Blog Post 2, Vygotsky/Grouping

I think that Vygostky would definitely recommend extreme diverse grouping, due to his belief about the ZPD and social interaction. Meeting with people of different backgrounds, whether that be cultural, economic, age, or knowledge, can help everyone's ZPD to grow. This was very important to Vygotstky's theory, especially when it comes to intersubjectivity - coming together with diverse backgrounds and accomplishing one goal or task.

The common response would be to say that Piaget wouldn't approve of extreme diverse grouping, but I don't believe this is necessarily the case. Piaget did believe that development drives learning, and therefore probably wouldn't wholeheartedly agree with putting students from different stages (formal operational, concrete operational, etc.) together - simply because it be difficult for a teacher to come up with a lesson plan that could include everyone. However, I think that Piaget would approve of diversity: just not in age (or developmental stage). He would like the idea of having students with different past experience, family life, or culture working together, so long as they're in the same place developmentally. Though Vygotsky and Piaget did disagree on some things, I do think they would both agree that diversity is important in some way, shape, or form -- Vygostky would just probably be more for ANY type of diversity, whereas Piaget might have more limits.