Vygotsky’s Systemic Perspectives on Managing the Risk of Student Failure in Technology-Enhanced Learning Design

Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the importance of the sociocultural environment for cognitive development, highlighting the importance of social interaction, cultural tools, and the Zone of Proximal Development. This paper explores these concepts concerning learning design, learning analytics, and risk assessment in technology-enhanced learning environments. Vygotskian methods and theory are synthesized with the knowledge from existing literature to propose ways of managing the risk of failure within a design approach that incorporates Learning Analytics language in a Backward Design process. The findings suggest dialectical associations that can provide a powerful semantic context for a design system based on the Human–Machine Pair Inspection technique. Addressing the risk of failure can become a design opportunity to support student cognitive development and to improve teacher design decisions. The main findings of this paper offer an interpretation of a dynamic approach to managing the risk of failure as well as the role of the teacher in the process of designing technology-enhanced learning scenarios. Future directions include research to empirically validate the proposed design approach in different educational settings, investigate its potential for predictive modeling, and explore technological tools to support adaptive systems for the teacher’s needs based on the proposed design approach. Above all, this manuscript must be considered as a prospective study aimed at establishing a coherent framework for future research, identifying key research questions, and proposing directions that will make a substantial scientific contribution.