REFLECTION 7

Last week, we studied social interactionism which emphasizes mainly the children are
born into a social world, therefore, interaction with other people composes their own
learning. There are two outstanding people, Vygotsky and Feuerstein. They embraced
and developed views which were that ‘From the time of their birth, children learned
independently by exploring their environment and adults were entirely responsible for
shaping children’s learning.’, Piagetian view and behaviorist view, respectively. According
to Vygotsky and Feuerstein, one of the most important concept is mediation. This is a
term to refer to the part played by other significant people in the learners’ lives, who
enhance their learning by selecting and shaping the learning experiences presented to
them. Moreover, zone of proximal development is also important term. It means that
we should give the knowledge which is just beyond that with which the learner is
currently capable of coping. According to Feuerstein’ theory, anyone can become a
totally effective learner. People can’t achieve the full extent of their learning
potential,but they can continue to develop their cognitive capacity throughout their
lives,structural cognitive modifiability. Furthermore, he claims that we should teach
people to learn how to learn, Instrumental Enrichment (IE).
I believe I may use social interactionism in my teaching.Firstly, for I know that social
interaction is important to learning, I’ll try to make an atmosphere to this. For example,
this can be group activities in the classroom or they can chat with people who are from
other countries in the outside.Secondly, student’s feelings and backgrounds are
important and each student are unique. So, they shouldn’t force to speak or something
else until they are ready and learning should be personalize to learn better.Finally, I
know that I should teach the knowledge just beyond their currently knowledge for
providing benefits.

Hilal ARSLANOĞLU