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DC explores the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Posted: May 6, 2016

“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.  That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise.  They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence” – Carol Dweck

This coming week, students will be learning about the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), with the ideal zone being ‘the stretch zone’. In this zone a learner feels challenged, supported and engaged – meaningful learning and growth occurs in this zone.  It is important that as learners we all are able to identify what zone we are in and how to make adjustments in order to be in the ultimate zone for learning – the stretch zone. Many classes are using the visual shown here to help facilitate that process. Click here to learn more about the zone of proximal development.

We are interested to hear if you have noticed or heard your child(ren) talking about neuroplasticity, growth mindset, ‘growing our brains’ and so forth.  We are also interested to hear your thoughts about the resources and information regarding Growth Mindset that have been shared with you over the past few weeks through the Explorer. Please email Tracey Chitty to share your feedback.

This spring, one of our Y5 media teams created this advertisement about stretching their brains: