Len Semyonovitch Vygotsky
1896-1934
Vygotsky was born in Byelorussia (Soviet Union), first studied law and philosophy, then he switched his interest to psychology from 1917 and only pursued this career for 17 years before his death.
Although working in the era when behaviorist theory and the Gestalt movement initiated and developed, Vygotsky thought none of these theories could completely describe and successfully explain higher psychological functions in terms acceptable to natural science. He agreed to Piaget's conceptions of learning, believed that cognitive change only took place when disequilibration of previous conceptions was broken by new information and new equilibration was founded. He emphasized the social nature of learning and suggested mixed-ability learning groups be a great help to promote conceptual change.