ABSTRACT
The zone of proximal development, sometimes called the ZPD or the Zo-ped, is the ‘area’ between the level at which students know something or can do something on their own, and the level of performance or skill they could reach given the right support, teaching or structured learning. This is a crucially important idea for the classroom teacher because it provides a way of visualising the area that they should be aiming at or constructing in their teaching-it is the area or zone where teachers should be ‘pitching’ their lesson. If they succeed in targeting this zone, teachers and mentors often say that they are ‘pitching their lesson at the right level’. Another way of putting it is to call it the zone where there is a ‘manageable level of difficulty’ for the student (Berk, 2003, p.258). It can also help to think of it as a zone of potential development.
