Vygotsky's Theory Of Cognitive Development

I will apply Vygotsky’s theory of development to make changes to my current curriculum. Vygotsky believed that social and cultural environments affect the way people think and their cognitive development. He believes that children have a curiosity to experiment with their environment that contributes to their cognitive development, but he think the most important factor is social interaction. When kids are younger this interaction is between their families and the people close to them, but as they get older they begin to formal interactions with other adults. Vygotsky believes that culture provides children with psychological tools that allow them to interact and explore their world and shape their cognitive development. He believes that children
Our reading curriculum and materials are aligned with the Connecticut Common Core State Standards, but the texts provided are not culturally relevant for the students. I teach Dual Language Spanish and my students are from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador. Even though some of them were born in the United States, their families are from these countries and they have been immersed in their culture. The texts that come with our language arts materials are not related to their background or with the city and state they currently live in. Two of our language arts units are let’s look around and family and friends. They skills and strategies for these units are main idea, details, summarizing, making predictions, questioning, evaluate and compare and contrast. These skills and strategies are not introduced and mastered in one unit, but they repeat throughout all the units. Let’s look around unit is about all things around us, but the readings in the students anthology books are about different parts of the country; forests, oceans, parks, etc. I will change the curriculum by providing the children with readings about places in tri-state area, specifically Connecticut. The will learn about the Long Island sound, Universities in the State, Pleasure Beach, museums, etc. I will provide the students with readings, videos and field trips that will allow them to gain understanding about important places and how these shape who we are and make us an important part of the United States. I will also focus in the following skills and strategies; main idea, details, summarizing and questioning. The next unit is family and friends. As with the previous unit, the reading and supplemental materials do not focus in the families that my students related to, making the content less comprehensible. For this unit I will focus my