Vygotsky is Everywhere!

[Trina Eichel]

It is hard to think of a specific time when I was taught something successfully because I was in my ZPD because I was lucky to have a schooling experience where that was the norm. I remember always feeling successful in elementary school and middle school and never feeling like I was incapable of understanding something that was being taught. I remember my teachers providing a lot of scaffolding while I was in school, so I never felt that I lacked the developmental capacity to learn something. I remember my first-grade teacher using a lot of modeling techniques when teaching us math such as drawing things out on the board and having us follow along in our notebooks. This kind of teaching definitely improved my learning experience and ensured that I had the capacity to understand what was being taught.

At Prairie Creek, Vygotsky is the name of the game. Every conversation that I have had with a teacher there has included either the word modeling or scaffolding. There have been plenty of examples in my classroom of Molly modeling for the students, but I will limit myself to one. This week for Wild Wednesday, the students were learning about leaf shapes and sizes and how they can help identify different species of plants and trees. When Molly was explaining what their task was, she modeled the task herself by picking a leaf off the ground and identifying it with her “leaf key”. She then asked the class to repeat back to her the steps that she went through and when they did it successfully, she sent them off to do the task.

Molly is great at modeling for her students, but Prairie Creek also has a structure that promotes the use of peer MKOs. Prairie Creek is organized into blended classrooms where kindergarten and first-graders are paired, second and third graders are paired, and fourth and fifth graders are paired. In these classrooms, there are always opportunities for the older grade levels to help their younger peers through modeling. Vygotsky would love to see his education model being played out at Prairie Creek because from my observations, it works very well. Students are very successful in their completion of tasks that they are given and you can often see students collaborating on projects.

As an MKO in the classroom, I find it helpful to ask students to describe what they are doing and why they are doing it. I have found that this helps them think deeper about what they are doing. Rather than just sketching a leaf, they are identifying and describing different parts of the leaf to me and making observations about the color and shape. One student even guessed what kind of tree the leaf had fallen from before using the “leaf key” to confirm their hypothesis. As an MKO, I do not feel that it is my responsibility to tell the students what to think/do, but rather guide them into deeper exploration of the topic so that they begin to develop the skills needed for critical thinking.

Prairie Creek is such an incredible community and Molly has been really helpful in explaining her teaching philosophy to Kara and I throughout our visits. This week, Molly taught us some of her strategies for keeping the students engaged and focused when she is trying to give directions or teach a lesson. I have noticed that sometimes when she notices a student losing focus she will say “stay with us, __” which usually prompts them to focus back in. Molly explained and demonstrated a strategy in which she asks students to hold up their fingers for each step of the directions she is giving and then calls on random students to repeat them back to her (usually ones she knows weren’t paying attention) so that she knows that everyone is on the same page when it is time to go. Molly knows the importance of her students knowing the directions because she gives them a lot of independence in their learning. After hearing the directions, students are let free to complete the task with little further guidance. Molly has established a trusting relationship with her students which allows her to let them complete these tasks independently without worrying that they are wandering into the woods or playing instead of working. Her students thrive under this independence and responsibility and engage with her lessons in a meaningful way without having to be monitored. This shows me that students thrive in environments of trust and when expected and encouraged to do hard tasks, they will do so. 

[Chris O’Mara]

Trina, I really enjoyed reading your blog post and seeing such a strong contrast between the work you are doing at Prairie Creek and the work I’ve been doing at the High School. The concept of having classrooms / classes made up of multiple grades seems like such a good idea for the providing of MKO’s for students, and seems like the kind of thing that would be a great thing to implement on a larger scale. The amount of interaction that it seems goes on at Prairie Creek also made me realize that very little to no academic collaboration occurs between students at the high school, as students essentially do their own work silently, and any talking they do is during breaks or as a distraction from whatever they are working on.

It’s also amazing to read about how integral and purposeful the concepts of modeling and scaffolding are, as it seems the school is much more able to implement the strategies and they are core to the mission of PC. I was talking to Mr. DuBe the other day, and he was telling me about how his Professional Learning Community is very underdeveloped and the amount of coordination between classes and grades is lacking, which contrasts strongly with a place like PC that seems to have a cohesive, well thought out plan for cultivating children as both students and as people.

[Author]

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