Theory of activity and developmental frameworks for an analysis of teachers' practices and students' learning

Mathematics Classrooms: Students' Activities and Teachers' Practices

Volumn 9789462092815, Issue , 2013, Pages 3-22

  Rogalski, Janine ^a  

^a bâtiment Sophie Germain   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84912054373     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-6209-281-5_2     Document Type: Chapter

References (5)

1. Berliner (2001) showed the complexity of the question of the characteristics and even definition of an "expert" teacher. A description of approaches that agrees with the one we propose here is presented by Perrenoud (2005), with regards to the question of knowledge mobilized in the analysis of teaching practices.
2. The entry point chosen for analysis here is that of concepts. This entry point is directly applicable for studying student learning in scientific disciplines (the conceptual fields are here defined with reference to theoretical knowledge). A "dual" entry point by way of situations is used in professional didactics, with the notion of "conceptual structure of a situation, " describing diverse concepts, including pragmatic ones (Pastré, 1999; Vidal-Gomel & Rogalski, 2007). Brousseau's concept of the fundamental situation could be seen as an expression of the epistemological link between concepts and situations.
3. Within the work domain, professional didactics introduced the theoretical notion of "pragmatic concepts" as the organizers of the activity. Historically constructed by a professional community within and for a particular domain, these are neither "everyday" concepts nor "scientific" concepts (or techniques) under Vygotsky's definition. Integrated within a conceptual structure of the work situation, these concepts relate to indicators (observables) and ways of acting (Vidal-Gomel & Rogalski, 2007). In teaching, an expression such as "the class has disengaged" refers to a pragmatic concept for which teachers use various indicators and have a multitude of possible interventions (changing tasks, intervening in students' activities, etc.).
4. Jean-François Richard (2004) showed that humanities students encountered serious problems in descriptive statistics related to issues of cumulative effects (requiring them to perform subtractions).
5. It is the existence of the dynamic unique to knowledge that led us to consider the activity of the teacher as the management of a dynamic environment, which is the student/knowledge relationship (Rogalski, 2003).