Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory: Instructional Technology (IT) Perspective

The advent of the application of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory via instructional technology uses, for example, computer games and video games on children cognitive development ability was dated back to 1934, when American writer E.B. White (1993) warned that television was going to be the test of modern world. He also asserted that, we shall either remain stand or fall by the television.

Although, this proclaimed assertion on television has became the hottest issue today, more especially in the area of children social, emotional and cognitive development.

The impact of television and other media on the sociocultural mental development of children have became the most common topic of discussion among psychologists, and researching is on going in the area of finding the impact of environment on children cognitive development and all this researches rooted from Vygotsky's sociocultural theory on children cognitive development.

Before further advancement, on the above discussion, it's seems there is need to give a little preamble on "Lev Vygotsky". Lev Vygotsky was one of the famous theorist on child cognitive development, although he died in the early 1934, before his theory was fully developed.

Vygotsky's sociocultural theory became one of the most influential theories of cognitive development which reached its peak popularity during the 1980's and 1990's respectively. It was in that time the impact of television and other media outlets on children was under strict scrutiny.

The Objectives of Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
i) The theory may help us understand "Why" and "How" television, video games, computer games and other related media can strongly influence children cognitive development.
ii) The theory may be of benefit in facilitating understanding of the role plays by observation on children cognitive development processes.
iii) The theory as one of it's objective signifies that, interactions among people or children peer groups influence children cognitive development ability, (Sternberg, et al., 2002).

Distinctive nature of Vygotsky's sociocultural affiliation and today's world view

Vygotsky used interchangeably the word " environment" with "their world" and that only signifies the wider scope of the term.

Culture today is made up of a technology-reliant society dependent upon television and other electronic media such as computers, cd's players, video etc., as a primary source of entertainment. The most saddest situation is how children often do not know what to do when television, computer or video games are not available, hence the common utterance of the words “I’m bored” or "I'm tired".

This may be what most distinguishes the present era from that of Vygotsky's time. Children environment today is quite different than that on which Vygotsky would have based his sociocultural theory.

Nevertheless, his theory may be apply now more than ever before, with media becoming such a powerful and a permanent part of children live in their immediate environment.

Write about the three learning theories you know.

The three learning theories are categorized under the following sub-heading:
i) Behaviorism as a learning theory
ii) Cognitivism as a learning theory
iii) Constructivism as a learning theory.

But, first and forest, let's define the term learning. Learning can simply be defined as the process of acquiring knowledge or the situation whereby there exists a change in one's behavior. But in psychology learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, values, and world views (Illeris, 2004; Ormrod, 1995).

Learning as a process focuses on what happens when the learning takes place. Explanations of what happens constitute what we called learning theories. Now we go a head discussing the three fundamentals learning theories as mentioned above.

i) Behaviorist: This learning theory advocated on learning by stimuli, response and re-enforcement. From Islamic perspective of this theory concurred with the pedagogy of Rasulullah, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in way that, when tracing back on how revelation began.
It was a popular sirah among the Muslim Ummah that with the appearance of Angel Jibril as the our noble Prophet to read! (Iqra) repeatedly but the Prophet (PBUH) replied that I could be able to read and then Angel JIbril (AS) hugs the Prophet and that could be termed as the sign of re-enforcement.

After that hugging the Prophet, was ordered to read in the name our lord. Therefore, going by the above analysis we can say behaviorism as learning theory was in conformity with the pedagogy of our noble Prophet peace and blessing of Allah be upon him.

ii) Cognitivist: This learning theory presumed that learning took place only when one engaged learning by either memorization, analysis, synthesizing or problem solving mechanism.

When relating this learning theory within the Islamic context, we can vividly see that, Prophet Muhammad (PBHU) is most learned human being on the earth until today and he hailed from Arab tribe and as such usually found that Arabs were characterized as the best in terms of memorization ability as compared to other races.

It was also established that, children who were early exposed to Qur'anic system of education do much better in formal schooling system more especially in the area of sciences.

iii) Constructivist: Constructivist as one of the learning theories advocated that learning usually took place within the confine of collaboration between individual or groups of people. through collaboration one would be able to discover certain potential, to agree or disagree, to believe or not believe, to accept or not accept.

Through this, most what learned remained permanently in one's mind. Linking this learning theory to Islam, could be viewed from one of the Prophet Hadith, narrated that, there were group of sahaba sent for an errand by the Prophet and the prophet ordered them to pray Asr prayer at the final destination.

On their way going, Asr prayer time catches with them, there, some among the sahaba prayed before and some prayed after reaching the final destination. When they narrated to the prophet, he said they were all right. This was discovery learning by the sahabatul Rasulullah (SAW).

Thank to Allah (SWT)

Assalamu alaikum Dr.

I thank Allah (SWT) for giving us an able lecturer like you, who is up and doing in the course of shearing her both Quranic, education technology and Instructional technology knowledge with us.
May Allah reward you abundantly and bless your entire family.

Yours Obedient Student
Mukhtar Alhaji Liman
INSTED