The Learning Process A Lecturer

11 explaining how students come to know about their world. Human mind is viewed as dynamic sets of cognitive structures that help us to make sense of what we receive. A cognitive part of people grows in intellectual complexity as people get mature and as people communicate with the world people come to know and as people gain experience Brooks Brooks, 1993. Cognitive constructivism sees that students can improve their cognitive development through constructing their prior and new knowledge by themselves. Constructivist accounts emphasize the value of personal skills in developing strategies to learn or perform a task, such as using elaborative questioning or note-taking to improve abilities of students. In the learning process, a teacher can facilitate students to construct their comprehensions by providing materials. According to Suparno 1997, a learning material is a medium to construct knowledge. 2 Social Constructivism A self is constructed by the individual and by the surrounding social community Zimmerman Schunk, 2001. Thinking and learning are united in social situations. Suparno 1997 says that Vygotsky influences constructivist pedagogy and see constructivism in a social perspective. Vygotsky offers his theory that is ZPD to support constructivist pedagogy. ZPD or Zone of Proximal Development ZPD is defined as: “...the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the higher level of potential development as determined through problem solving under guidance and in collaboration with more capable peers”. Vygotsky, 1978, p.86 as cited in McLeod, 2010 12 It means that Zone of Proximal Development sees the relationship between individual’s cognitive development and social interaction. It this case, social interaction prefers to collaborative learning. Collaborative learning will optimize students’ growth in learning. According to Brooks and Brooks 1993, the growth of knowledge is the result of student s’ constructions made by them and collaborative learning has a significant role in constructing cognitive development. In pursuit of new understanding, students are led by their own standpoints and informed by the ideas of others Brooks Brooks, 1993. Cognitive skills of students can be more improved when they are involved in collaborative learning with their friends. Zone of Proximal Development is illustrated in the figure 2. 1. Figure 2.1 Zone of Proximal Development McLeod, 2010 Zone of Proximal Development is a zone, in which an individual’s optimum learning can occur. After discussing two elements of constructivist pedagogy, it can be concluded that this pedagogy stands on three main factors. Constructivist pedagogy appreciates the dynamic of the learning process. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI