People can do with guidance what they cannot yet do alone, and that gap is where learning happens.
Vygotsky's 1934 concept. Its practical form is scaffolding: support pitched just above current ability and withdrawn as competence arrives, which is why both easy and impossible tasks teach nothing.
In practice
- A trainee given the difficult call with a supervisor listening learns more than one given easy calls alone or hard calls unsupported.
- Both easy and impossible tasks teach nothing, which is why the useful assignment is the one the person cannot quite do yet.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- Theories of teaching, and what schools are for