Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory and its Implications to the Role of Teachers in Students' Learning of Mathematics

The purpose of this paper was to introduce sociocultural theory which is a different epistemological perspective from constructivism and to understand the sociocultural theory in a systemic way by providing four specific criteria for a sociocultural theory from the analysis of Vygotsky's ideas. The four criteria are the followings: first, the origin of learning is not at the individual level, but at the social. Second, Learning takes place in a sociocultural framework through ZPD and there exists the stage of pseudo concept before it gets to a true concept. Third, a clear focus on action, especially mediated action, and the concept of psychological tools should be discussed in the boundary of a sociocultural theory. Fourth, actors in a learning process are not an individual child alone. In consequence, the role of adults, particularly teachers, are significant in a child's learning, and this fact provides a great potential for the active role of teachers in the students' learning of mathematics from the sociocultural perspective.