The Choreography Of Conceptual Development: Cognitive Schemes Meet Cultural Practice In Instructional Design

• In Event: Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Mathematics Curriculum and Instructional Practice

Abstract

We highlight two features of students’ experiences as they engage in task-oriented pedagogical activities: the evocation of prior knowledge schemes and the enactment of situated practice. The former treats learners’ sense-making perceptuo-motor activity as they engage in problem-solving (“bottom up” assimilatory attempts). The latter treats learners’ attempts to non-analytically observe and/or emulate a demonstrated spatial-temporal sequence of artifact-centric goal states (“top down” sociocultural factors). We interpret these features as both essential and complementary in mediated conceptual development as well as its theorization. We demonstrate the analytic utility of this approach using empirical data from case studies involving students’ interactions with designs for embodying rational number concepts. We conclude with implications for design.

Authors

• Timothy Charoenying, University of California - Berkeley

• Dragan Trninic, University of California - Berkeley

• Dor Abrahamson, University of California - Berkeley