1. Challenges and Issues in Research
Today
4
Vygotsky’s Theory and Its Application
TOMIDA Eiji Faculty of
Education富田 英司 愛媛大学教
育学部
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2010/11/16

2. Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky
•Educational Psychologist
•Born in Belarus (Russian
Empire at that time)
•1896 – 1934
•Majored in literature,
medicine, law, and
psychology
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3. Program
• Introduction of Vygotsky’s theory
• Discussing on how to promote
discussion in our campus
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4. Objectives
1. To understand basic ideas of
Vygotsky’s theory.
2. To aware the importance to engage
in public discussions.
3. To propose some ideas to promote
discussion at our campus.
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5. Three main ideas（Wertsch,1985
）
（１）Genetic Method
– Human should be understood in process
（２）Social origin of human mind
– Our intelligence is shaped between people
（３）Cultural mediation
– Our intelligence is based on cultural tools
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6. Individual body
Practice
Practice
Community of Practice
Vygotsky’s Theory
Illustrated
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Language as
Communication tool
Language as
Thinking
tool
Personal level
Inter-personal level
Community level
Developmentasaperson

7. Interpreting pre-discussion
by theory of Vygotsky
• To what factors did you attribute
the reasons for the difficulty?
• Let’s look into the first three
post to the thread.
(Thank the three students so mach
for understanding!)
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8. Pre-discussion topics
1. Have you experienced difficulty
in discussing? If you do, how was
it like? What do you think are
the reasons for the difficulty?
2. What do you think are the best
ways to promote discussion at our
campus?
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9. What is the reasons?
From the point of Vygotskian
Veiw
• Usual causal attribution
– Ability/knowledge → Practice
• Vygotskian causal attribution
– Practice → Ability/knowledge
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10. Implications of Vygotsky’s
theory
• Our intellectual ability is formed
through social interaction
• Then, if you develop your ability,
you should engage in discussions
• However, it is not enough
– We are not inclined to do what is not
related to the practicein community
– Then what we should?
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11. What is “discussing”?
• Who made this custom?
– Western democracy is from Greece or Viking?
• For what?
– They used it to decide important things
• Is it relevant to our lives?
– Before, only small number of people had been
involved in decision making.
– Modern society requires its members to talk to
diverse people for prospective lives.
– Then discussing requires us certain manners in
talking behaving, and choosing words.
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12. How to be involved in practice?
• Our ability is based on practice.
• Have you been involved in practice?
– Usually not for most people
– Schooling is a setup to remove us from
practice
• For acquiring necessary skill in future job
– So we should think of things we have
been actually involved already.
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13. A possible answer
• We should modify social practice
in order to learners can be
situated so that they are
naturally involved.
– By joining research activity from
early stage of college life
– By offering more chances for
internship
– By involving teachers themselves in
social activities
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14. Further discussion
• Are the students not involved in
practice? Or they do not aware
that they have been involved?
• How can they be involved in
practice? Or how can they aware
their commitment to the community?
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