Life in the Hive: Supporting Inquiry into Complexity Within the Zone of Proximal Development
Life in the Hive: Supporting Inquiry into Complexity Within the Zone of Proximal Development
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蜂巢中的生活：支持对最近发展区域内复杂性的探究
DOI：
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发表时间：
2011
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通讯作者：
D. Washington
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作者：
Joshua A. Danish;K. Peppler;D. Phelps;D. Washington
对学生理解复杂系统的研究通常会忽视幼儿，因为对幼儿能力的误解。此外，确实承认幼儿能力的研究往往侧重于儿童在孤立的情况下可以做什么。作为一种替代方案，我们提出了一种方法来设计幼儿，是在近端发展区（Vygotsky 1978）的概念为基础，并利用活动理论来设计学习环境。为了突出这种方法的好处，我们描述了我们的过程中使用活动理论，通知设计新的软件和课程的方式，是富有成效的幼儿学习的概念，我们以前可能认为是“发展不适当的”。作为一个启发性的例子，我们提出了一个讨论的BeeSign模拟软件和配套课程的设计，专门设计从活动理论的角度来吸引幼儿学习复杂的系统（丹麦2009年a，B）。此外，为了说明这种方法的好处，我们将介绍一项新研究的结果，其中40名一年级和二年级的学生参加了BeeSign课程，以了解蜜蜂如何从复杂系统的角度收集花蜜。最后，我们提出了一些实用的建议，如何使用活动理论进行研究和设计的方法可能会被其他科学教育工作者和设计师采用。
Research into students’ understanding of complex systems typically ignores young children because of misinterpretations of young children’s competencies. Furthermore, studies that do recognize young children’s competencies tend to focus on what children can do in isolation. As an alternative, we propose an approach to designing for young children that is grounded in the notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky 1978) and leverages Activity Theory to design learning environments. In order to highlight the benefits of this approach, we describe our process for using Activity Theory to inform the design of new software and curricula in a way that is productive for young children to learn concepts that we might have previously considered to be “developmentally inappropriate”. As an illuminative example, we then present a discussion of the design of the BeeSign simulation software and accompanying curriculum which specifically designed from an Activity Theory perspective to engage young children in learning about complex systems (Danish 2009a, b). Furthermore, to illustrate the benefits of this approach, we will present findings from a new study where 40 first- and second-grade students participated in the BeeSign curriculum to learn about how honeybees collect nectar from a complex systems perspective. We conclude with some practical suggestions for how such an approach to using Activity Theory for research and design might be adopted by other science educators and designers.