Developing Reflective Thinking in the Process of Learning Activity

The idea that activity is the source of human mental development is one of Soviet and Russian psychology’s central tenets. Activity’s main structural components are needs, motives, problems, actions, and operations. Within the psychology of ontogenetic development, the following genetically successive types of activity can be identified: emotional communication, object manipulation, play, learning, and socially useful occupations (work). These types of activities, in that order, are the leading activities for the corresponding periods of human mental development (which, according to D.B. Elkonin, are object-manipulation for ages 1–3 and play for 3–6). Learning activity is the leading activity for young schoolchildren (6–10). This is the age during which it determines the nature of other types of activity, as corresponding psychological neoformations emerge as part of