Vygotsky's Sociocultural Learning Theory Given the comprehensive nature of sociocultural theory, its educational implications for assessment, curriculum, and instruction are numerous. When moving from theory to practice regarding sociocultural theory, it is necessary to recognize the notion of zones of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD is a teaching tool that helps students advance educationally beyond what they could do on their own. The ZPD also occupies an important place among the objectives of educational evaluation. When teachers create assessments, they should identify the skills the student needs to master the lesson objective and then create an assessment that captures the student's level of mastery. A method for assessing the whole of systems and the individual's interactions between and within these systems fuel or stifle an individual's development. Bronfenbrenner's perspective on child development transformed the way researchers study human development. The transformation was evident when researchers examined natural events and designed experiments to determine the influences of contexts on child development. As a result of Bronfenbrenner's ecological learning theory of human development, environments, from family to economic and political structures, are part of the individual's life journey (quote). Bronfenbrenner's ecological approach to human development helped unite the disciplines that allowed the emergence of key elements in the broader social structure that are vital to understanding the development of human nature. Vygotsky's theory makes assumptions about how children learn, but he emphasized the social context of learning. compared to Piaget's cognitive constructivist theory. Piaget's theory is used as the basis for learning models in which the teacher has a limited role. In Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, however, both teachers and expert colleagues play an important role in learning. Cognitive constructivism and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory present common aspects between the two theories or an overlap. However, Vygotsky's theory incorporates a more active and involved teacher role. Vygotsky in his theory claims that culture provides the child with the cognitive tools necessary for development. The tools determine the pattern and rate of development of which parents and teachers are channels of the tools of culture.