CStarsky® Confidence-to-Learn Loop

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), introduced by Lev Vygotsky as part of his sociocultural theory of learning, represents the gap between what learners can do alone and what they can achieve through guidance and collaboration with a knowledgeable person (e.g., teacher, parent, or peer) or other available resources. The ZPD is the space where effective instruction should occur, enabling learners to internalize new skills and eventually perform them independently. Social interaction helps learners internalize their understanding of strategies and skills.

With one-on-one tutoring the social interaction between the tutor and the learner can be customized “on-the-spot” to target the most appropriate area within the zone. Classroom settings do not facilitate this sort of customization. Many students who struggle in the classroom thrive in a tutoring environment. This is particularly true if students are struggling to keep up in class, but it is also true when students are not being sufficiently challenged in the classroom.

The ZPD is often described as having three distinct zones.

• The “Comfort Zone” is where the learner can complete tasks independently without help from others. He or she has mastered the skills. Within the ZPD, instruction is most beneficial when lessons are focused on tasks that are outside of the learner’s Comfort Zone.

• The “Learning Zone” is where learners cannot complete tasks without help or guidance from other people or resources (e.g., books, google). These tasks are challenging, stimulate cognitive growth, and help learners improve their knowledge and skills with targeted support. This is where instruction is most effective. In the classroom teachers will provide “supports” for learning. These supports are often referred to as scaffolding.

• The “Frustration Zone” is where students cannot complete tasks even with help from others (e.g., parent, teacher, peer). These tasks may move into the Learning Zone as students increase relevant KSAs that they can “hook” new ideas on that will enable them to start advancing with guidance from others.

Movement between zones. Instructional goals include mastering skills, so they can move into the Comfort Zone. When the targeted instruction that occurs in the Learning Zone helps the students feel more comfortable with new knowledge, skills, or abilities (KSAs), it does not mean instruction ends. It simply means as those new KSAs move into the Comfort Zone there are new KSAs within the Frustration Zone that move into the Learning Zone. As new learning builds on earlier learning students develop more advanced KSAs.

This focus on the ZPD helps bridge the gap between the learner’s current ability and future competence. When tutors, teachers, trainers, or other resource materials help students understand logic and strategies for getting to the more advanced levels of knowledge and skill it will help the students apply the logic in the future, thus allowing the learners to perform independently at more advanced levels in the future.

As KSAs move through the three zones in the ZPD, students are working within the CStarsky® Confidence-to Learn Loop. Undeveloped knowledge and skills move into a guided learning environment. As lessons are learned and students gain confidence in their abilities, applying new knowledge and skills becomes more automatic, freeing up "brainpower" to take on new learning challenges. With this, undeveloped knowledge and skills can start to move into guided learning environments, where students can learn how to build on existing knowledge. This loop allows students to become better able to apply information and processes more automatically (read: quickly), allowing them to continue to independently build their KSAs. outside of a classroom.   

At CStarsky Lifelong Learning the first step in our tutoring process is to assess the students’ knowledge and skills to determine where their Comfort Zone ends and their Learning Zone begins.

• Guided instruction provided by the same tutor throughout the lessons helps students internalize new skills and eventually perform independently.

• Students actively engage in learning through dialogue, interaction with the materials, and problem solving. Because students are actively working with the material and discussing relevant processes, while working on a topic of interest to them, they do not simply replicate the tutor’s actions but develop a deeper understanding of the underlying principles and strategies.

• This guided performance turns into confidence and competence completing tasks.

As self-regulated performance increases the tutor’s presence fades. As external guidance is removed, inner speech, based on what was remembered from previous instruction, supports self-regulated thought and guides the student’s independent problem-solving.

With CStarsky tutoring, students are

“Guided today. Confident tomorrow.”

#Zone Of Proximal Development

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