Definitions of Key Concepts in Social Constructivism PDF

**Action.** The physical and cognitive manifestations of the things a person does to satisfy psychological and physical needs. Different actions may be directed toward the same goal or the same action may be directed toward different goals, depending on the individual's context and history. 2. **...

**Action.** The physical and cognitive manifestations of the things a person does to satisfy psychological and physical needs. Different actions may be directed toward the same goal or the same action may be directed toward different goals, depending on the individual's context and history. 2. **Activity.** Sets of various actions motivated by socially or culturally constructed goals. 3. **Activity theory.** Developed first by Leont'ev in an attempt to articulate and make operational Vygotsky's conceptualization of the generative, mediated interaction of individuals and their multiple goal-oriented contexts. Leont'ev proposed three parts, activity/motive, action/goal and conditions/operations, in order to better investigate and connect individual and social interactions. 4. **Affect/Cognition.** Affect: emotions and feelings. Cognition: thought and knowledge. Often considered separately, Vygotsky insisted they be treated as a unity. 5. **Affordance.** An opportunity; a property of the environment which offers the possibility of action to an individual. A person's environment offers many affordances for language learning, but which ones are taken up and used will depend on the person's goals and what is seen as useful to attain them. 6. **Agency.** All individuals are agentive, that is, they behave in certain ways according to their motives and goals. What people are able to do depends on the particular constraints and affordances that are present in the situation. These affordances and constraints vary across cultures and may be material or symbolic. 7. **Agent/Subject.** The individual who carries out an action. Agent and subject are synonymous. 8. **Artifact.** Material or symbolic object produced by people, e.g. pencils, books, graphs, or language. Any artifact may become a mediational means or tool. 9. **Assessment.** The process of evaluating. Usually the focus is on measuring the knowledge and skills of an individual, but assessment can also be of a group, institution or educational system. Assessment can be formative or summative, quantitative or qualitative, process or product oriented, or a combination of these. 10. **Collaborative dialogue.** Dialogue that is knowledge-building. Collaborative dialogue involves at least two persons who co-construct knowledge that may be new for one or both of them. 11. **Community of practice (COP).** COP is a social theory according to which individuals gain access to a group through participation. They gradually take on (or not) the practices, behaviors and beliefs of the central members. Language is a key entry point or barrier. 12. **Complexes.** Vygotsky organized the development of concepts across a continuum. Complexes are more stable than earlier generalizations (heaps) but not as stable as scientific concepts. The generalizations or categories represented by complexes are related by concrete, physical experiences. 13. **Conditions --***also Operations.* The setting (physical or mental) in which actions take place. Under certain conditions the actions are carried out unconsciously -- they are routines (operations). However, the same unconscious operations may become conscious actions if the conditions change. 14. **Dialectic.** Exists when there is a tension between two or more phenomena e.g. social and individual. A dialectic does not always get resolved (and if it did, the dialectical relationship would cease). Often, a continuing dialectic creates an environment for creativity and fruitful debate. Lois Holzman (2009) explains in a comprehensive manner why SCT is a dialectic theory. 15. **Dynamic assessment.** A process-oriented form of assessment during which an expert provides cues and questions to mediate the learner towards an independent performance in the future. This future orientation allows the assessor to project development by seeing what the learner can do with help. In contrast, most other assessment procedures measure outcomes of past learning. 16. **Everyday or spontaneous concepts --** *Scientific concepts.* Understandings individuals develop from their experiences to solve various cognitive/ emotional problems. Everyday concepts are not systematic or have a very limited 'system'. They are not applicable across all contexts and are often applied unconsciously. 17. **French immersion.** In Canada, offcially an English/French bilingual country, there are various modes of delivering French instruction to non-Francophone students from kindergarten through high school. The default system of French instruction in Canadian schools is known as Core French. Some schools provide a more intensive program -- French Immersion -- which teaches the language through curricular content for part or all of the school day. 18. **Genesis.