Designing Activities Using Object of Activity and Its Impact on Young Children’s Representational Activities

• In Event: Designs for Learning and Practice

Abstract

Children’s drawing activities are invaluable representational practices, since they engender expertise in inventing, evaluating, and refining a variety of representational forms (diSessa & Cobb, 2004). Studies moreover demonstrate that goals of representational activities, as well as the activity itself, can be instrumental in supporting effective representational practices. Drawing on activity theory, we designed activities by specifying the objects or goals of the activity and examined how these goals and other mediators interacted in a mixed age (1st and 2nd) classroom. Preliminary analysis indicates that by specifying the object of activity, we can productively shape students’ representational activities in a way that influences their actions and the final products.

Authors

• Asmalina Saleh, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Joshua Adam Danish, Indiana University

• David Phelps, Indiana University