Over in (LJ community), there’s an interesting discussion which touched on the transferability of skills (thanks . I think this is one of the key points that I really need to think about in what I’m trying to do with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. One of the issues that I’m finding in (re)reading Vygotsky is that a lot of it deals specifically with the development of the child. My basic assumption is that there is some difference between a child and an adult. But it terms of development, how can this be posited? Vygotsky refers to ‘higher mental functions’. But in all the reading of Vygotsky, I’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever come across what these are. But I sense that the ‘transferability of skills’ is one of them. It’s part of the ‘zone of learning capability’ that I posited in my PhD. This zone implies that individuals can undertake specific actions to acquire greater understanding but it seems to be severely limited when discussing undergraduate students. Vygotsky talked about imitation, but tried very hard to show it wasn’t imitation in the strictest definition of that word. It was more about individuals being able to understand the process behind the acts that they are imitating. Which means … which means, that students who receive feedback on drafts and are not able to enact improvements beyond what is indicated within the feedback are attempting to work beyond their zone of learning capability and indeed their zone of proximal development.

Which begs the question (I think) of how so many students are unable to take feedback and actually improve what they do. They are imitating in the most basic form. There is no application of any knowledge, no interaction with their own text. I’m left wondering where this originates, as I see it so frequently (and by many accounts, so do others). Is this symptomatic of the information age? Is it symptomatic of something else? Do we live such surface lives that we no longer really question? Is it related (maybe) to the search culture? One click and the information is there? Maybe it’s the Wikipedia generation.

Hmm I wonder if I could do some analysis of the processes involved in Wikipedia decisions. I wonder if any of the discussions of whether to delete specific pages shows any reflective depth to the decisions. I wonder if that would provide any insights.

It feels like it’s the new year already. I want to get back to work but the uni doesn’t open again for almost another week.