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The Zone of Proximal Development: A Concept in Educational Psychology

• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the range between what a learner can do without help and what they cannot do even with support.
• ZPD is the space where the learner can only perform with support from a more knowledgeable other, such as a teacher or a peer with more expertise.
• The concept was introduced by Lev Vygotsky, who argued that learners get involved in a dialogue with a more knowledgeable other and gradually develop the ability to solve problems independently.
• Vygotsky believed that education should provide experiences within a child's ZPD to encourage and advance individual learning.
• Vygotsky created the ZPD to further develop Jean Piaget's theory of children being lone and autonomous learners.
• Vygotsky believed that children would not advance very far if they were left to discover everything on their own.
• The ZPD is an area of learning that occurs when a person is assisted by a teacher or peer with a higher skill set, and the person learning the skill set cannot complete it without assistance.
• Scaffolding is a process through which a teacher or a more competent peer helps a student in their ZPD as necessary and tapers off this aid as it becomes unnecessary.
• Scaffolding is widely used to study children's mental development as it relates to educational contexts.
• Teachers should assign tasks that students cannot do on their own, but which they can do with assistance.
• Teachers can also allow students with more knowledge to assist students who need more assistance.
• Scaffolding in education has some boundaries, including managing multiple students, time constraints, and cognitive abilities of the student.