information:classification, structural:reformatting
Zone of proximal development

Lev Vygotsky was a Russian theorist from the Soviet era, who posited that children learn through hands-on experience and social interactions with members of their culture. Vygotsky believed that a child's development should be examined during problem-solving activities. Unlike Piaget, he claimed that timely and sensitive intervention by adults when a child is on the edge of learning a new task (called the "zone of proximal development") could help children learn new tasks. Zone of proximal development is a tool used to explain the learning of children and collaborating problem solving activities with an adult or peer. This adult role is often referred to as the skilled "master", whereas the child is considered the learning apprentice through an educational process often termed " cognitive apprenticeship " Martin Hill stated that "The world of reality does not apply to the mind of a child." This technique is called "scaffolding", because it builds upon knowledge children already have with new knowledge that adults can help the child learn. Vygotsky was strongly focused on the role of culture in determining the child's pattern of development, arguing that development moves from the social level to the individual level. In other words, Vygotsky claimed that psychology should focus on the progress of human consciousness through the relationship of an individual and their environment. He felt that if scholars continued to disregard this connection, then this disregard would inhibit the full comprehension of the human consciousness.