test. In the class I’m
mentoring, I will be holding a review class where we use practice questions, or pre-
test, to see where the students are having the most trouble with the information.
Using this dynamic assessment method we can talk through the problems and clear
things up before their midterm test.