The importance of communication in teaching: a systems-theory approach to the scaffolding metaphor

Scaffolding as a metaphor for support of learning processes places focus on the relationship between the psychic and social aspects of those processes. This paper examines the conceptualization of this relationship in activity theory and in operational constructivism. The importance of a distinction between psychic processes, language and communication is especially emphasized and discussed in relation to understandings of empathy, inter-subjectivity, and distributed cognition.