Conclusion

Vygotsky's ideas help educators adjust instructions to match the zone of proximal development within a classroom to meet the developmental needs of individual students. Addressing the challenge of applying Vygotsky's ideas in education environments, Watson (2002) says, "A good teacher is someone who can determine the appropriate help to give a student at an appropriate level on a task, with the right amount of examples. A good teacher must also know when to withdraw help" to keep challenging the student to progress (p. 199). However, Vygotsky's approach has some problems. The zone is a metaphor that is hard to test, and assessing an individual's dynamically changing zone is an elusive process. In other words, while cognitive-mediation theory can serve as a general guide to development, it lacks the precision to serve as a map.

In short, Vytosky (1962) introduced a contextual and cross-cultural perspective to child development that seems to compliment more than conflict with theories in the mechanistic and organismic perspective, providing a more complete picture of human development. Learning theorists saw that learning is development, focusing on how the environment influences the individual. Piaget (1968) saw that development comes from within before learning can occur, focusing on leaving the individual alone to develop at his or her own pace. Vygotsky saw that learning happens as a person masters new skills under the guidance of others who operate at the advanced edges of his or her developmental zone, focusing on cooperative learning that brings about development.