Children's Experiences in Achieving the Zone of Proximal Development
The children's experiences that bring them together with culture are needed to be able to achieve the "Zone of Proximal Development." For this reason, a learning approach is needed that can link the various aspects of learning that exist in the curriculum with real experiences that children experience in their daily lives. Effective methodologies related to teaching in large groups as a whole, teaching through real objects, diverse learning styles, adaptive and individual teaching, complete learning, cooperative learning, direct teaching, discovery, constructive, through peer tutors are needed by children so that they can direct themselves alone to study.
Specifically for early childhood education, modern constructivism by Vygotksy is divided into three stages:
1) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
An idea that young children learn concepts is best when they are in their closest development zone. That is, a distance between the skills that are already owned by children with new skills obtained with the assistance of adults (adult / caregiver / parent / teacher) or people who have mastered these skills (knowledgeable person / peer / siblings). The Zone of Proximal Development is presented in an environment with the richest features possible so as to provide abundant opportunities for children to develop concepts and internalize their understanding of various things so that children get strong stimuli to learn concepts for their understanding in the best way possible.
2) Cognitive Apprenticeship Stage or cognitive apprenticeship.
Is a term for the learning process in which the teacher provides support to early childhood in the form of scaffold until early childhood successfully forms cognitive understanding. Cognitive apprenticeship or cognitive apprenticeship is also a culture of learning from and among peers through interaction with one another so as to form a concept of a common experience and then share experiences to form these concepts among peers (Collins, Brown, and Newman1989). Wilson and Cole (1994) describe the characteristics of cognitive apprenticeship, namely "heuristic content, situated learning, modeling, coaching, articulation, reflection, exploration, and" order in increasing complexity ".
3) Scaffolding or mediated learning,
Namely step by step support for learning and problem solving as an important thing in modern constructivist thinking. Scaffolding is adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child's current level of performance. ”Scaffolding is mostly found to be done by adults (adult / care giver / parent / teacher) or people who know in advance (knowledgeable person / siblings / peer ) about a skill that should be achieved by early childhood.
Theories of Moral Development by Kohlberg and Thomas Lickona.
Kohlberg as an expert on moral development, relies on Piaget's theory which states that affective development occurs in children aged 1 to 5 years. At that time the child is in "self oriented Morality". As an initial stage of moral development this condition is "the Golden Rule" because at this stage begins to grow "mutual respect" in children. To them began to be introduced to courtesy, and other good deeds, although sometimes they get into conflict because they are difficult to manage and are in an egocentric period. The clash between egocentric thinking and mutual respect is an exciting arena for the growth of the transformation of values in children. Virtue will grow through a long series of processes that involve and hone logic and emotions to clash with one another.