[xmca] Further thoughts on Sfard's and Davydov's approaches to learning

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Andy, some further thoughts on the topic you opened up on contrasting Anna's
and Davydov's approaches to learning.
I was not able to download Anna's article because of the way its formatted.
However I went to Anna's website and have downloaded two of her articles and
also the introductory chapter of her book written in 2008. [The first half
of this book is elaborating her theoretical position that thinking IS
communication, as particular forms of discourse]
She says her approach is similar to Harre's approach to "discursive
psychology" and both Anna and Harre definitely view thinking in a dialogical
way as a particular form of conversation with one's self.  Anna sees this
communicative perspective on thinking as learning particular "forms of
discourse" which have developed historically and now children must learn
these particular discourse procedures through entering mathematical
conversations as forms of social interaction in order to learn to think
"mathematically".

Andy, my understanding of Davydov and Gal'perin is that once  "systems of
discourse" have developed historically as "systems of meaning" it is far
more efficient to start from the very beginning to introduce the entire
system and not build up to the system perspective FROM the more concrete
procedures such as counting objects.  Therefore measurement [as
fundamentally relational] is prior to counting.

If I've got these basic premises of Anna's and Davydov's procedures
accurate, do you see these procedural approaches as complimentary or are
they challenging each others basic assumptions.   If they are pointing to
different procedures and assumptions of the best way to approach learning,
then definitely this is a topic to tease out assumptions about  fundamental
concepts of learning?

Larry
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