Here, we present to Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology readers the first in a series of “Classical Articles.” The purpose of this series is to reprint some of the articles that have played pivotal role in the development of the field of dynamic assessment and cognitive education. Some of these articles never appeared in English, and others were published in already defunct journals or proceedings. It seems important to make the current generation of researchers familiar with these texts so that our theoretical discussions can be carried out with full awareness of what has been done before us and how the classics of our field articulated their ideas.

The four articles presented in the JCEP special issue on the Vygotskian approach to instruction provide the readers with examples of how Vygotsky's ideas have been used by his followers in different countries to improve educational practices in various subject domains and for students of different age groups. The articles cover the following topics: preschool instruction that results in the development of children's self-regulation; second language instruction organized as an implementation of Vygotsky's ideas about teaching scientific knowledge; teaching math to elementary school children that results in their high level and meaningful acquisition of knowledge and development of their ability to reflect on their knowledge; and education of teachers aimed at the development of their reflection. The articles are intended to help English-speaking educators better understand the Vygotskian ideas and methodology and adopt them into their practices.

Data generated by international science examinations such as TIMSS and PISA indicated that many students failed to solve science tasks not because of their lack of specific scientific knowledge, but because of poor general problem solving skills. The present study was triggered by the need to introduce middle-school students to strategies and techniques of working with unfamiliar material and using general symbolic tools. Feuerstein’s theory of Mediated Learning Experience and Vygotsky’s concept of psychological tools served as a theoretical basis for two intervention programs: The first program connected content-neutral cognitive tasks with TIMSS-like science tasks, while the second one offered students a new scientific experience Thinking Journey to the Moon. Middle-school students were pre- and posttested by TIMSS-like tasks that required minimal prior scientific knowledge. Both programs proved to be effective in improving students’ problem solving and the ability to justify their answers, though reflective ability continued to be weaker than problem solving. The relative importance of mediated learning experience vs. specific problem solving tasks is discussed.

New evidence is presented that a basic cognitive function such as spatial memory is strongly culturally dependent and quite modifiable even in adult learners. The study was conducted with several groups of new immigrants from Ethiopia in Israel who were enrolled in a year-long educational program for young adults. Static administration of the Positional Learning Test demonstrated that these new immigrant students experienced considerable difficulty with spatial memory tasks. Learning potential (LP) assessment of spatial memory with the same task was then performed with two additional groups of new immigrant students. Though the groups had the same performance level in the static part of the test, their response to mediation was very different. This finding confirms that individuals with similar static performance may have very different LP. Students who demonstrated greater LP also benefited more from the Instrumental Enrichment intervention. The results of this study therefore suggest that LP assessment has added value for immigrant and minority students similar to those in this study, that spatial memory is both culturally dependent and modifiable, and that LP assessment may serve as a tool that can be helpful for planning cognitive education intervention.

The dynamic assessment (DA) paradigm asserts that the level of a person’s current cognitive performance (often operationalized as problem solving) does not necessarily coincide with his or her learning potential. For the most part learning potential assessment procedures have been used to uncover a “hidden” cognitive potential of low-performing students. Such an orientation diverted the attention of DA researchers from a more fundamental question regarding the difference between learning and problem-solving processes in all individuals, including children and adults with normative development. In the present study the DA learning processes in individuals with an identical level of problem solving were analyzed. Special attention was paid to DA based on worked-out examples; a possible impact of the features of various examples was investigated. The results indicate that young adults with similar problem-solving performance have very different learning abilities. The comprehensiveness of worked-out examples seems to be important for individuals with medium problem-solving performance, but irrelevant for those with higher performance. DA research should pay more attention to the studies focusing on curriculum-based learning processes.