The idea that learners are active participants whose learning is shaped by instruction within a zone of proximal development is associated with which concept?

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This describes the Zone of Proximal Development. It identifies learners as active participants whose learning is shaped by instruction that occurs in the space between what they can do alone and what they can do with guidance. In practice, instruction within this zone uses scaffolding—support that helps a learner perform a task they can’t yet do independently—and then gradually fades as the learner becomes more competent. This social, guided approach is what differentiates it from ideas that focus only on meaning (semantics) or on decoding processes that occur without such supportive interaction, or from bottom-up models that start with basic skills rather than collaborative, instructional support.