Hardbound. In this volume the authors examine the impact of Feuerstein's theory of Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) on our understanding of the learning, instruction and cognitive modifiability of children, adolescents and young adults. The book begins with a historical essay charting the origins of the theory in Feuerstein's work with holocaust survivors and immigrant children, to the current international acceptance and application of his ideas.The authors discuss key issues such as: the relationship between Feuerstein's theory and the changing agenda of psychological research; developments in the fields of learning potential assessment and their contribution to a more culturally equitable evaluation procedure; the influence of MLE theory on the enhancement of the learning potential of students.The discussion concludes with a consideration of the more problematic aspects of Feuerstein's work and an examination of alternative assessment metho

Drawing attention to the pivotal ideas associated with 'the science of the cultural mind', this book centres on the idea that the human mind should be considered a sociocultural, rather than a natural or biological, phenomenon. Far from being purely theoretical, the science of the cultural mind has direct, practical implications for areas such as child development, the assessment of learning processes, and future-oriented education. The chapters are organized around five pivotal ideas and their applications, including mediated learning, symbolic tools, and leading activity. It also provides a systematic review of the Vygotskian theory and its contemporary implications in cognitive development. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this book contains examples of practical applications of the sociocultural theory of learning that will benefit students, researchers, and practitioners in child development, educational psychology, culture studies, and education.

Drawing attention to the pivotal ideas associated with 'the science of the cultural mind', this book centres on the idea that the human mind should be considered a sociocultural, rather than a natural or biological, phenomenon. Far from being purely theoretical, the science of the cultural mind has direct, practical implications for areas such as child development, the assessment of learning processes, and future-oriented education. The chapters are organized around five pivotal ideas and their applications, including mediated learning, symbolic tools, and leading activity. It also provides a systematic review of the Vygotskian theory and its contemporary implications in cognitive development. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this book contains examples of practical applications of the sociocultural theory of learning that will benefit students, researchers, and practitioners in child development, educational psychology, culture studies, and education.

This book demonstrates how rigorous mathematical thinking can be fostered through the development of students' cognitive tools and operations. This approach seems to be particularly effective with socially disadvantaged and culturally different students. The authors argue that children's cognitive functions cannot be viewed as following a natural maturational path: they should be actively constructed during the educational process. The Rigorous Mathematical Thinking (RMT) model is based on two major theoretical approaches - Vygotsky's theory of psychological tools and Feuerstein's concept of mediated learning experience. The book starts with general cognitive tools that are essential for all types of problem solving and then moves to mathematically specific cognitive tools and methods for utilizing these tools for mathematical conceptual formation. The application of the RMT model in various urban classrooms demonstrates how mathematics education standards can be reached even by the students with a history of educational failure who were considered hopeless underachievers.

Innovative ideas in educational psychology, learning, and instruction, originally formulated by Russian psychologist and educator Lev Vygotsky, are currently enjoying unprecedented popularity in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Russia. An international team of scholarly contributors provides comprehensive coverage of all the main concepts of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. They emphasize its importance for the understanding of child development, and propose specific classroom applications.

This book demonstrates how rigorous mathematical thinking can be fostered through the development of students' cognitive tools and operations. This approach seems to be particularly effective with socially disadvantaged and culturally different students. The authors argue that children's cognitive functions cannot be viewed as following a natural maturational path: they should be actively constructed during the educational process. The Rigorous Mathematical Thinking (RMT) model is based on two major theoretical approaches - Vygotsky's theory of psychological tools and Feuerstein's concept of mediated learning experience. The book starts with general cognitive tools that are essential for all types of problem solving and then moves to mathematically specific cognitive tools and methods for utilizing these tools for mathematical conceptual formation. The application of the RMT model in various urban classrooms demonstrates how mathematics education standards can be reached even by the students with a history of educational failure who were considered hopeless underachievers.

Innovative ideas in educational psychology, learning, and instruction, originally formulated by Russian psychologist and educator Lev Vygotsky, are currently enjoying unprecedented popularity in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Russia. An international team of scholarly contributors provides comprehensive coverage of all the main concepts of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. They emphasize its importance for the understanding of child development, and propose specific classroom applications.

Alex Kozulin, translator of Vygotsky's work and distinguished Russian-American psychologist, has written the first major intellectual biography about Vygotsky's theories and their relationship to twentieth-century Russian and Western intellectual culture. He traces Vygotsky's ideas to their origins in his early essays on literary criticism, Jewish culture, and the psychology of art, and he explicates brilliantly his psychological theory of language, thought, and development.

Kozulin's biography of Vygotsky also reflects many of the conflicts of twentieth-century psychology--from the early battles between introspectionists and reflexologists to the current argument concerning the cultural and social, rather than natural, construction of the human mind.

Vygotsky was a contemporary of Freud and Piaget, and his tragically early death and the Stalinist suppression of his work ensured that his ideas did not have an immediate effect on Western psychology. But the last two decades have seen his psychology become highly influential while that of other theoretical giants has faded.

The concept of "psychological tools" is a cornerstone of L. S. Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of cognitive development. Psychological tools are the symbolic cultural artifacts--signs, symbols, texts, formulae, and most fundamentally, language--that enable us to master psychological functions like memory, perception, and attention in ways appropriate to our cultures. In this lucid book, Alex Kozulin argues that the concept offers a useful way to analyze cross-cultural differences in thought and to develop practical strategies for educating immigrant children from widely different cultures.

Kozulin begins by offering an overview of Vygotsky's theory, which argues that consciousness arises from communication as civilization transforms "natural" psychological functions into "cultural" ones. He also compares sociocultural theory to other innovative approaches to learning, cognitive education in particular. And in a vivid case study, the author describes his work with recent Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, whose traditional modes of learning were oral and imitative, and who consequently proved to be quick at learning conversational Hebrew, but who struggled with the reading, writing, and formal problem solving required by a Western classroom. Last, Kozulin develops Vygotsky's concept of psychological tools to promote literature as a useful tool in cognitive development.

With its explication of Vygotsky's theory, its case study of sociocultural pedagogy, and its suggested use of literary text for cognitive development, "Psychological Tools" will be of considerable interest to research psychologists and educators alike.

A new edition of a foundational work of cognitive science that outlines a theory of the development of specifically human higher mental functions. Since it was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1962, Lev Vygotsky's Thought and Language has become recognized as a classic foundational work of cognitive science. Its 1962 English translation must certainly be considered one of the most important and influential books ever published by the MIT Press. In this highly original exploration of human mental development, Vygotsky analyzes the relationship between words and consciousness, arguing that speech is social in its origins and that only as children develop does it become internalized verbal thought. In 1986, the MIT Press published a new edition of the original translation by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar, edited by Vygotsky scholar Alex Kozulin, that restored the work's complete text and added materials to help readers better understand Vygotsky's thought. Kozulin also contributed an introductory essay that offered new insight into Vygotsky's life, intellectual milieu, and research methods. This expanded edition offers Vygotsky's text, Kozulin's essay, a subject index, and a new foreword by Kozulin that maps the ever-growing influence of Vygotsky's ideas.