Sebastian Herrera

EDU221

Dr. Joni Burris

Chandler-Gilbert Community College

December 6, 2020
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"The teacher must adopt the role of facilitator, not content provider.” The moment I heard

this quote by Lev Vygotsky, it had my mind racing on how his theories could translate into me

being a better teacher for my students. Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist, was born on

November 17, 1896 publishes a diverse range or psychological theories on how kids develop and

learn during their childhood. Although many of his theories can help develop a classroom

atmosphere conducive to child’s learning ability, the one that sticks out to me is the Social

Development Theory he created. This theory is defined by Vygotsky, is that social interaction

plays a vital role in the development of cognition. As an English teacher, I believe that the best

way to increase my student’s learning capabilities would emphasize the four stages of Lev

Vygotsky’s theory. These stages include that social interaction plays a central role in cognitive

development, social learning precedes development, and language speeds up cognitive

development. With my comprehension of Vygotsky’s theories will only help me increase my

ability to get through my future students but also develop me into a better educator.

Why? This one worded question is something that has been ingrained into our minds at

an early stage in life. Vygotsky’s knew that as humans we must seek the meaning to everything

or situation we encounter. This helped influence his first stage of development, which focused on

the social interaction playing a central role in the cognitive development. Vygotsky believe this

was shown at an early age where children would question every situation and he believed that in

order to find the meaning the individual would look around, be involved or play an active role to

the discovery the of meaning. As an educator, you want the interaction from your student’s and

must push them to question everything. This would help them learn the material faster by asking

them why is to help develop their understanding of the material. As a teacher, we must

encourage each student to question our lessons so they can learn this and possibly teach it to
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another. This would lead to Vygotsky’s theory of dynamic interaction between the individual and

society. As we teach our student, we must do more than give them the material to learn. We must

teach them a valuable lesson or development trait because what we teach them will not only

impact them as an individual but also impact our society.  This first step is the most vital step in

the development of students because he is setting the stage for social learning experiences and

the ability gradually grow and develop.

Vygotsky believe that a child cannot develop unless they went through the experiences of

social learning first. This was simply explained as without learning there is no way a child could

function and fully develop. This theory is separated into two categories known as the lower

mental functions and the higher mental functions. He believed both played a vital role in

development and you could not have one without the other. The key differences are that is

embedded into your mindset and the other is influenced by your outside surrounding. The lower

mental functions are sensation, hunger, and memory. These are the natural, untaught things in

life that we as teachers must understand helping develop our students. Understanding sensation

for a student who is sad, mad, hurt, etc. and how that plays a role into their learning would be a

vital portion to getting our lesson plan through to them. It is said that is harder to learn when you

are hungry and as educators, we should always ensure our students are not hungry as we teach

our lesson plans. Memory is natural and understanding that the child will automatically

remember your tones and expressions. Knowing this, we must be consistent with our voice levels

even in difficult times because any change could impact how the student perceives us as educator

or role models.

As we develop in life, the biggest contributing factor in Vygotsky’s theories was that

language accelerates cognitive development. This stage of development was split into three
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stages according to Vygotsky and comprised social or external speech, egocentric speech, and

inner speech. The first two stages are not something I would be particularly dealing with, but the

third and final stage would be something I would need to be aware of in a high school setting.

The inner speech is where the child is becoming older into adulthood and can direct both their

thinking and the resulting behavior or action. Kids in this stage may not speak on what they are

thinking but are doing mental calculation in them to analyze situation from different angles

without saying a single word. As an English teacher, this is important to understand during a

lesson because it would be my job to get them to think on subjects without warranting a

response. To get their created ideas to come out on their papers and making for beneficial

education discussions. This key to the language development because it is a two-way of

communication which requires student to be expressive and opinionated. My language as an

instructor can dictate the way my students look at things or how they process the message of the

information provided. I could tell if I am impacting the student’s development by the way they

communicate in their assignments and discussion groups. If they can hold a conversation on the

material, then I know they are grasping the material to the fullest.

Achieving the role as a facilitator is my biggest goal as a Teacher. Understanding

Vygotsky’s theories will improve my ability to help develop the minds of my students. There

development is key to my development as a teacher and my understanding of Vygotsky’s

theories will provide me the perfect environment for development. Though Vygotsky’s theories

were not as popular as his fellow theorist he still plays a vital role in understanding the

development of children. Teachers, parents, and caregivers can all learn a lot on development

from studying his theories.

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Work Cited

Kurt, S. (2020, July 11). Lev Vygotsky - Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development.
Retrieved December 07, 2020, from https://educationaltechnology.net/lev-vygotsky-
sociocultural-theory-of-cognitive-development/

Last Updated November 30th, 2. (2018, November 30). Social Development Theory (Lev
Vygotsky). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from
https://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development/

Lev Vygotsky Social Learning - PLT Study Material. (n.d.). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from
https://sites.google.com/site/pltstudymaterial/lev-vygotsky-social-learning

Social Development Theory. (2020, March 05). Retrieved December 07, 2020, from
https://www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html

Williams, D. (2020, July 22). Child Development Theories: Lev Vygotsky. Retrieved December
07, 2020, from https://www.firstdiscoverers.co.uk/lev-vygotsky-child-development-
theories/