Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Optimal Mismatch
The role of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development in children’s acquisition of new skills is supported by scaffolding from the instructor constructing knowledge based on current schemas. The teacher’s role is to “boost” students into the next level of learning ((Joyce et al., 2003). According to Joyce et al. (2003) if students become matched to the developmental level of the learners, they may become content in that level and remain there. This limits the ability for students to move beyond concrete thinking and stalls the progress into conceptual understanding. Joyce et al. (2003) explains that deliberately mismatched student and environmental conditions hinder the maintenance of familiar patterns to encourage growth to more complex comprehension. This process is considered “optimal mismatch” (Joyce et al., 2003). This is a significant consideration in developing conceptual understanding in science concepts. In science we cannot look at scientific explanations as “black and white