Reflecting upon my second tutorial

So, I explained Vygotsky's ZPD concept in class. I spoke about it in the Forum 1. Here is a picture that best describes the concept. It is better than the one I drew on the board. What a shame for a teacher. I had a reason, I was nervous!

The role of the teacher is to provide the adequate mediation in order to reach the goals. Like I explained in class, teachers can use scaffolding (Bruner) to help the students reach the outcomes. Technology is a tool teachers can make use of as part of mediation. With it, the information can be presented in different ways within the children's ZPD. 

At the same time, as mediation requires us to reach the students through their learning channels (Multisensory learning), the use of a computer, for instance, stimulates the visual, aural, and kinetic channels. 

As a matter of fact, Treichler (1967) (as cited in Ladam Shams & Aaron R. Seits, 2008), points out that “people generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, and 50% of what they see and hear” (Shams, et. al., 2008, p. 5). Here the importance of not relying in only one sense, but in the combination of all three modalities. When using different channels for learning, the teacher is helping the children with their cognitive load, given that the information can be “chunked into short term memory and used to build long term representation” (p. 5). Here is when the Knovio presentation comes in handy.

The good thing is that, depending on the devise, images can get enlarged and sounds magnified. This specially important if we think about special needs and inclusion. 

Another thing, it is important to guide the students (give clear guidelines, short, simple), not leave them alone until they are able to master the skills. It is advisable to work in pairs or groups, “group work generates interactive language” (Brown, 2001, p. 179). And, at the end this is what we want from the students!

So there you have it!

(Google images)