** The process of becoming and changing. Genesis refers to the history of an individual or a phenomenon. 19. **Goal.** Sometimes used interchangeably with 'object'. Goal usually refers to the desired result an individual consciously tries to achieve. 20. **Higher mental processes.** Consciousness. Higher mental (cognitive and emotional) processes are those under the control of the individual. These processes include intentional memory, attention and planning. The origin of all higher mental processes is social. 21. **Imitation.** Conscious, reflective, goal-oriented repetition of observed behaviors (including language). These deliberate performances are one of the mechanisms learners use to internalize learning and development. 22. **Intermental (interpsychological) processes.** Processes that occur between individuals. 23. **Internalization.** A social process transformed into a psychological process. In other words, internalization refers to the process by which the intermental becomes intramental. This is a way individuals appropriate mediational means and use them to regulate their own behavior. It is learning and development. 24. **Intersubjectivity.** Assumes that people are 'on the same page'; that is, they are connected in some way. These people are thinking or talking or writing about a particular subject. Although they do not necessarily agree with one another, they are experiencing joint attention. 25. **Intramental (intrapsychological) processes.** Processes that occur within one individual. 26. **Language play.** Unrehearsed, deliberate manipulation of language forms and or meanings, e.g. puns, rhymes, jokes. 27. **Languaging.** The process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience through language. Languaging organizes and controls (mediates) mental processes during the performance of cognitively complex tasks. 28. **Mediation (material and symbolic).** All human behavior is organized and controlled by material (i.e. concrete) and symbolic (i.e. semiotic) artifacts. Mediation is the process which connects the social and individual. 29. **Mediational means (tools, signs/symbols, artifacts).** The material and symbolic tools that organize or regulate our behavior. Generally speaking, material tools (e.g. hammer) are directed towards changing the environment whereas symbolic tools (e.g. language) are directed towards changing our psychological selves, as well as others. Mediational means are human made, and therefore are considered as culturally constructed. Glossary 30. **Microgenesis --***also Genesis.* The formation and unfolding of a psychological process, for example, the internalization of the meaning of a word in a specific context. 31. **Object.** Sometimes used interchangeably with 'goal'. Object usually refers to the problem or purpose toward which activities are directed. 32. **Ontogenesis --***also Genesis.* The development of an individual over his/her lifespan, in particular the internalization of mediational means over a lifetime. 33. **Operations --***also Conditions.* The automatized or unconscious routines of an individual as they are being carried out. 34. **Perezhivanie.** This Russian term used by Vygotsky refers to experience as lived through the emotions. 35. **Private speech (self-directed speech; speech for the self; self-talk; intrapersonal communications.** Speech that is social (intermental) in origin and form but psychological (intramental) in function. It is used by individuals to mediate their own behavior. 36. **Regulation (object; other; self ).** Human behavior is controlled (mediated) by objects, people and the self. Developmentally, object regulation precedes other regulation which precedes self-regulation. However, when the environment becomes complex, individuals may revert to other or object regulation. 37. **Rules.** The socially agreed upon set of behavioral guidelines in an action or activity. They may be implicit or explicit in any given action. 38. **Scaffolding.** This metaphor from engineering/construction refers to the provision of support to learners. The support is dismantled when the learners are able to manage without it. Although Vygotsky did not use this term, scaffolding is often linked to the emergence of the zone of proximal development. This concept is aligned with SCT if the scaffold is removed gradually and is contingent upon the responsiveness of the learner to it. 39. **Scientific concepts --***also Everyday concepts.* Systematic principles consciously applied to understanding diverse phenomena. 40. **Tests (psychometric, traditional).** Those instruments which have been developed to measure language skills and knowledge using psychometric principles, for example, multiple choice tests. 41. **Zone of proximal development (ZPD).** An interaction during which, through mediation, an individual achieves more than she could have achieved if she had been working alone. During the ZPD, learning leads development.