Vygotsky

Vygotsky's theories were developed in the developmental psychology, child development, and educational fields. He believed in a much higher order of thinking in children as well as adults and the importance of language and play in learning.

I think that many of Vygotsky's theories are very relevant in teaching today.

The theory of higher order thinking is shared by theorist such as Bloom and reflected in his taxonomy diagram. That is that children learn better when different mediums are involved in the learning process in order to appeal to different learning styles. Bloom and Vygotsky both believe that creativity is important to a childs learning.

I think that language is a very important aspect of teaching and learning that is probably often overlooked. I don't think that is so much in relation to different cultures and languages but more in relation to the idea of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. The teacher who are currently in classrooms were trained around 40years ago. This means theat in relation to the student of today, these teachers are speaking an arcaic language of the past! I think that it is imperative that teachers can relate to and associate with the student that they are teaching if effective teaching and learning is going to occur.

I also think that Vygotsky's idea of play in learning is also very important. It is similar to Glasser need of fun and Blooms idea of creating. All children need something different to break up the consistancy of learning and play is a creative, fun and changing way of involving this. Play can also range through many things such as drawing, use of ICT and role-playing.