Learning by Expanding: An Activity - Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research

Contents (word format)

Introduction to the German Edition 
Word Format

1. INTRODUCTION   
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• Problem one: The futility of learning 

• Problem two: The elusiveness of expansion 

• Theoretical research as empirical research 

• How to select the data 

• How to process categories out of the data 

• How to make the categories reach reality 
  
  

2. The Emergence of Learning Activity as a Historical Form of Human Learning  
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• At the limits of cognitivism 

• Zinchenko's contribution 

• The triangles of activity 

• The first lineage: From Peirce to Popper 

• The second lineage: From Mead to Trevarthen 

• The third lineage: From Vygotsky to Leont'ev 

• The evolution of activity 

• Inner contradictions of human activity 

• On the cultural evolution of human learning

• The first lineage: Learning within school-going

• The second lineage: Learning within work activity

• The third lineage: Learning within science and art 

• The structure of learning activity

• Metacognition and the subject of learning activity

• The emergence of learning activity in the ontogenesis

• The first intermediate balance 
  
  

3. The Zone of Proximal Development as the Basic Category of Expansive Research  
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• Two classic dilemmas of developmental psychology

• Levels of learning

• Learning and development 

• Individual and societal development 

• How the new is generated 

• The zone of proximal development 

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a voyage through
  the zone of proximal development 

• Theoretical lessons 

• The analysis of the zone extended: The case of Seven Brothers 

• The second intermediate balance 

4. The Instruments of Expansion 
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• The first dichotomy: 'primitive' versus 'advanced' thought 

• The second dichotomy: experience versus analysis 

• The third dichotomy: narrative versus paradigmatic thought 

• Reaching beyond the dichotomies: Dewey, Wertheimer and Bartlett 

• The complementarity of instruments

• Cognitive theories of concepts - once again at the limits of cognitivism 

• Vygotsky and the problem of concepts 

• Dialectical logic and concepts 

• Davydov and the problem of concepts

• Models as instruments of expansive thinking

• The functioning of models in theoretical thinking - presented and questioned

• The discovery of the periodic law as an instance of expansive transition 

• Another instance: from nuclear fission to Manhattan Project 

• Historical types of activity and expansive transition 

• Secondary instruments systematized 
  -Springboards 
  -Models 
  -Microcosms

• In search for a tertiary instrument of expansion 

• Formal dialectics as a candidate

• Dialectics of substance 

• Sociality and expansion: From apprenticeship to polyphony 

• The third intermediate balance 
  
  

5. TOWARDS AN EXPANSIVE METHODOLOGY
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• The cycle of cultural-historical methodology: Vygotsky, Scribner, and Cole 

• The cycle of expansive methodology 

• Phenomenology and delineation of the activity system

• Analysis of activity 

• Formation of new instruments 

• Practical application of new instruments 

• Reporting 

• The terminal balance
  

Epilogue  (Word Format)

Bibliography (Word format)

Related Readings

The Horizontal Dimension of Expansive Learning: Weaving a Texture of Cognitive Trails in the Terrain of Health Care in Helsinki,     Figures 6 and 7     Yrjö Engeström 

A Concept of Education Activity for School Children, Soviet Psychology, Vol. XXI, No. 2. pp. 50-76  M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1983V.  V. Davydov and A. K. Markova

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