Blog Response # 6

 

Processing Wood Chapter 9 from a socio-culturalist point of view 

Throughout the entire semester, I’ve been tolling back and forth on the concept of human learning and development. Is it innate or socially constructed? To this day, I’m still not totally grounded on what point of view I accept. 😕 However, after reflecting on Wood's chapter 9 and my own experience as a teacher, I seem to lean more toward the notion that social construction plays an active role in the development of both fields.

I accept Wood’s (2004), notion that “physical and social environments are not simply places in which people act they remain an integral part of their knowledge and action” (pg.278). I view the framework of human development as guided through an interactive process between a person, and their environment rather than from the individual’s mind. Moreover, learning and instruction are products of the child’s guided construction rather than the teacher’s transmission, and the child’s absorption of learning is constructed through their experiences

With this response, it makes sense as to why in early childhood education, the concepts of responsive learning environments or the ideology that environments are the “third teacher” hold weight because of the impact they have on providing cognitive and linguistic support and in turn determining academic performance.

References: 

Wood, D. (2004). How children think and learn. Blackwell.