Vygotsky for Educators

Abstract

Lev Vygotsky's approach to children's learning and development centers on adult mediation: adults engage children in age-appropriate activities and promote in this context the development of new motives and tools for thinking, problem solving, and self-regulation. Although this approach has earned widespread recognition in the global scientific community, English-speaking educators remain relatively unfamiliar with its contemporary elaborations for practical application. Yuriy V. Karpov offers the first comprehensive English introduction to contemporary elaborations of Vygotsky's ideas and their practical applications from birth through adolescence. He demonstrates the advantages of the Vygotskian approach over both traditional and constructivist education. This volume will prove an invaluable resource for educators and students in teacher education programs, as well as for everyone interested in educational and developmental psychology.

Gaze-based assistive technology used in daily life by children with severe physical impairments – parents’ experiences

“…18 Donegan 18 proposes a 'cando attitude' by adults when adapting the software, to provide the child with challenging activities to support development of competencies over time. According to Karpov, 39 Vygotsky's approach was that children need support and instruction to develop, and this may be especially important in gaze-based AT usage, since adults need to adapt the content so it provides the right challenge to support their child's development over time. Professionals need to collaborate with parents in finding what skills the child is ready to develop next as children grow older to allow continued opportunities to develop their social interaction and independence in performing preferred activities.…”

Medical Education From a Theory–Practice–Philosophy Perspective

“…The adopted theory-practice-philosophy greatly determines what methods we use when educating or studying education. 43 2. Making explicit the theory-practice-philosophy we use in our curriculum and pedagogical commitments facilitates integration and learning 67 as well as providing a rationale for teachers' thinking and judgment while planning bespoke lessons.…”

The Age of Imagination: Imagining Play and Invention: Implications for Creative Development

“…Piaget highlighted the centrality of emotional processing within children's play (Piaget 1999;2013) Studies by Gardner (1990) and Eglington (2003) reiterate how important this is in creative development. Vygotsky (Karpov, 2014, Vygotskii & Cole, 1978 laid emphasis on the importance of the child's imagination in early symbolic play where they possess the ability to make a sheet a cape or a stick a doll simply by saying it is so. This intrinsic and important capacity to imagine is a central platform of creative development.…”