LEARNING BY EXPANDING:
AN ACTIVITY-THEORETICAL APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENTAL RESEARCH

1. INTRODUCTION

Problem one: The futility of learning	1
Problem two: The elusiveness of expansion	4
Theoretical research as empirical research	8
How to select the data	10
How to process categories out of the data	15
How to make the categories reach reality	20

2. THE EMERGENCE OF LEARNING ACTIVITY AS A HISTORICAL FORM OF HUMAN LEARNING

At the limits of cognitivism	23
Zinchenko's contribution	27
The triangles of activity	29
The first lineage: From Peirce to Popper	32
The second lineage: From Mead to Trevarthen	40
The third lineage: From Vygotsky to Leont'ev	47
The evolution of activity	59
Inner contradictions of human activity	67
On the cultural evolution of human learning	75
The first lineage: Learning within school-going	77
The second lineage: Learning within work activity	85
The third lineage: Learning within science and art	94
The structure of learning activity	100
Metacognition and the subject of learning activity	103
The emergence of learning activity in the ontogenesis	106
The first intermediate balance	111

3. THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT AS THE BASIC CATEGORY OF EXPANSIVE RESEARCH

Two classic dilemmas of developmental psychology	113
Levels of learning	115
Learning and development	118
Individual and societal development	129
How the new is generated	134
The zone of proximal development	139
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a voyage through
the zone of proximal development	144
Theoretical lessons	152
The analysis of the zone extended: The case of Seven Brothers	160
The second intermediate balance	173

4. THE INSTRUMENTS OF EXPANSION

The first dichotomy: 'primitive' versus 'advanced' thought	174
The second dichotomy: experience versus analysis	178
The third dichotomy: narrative versus paradigmatic thought	182
Reaching beyond the dichotomies: Dewey, Wertheimer and Bartlett	184
The complementarity of instruments	191
Cognitive theories of concepts - once again at the limits
of cognitivism	193
Vygotsky and the problem of concepts	197
Dialectical logic and concepts	199
Davydov and the problem of concepts	203
Models as instruments of expansive thinking	206
The functioning of models in theoretical thinking
presented and questioned	209
The discovery of the periodic law as an instance of
expansive transition	213
Another instance: from nuclear fission to Manhattan Project	221
Historical types of activity and expansive transition	230
Secondary instruments systematized	237
Springboards	237
Models	238
Microcosms	245
In search for a tertiary instrument of expansion	246
Formal dialectics as a candidate	249
Dialectics of substance	252
Sociality and expansion: From apprenticeship
to polyphony	257
The third intermediate balance	262

5. TOWARDS AN EXPANSIVE METHODOLOGY

The cycle of cultural-historical methodology: Vygotsky, Scribner, and Cole	264
The cycle of expansive methodology	266
Phenomenology and delineation of the activity system	269
Analysis of activity	269
Formation of new instruments	272
Practical application of new instruments	277
Reporting	278
The terminal balance	279
REFERENCES	280