Chapter 9 Vygotskyan perspective on children's problem solving
activities. Ellice Forman and Jean McPhail
Two above average 7th grade girls Cindy and karen were observed
during five sessions (pre and post test sessions included) as they
manipulated the kinds of shadows that could be projected from
different shapes onto a screen. The format of the session was
prediction, hypothesis testing and drawing inferences about their
activity. The experimental task is then analyzed in light of the
two interpretive traditions: Vygotskyan and standardized test
assessment. Analysis in the Vygotskyan tradition draws attention
to the differences in language use between the two girls and how
these differences circumscribe the task differentially. For
example one of the girls (via an analysis of pronoun usage)
approaches the task from a scientific perspective while the other
approaches the task from a mathematical perspective. These
differences however are shown to function in complementary ways as
each of the girls adopts apsects of each other's view points and
definition of the tasks at hand. The tradtional analysis is shown
to priviledge the scientific approach to the definition of the
task thus one of the girls appears to perform better. The analysis
of language use in contrast points to the success of the
collaborative relationship, where "differences" were recognized
and respective intellectual abilities respected. The description
of how the task is approached via language uses was especially
interesting to me in that it really shows that how a task takes
life and shape in language use. Because the girls use different
registers, the task is really both a math problem and a scientific
one (i.e.; when one talks radius and isosceles triangles, that's
cooking maths; in contrast when one talks detailed descriptions
like "When you move it closer to the light... more light is
blocked by the shape, and so less light gets on the screen and the
shape gets bigger", that's cooking science.) And in the end
because both girls adopt some each other's language uses, it is a
math-science pie.
Francoise Francoise Herrmann fherrmann who-is-at igc.org