Interpsychological Origin of the Educational Action of Modeling

Abstract

The content of education becomes the key to the development of the learner's agency when the teacher encourages children to independently construct a new concept using educational models. Using the case study method, we analyzed child-adult interactions at one of the key points of the emergence of children's independence in working with educational models. For this study we analyzed the lessons, where the primer by D.B. Elkonin was used. The focus of our observations was on the stage of transformation of the original model of sound-letter relations when students are faced with facts that contradict the principle described in this model. It is shown that in this situation, the initiative of learners can be directed by the adult entirely to the conceptual content of their work and presented in two modalities: in thinking about the connections between already learned concepts and new ones, constructed here and now, and in understanding the thoughts of classmates about these connections. At the same time, the teacher's efforts in real educational interaction are directed primarily at interweaving the disparate threads of children's conceptual initiatives, and in this way, at building a form of cooperation that is adequate to the content of notions constructed by students.