Chapter 2: What True Learning Looks Like
Unlocking Deep Learning Through Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
"One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one's greatest efforts."
- Albert Einstein
While you've heard of the term comfort zone, have you ever heard of the "zone of proximal development"?
Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky created one of the most influential frameworks for understanding what learning actually is and how it unfolds. Deep learning isn't just accumulating facts and details; rather, it's a complex and iterative process of acquiring real understanding. Learning is a developmental process.
Very briefly, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is a kind of sweet spot; it's the range of abilities that a person can achieve with help. There are three main "zones":
1. Those things you can easily do on your own.
2. Those things you cannot do at all (even with help).
3. Those things you can't do alone, but can if you have support, guidance, and teachings from an expert.
The ZPD is all about this third zone.
Think about it: How does one learn to do what they cannot do? How does one understand what one cannot understand? How does one know what they don't know?
For Vygotsky, you need a bridge. You need "mental training wheels."
Now, conventional understanding sees learning as a kind of private, independent act. We see children sitting at individual school desks, working in isolation, relying only on their own intellectual resources.
But what if this isn't how learning occurs at all?
Vygotsky's genius was to understand that real development actually unfolds in context and is always scaffolded on existing social knowledge. To put this differently, our learning is most effective and transformative when others are helping us.
Vygotsky claimed that learning is a sociocultural phenomenon, and that a "more knowledgeable other" could keep people in that critical deep learning zone.
This more knowledgeable other could be:
A teacher
A mentor
A peer
Do they know just a teeny bit more than you currently do? Then they can act as a more knowledgeable other. The idea is that you mimic, follow, and eventually internalize their mastery as your own.
Vygotsky's theory can get complex, but applying his insights to our own learning process is fairly straightforward. Let's take a look.
Learn Just Beyond Your Comfort Zone-with Guidance
Where does learning occur?
Not in that zone where you can already do a task, nor in that zone where you can't do it, even with help.
No, learning occurs in that special sweet spot between competence and ignorance, that gray zone between "I can" and "I can't."
If a task is too easy = No learning.
If a task is too hard = No learning.
Dwelling on the stuff you can already do feels good, and forcing yourself to take on tasks that are beyond you feels bad. But being right in the middle? That feels challenging but doable.
You find it hard, but not impossible.
You don't fully understand the concept, but you almost get it.
You can't coordinate your muscles to perform the movement just yet, but you can see how someone else does it, and you're almost able to copy them.
This is where the magic happens!
Step 1: A more knowledgeable "other" acts like your training wheels. They may say, "Watch how I do it."
Step 2: You watch. Then you try, but with their help. They "hold your hand" through it.
Step 3: After some time, you try it by yourself, without the training wheels.
Step 4: You adjust, correct, improve. Gradually, it's as though your mentor's voice is becoming your own, and you're able to talk to yourself as though they were talking to you.
Step 5: Soon, that voice disappears all together-because you're doing the thing. The skill or knowledge is now your own.
Ideally, teachers, tutors, mentors, and trainers would understand ZPD theory and know how to work alongside their students so that they were always squarely inside the deep learning zone.
What about those of us who are trying to teach ourselves, or those who haven't been blessed with good teachers or mentors?
No problem. Simply understanding Vygotsky's theory can help you learn better, no matter what your constraints are:
First things first: Pay very close attention to which zone you're in. Note your emotions and stress levels. Easy is fun but you don't want easy. You don't want impossible, either. Aim for "productively challenged." This is the flow state.
Too easy? Up the challenge. Too hard? Lower the challenge, and/or seek a knowledgeable other to walk you through, step by step.
Learning platforms like Exercism, Codecademy, or Khan Academy can supply both guidance, support, challenges, and hints for when you're stuck.
Actively seek help and support. Ask people to walk you through their process. Sometimes, someone who has only recently learned what you have yet to learn is a better teacher than a long-standing expert-because that learning is still fresh in their minds.
Aim for "just in time" learning rather than "just in case" learning. Learn what you need to at a given level and then move on ASAP. Don't hang around collecting gold stars-level up as soon as humanly possible.
The aim is to feel stretched, not stuck.
How do you know you're in the zone?
You're making mistakes-but not the same ones over and over.
You're improving, even if slowly.
Your questions and challenges are changing over time.
You feel engaged and spurred on.
You're feeling that almost vibe-like you're just on the cusp of getting it!
Use Scaffolding Strategies That Match Your Learning Stage
When constructing a physical building, you need a temporary/transitional building for support-scaffolding. In the same way, cognitive buildings require support while you work to build a new skill or acquire new knowledge.
As you build competency, you take down the old scaffolding and built it again at the next level up.
Good scaffolding is:
Temporary
Personalized
Scaffolding for cognitive buildings includes things like
Tools
Resources
Exercises
Instructions
Any tips, tricks, or hacks that act as guard rails and training wheels
In a traditional learning context, it's the more knowledgeable other that uses scaffolding to assist their student. You can supply your own scaffolds, however:
Guided examples. Work through a few math problems with the full solution alongside, then attempt similar problems on your own, following that method.
Use progressive modeling. Ask a mentor to show you the first step of a sports maneuver, do the second part together as a team, and follow through to complete the final part yourself.
Milestones and feedback. Break a musical piece down into many smaller chunks. Practice each chunk, get feedback, then move onto the next.
Learn to instruct yourself. Ask for guided instructions on a dance move, then do the move as you hear the instructions, then attempt the move while mentally telling yourself the instructions as you go. Alternatively, make yourself walk through your own thought process, "What am I doing now? What comes next? OK, now take this over here and."
Use templates. If you're learning to write amazing essays, create a standard template that you use for the first few times, before you've internalized that structure.
Stay aware. Deep learning in the ZPD requires metacognition. Pause frequently for...
