Abstract
In the late 1920s and early 1930s Lev Vygotsky elaborated a research tradition that focused on explaining human development. This tradition, which came to be called cultural-historical, provided conceptual foundations for an approach to developmental teaching, elaborated initially by D.B. El’konin and V.V. Davydov in the late 1950s. There are still many conceptual ideas found within these traditions which have not been received in contemporary research, but which deserve further examination and consideration. One aim of this article is to introduce some of these concepts, including the idea of personality development, and the role of theoretical thinking for school children’s development, and discuss their relevance for science education. A second aim is to introduce the idea of radical-local teaching and learning, which both continues this line of thinking, but elaborates a more situated curricular perspective. These general ideas are concretised and illustrated in relation to an example of teaching about electromagnetic phenomena, including a new approach to working with theoretical thinking in relation to subject-matter concepts. The article concludes with a brief response to some common concerns about working with theoretical models in teaching.
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Notes
- 1.
Author’s note: poor translation choice in this source, should be substantive.
- 2.
See Chaiklin (2012b, pp. 33–37) for a discussion about the significance of freedom in the cultural-historical tradition, particularly in the sense of self-realization of one’s human potential. As Vygotsky noted: ‘The cent[ral] problem of all psychology is freedom’ (quoted in Zavershneva, 2010, p. 66). The point for the present discussion is that develo** capabilities of thinking theoretically with disciplinary content can be understood as an important aspect in develo** freedom.
- 3.
The use of traditional in this context is meant to refer to common or widespread beliefs about how critical thinking is developed. It is likely to be referring to unexamined, taken-for-granted beliefs or expectations, rather than a matter of referring to a specific theoretical perspective or educational philosophy.
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Chaiklin, S. (2023). Develo** Science Education Through Developmental Teaching: Theoretical Thinking, Personality Development, and Radical-Local Teaching and Learning. In: Plakitsi, K., Barma, S. (eds) Sociocultural Approaches to STEM Education. Sociocultural Explorations of Science Education, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44377-0_3
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