Research on Teacher's Role of Mobile Pedagogy Guided by the Zone of Proximal Development

Abstract

Mobile pedagogy has been growing rapidly worldwide with the growth of mobile learning. Many countries and higher education institutions promote innovative pedagogical practice with mobile technology set for open online and offline courses. Teacher's role becomes diverse and flexible given by virtual teaching environments and learner-centered mobile learning. Social constructivism provides theoretical support for teachers in the role of scaffolding knowledge to learners in a higher level beyond learners' ability. This paper describes the Zone of Proximal Development, then modified framework for the digital education is presented to illustrate the relationship between teachers in mobile pedagogy and learners in mobile learning. With comparison, teacher's role is clarified in a series of visualized figures. Implication is given on teacher's improvement for innovative pedagogy in the digital era.