No abstract

The paper presents data of a study on the effectiveness of an experimental school course in biology based on the principles of Davydov—Elkonin developmental learning in comparison with traditional courses. The study involved 395 students of 5th, 6th, and 9th classes. The results show that children can be more successful at achieving not only subject, but also metasubject educational outcomes like reading literacy, ability to work with signs, symbols and models etc, which are all required by the federal state education standard, if the content of education is changed in such a way that the integral system of key concepts becomes the subject matter, presented not as a means of describing an object, but rather as a basis for its transformation by students. When learning is organised that way, it provides an opportunity for primary school students with underdeveloped reading skills to compensate for the lack of reading literacy, although it will still be hard for them to master subject concepts successfully enough.

The article analyzes and compares modern educational technologies: the so-called ‘leading dialogue’ and the technology for generating student questions in collective learning activity. We discuss the role of spontaneous and provoked meaningful questions in collective learning activity. Using the experimental school course ‘New Biology’ (for 6th—9th grades) as an example, we provide a description of a teacher’s work aimed at promoting questioning in students: the questions are considered as a starting and finishing point in the collective search activity. Also, the article discusses the data of a comparative analysis of questions by students from different grades presented with the same problem. It considers the role of modeling in the emergence of meaningful questions and outlines the conditions in which meaningful questions appear, as well we the effects of systematic questioning in classrooms.

The aim of the study is to explore how the modelling, as a condition for theoretical abstraction and generalization, takes shape in a certain sequence of a biology instruction based on the El’konin-Davydov Program. Research questions are: How are the students’ diagrams handled in the modelling process? What is the character and the function of the teacher’s questions and actions during the modelling process? The data consists of teachers’ lesson plans and fieldnotes related to a certain modelling carried out in several classes. Based on the results of the analysis we conclude that the students’ diagrams are used as means of the collective process of abstraction towards the generalized model. The teacher organizes and leads the modelling process so that theoretical abstraction becomes possible; thus, the students discern the general in the specific case and begin developing a theoretical concept.

Проблема присвоения учеником средств и способов действия является одной из ключевых проблем психологии образования. Поставленная еще Л.С. Выготским, она далека от окончательного решения. В рамках теории учебной деятельности Д.Б. Эльконина и В.В. Давыдова проведены многочисленные ис-следования формирования научных понятий в экспериментальном обучении школьников. На сегодняш-ний момент наиболее загадочной является точка перехода от «чужой» модели, способа, понятия к «свое-му», т. е. превращения средства, построенного в совместно-распределенной деятельности класса, в ресурс собственного действия ученика. В статье изложена развернутая гипотеза о специфике строения учебной деятельности подростка, включающей в себя не только решение учебных задач, но и выполнение учеб-ных проб. В работе вводится понятие учебной пробы, рассматриваются организационно-педагогические условия ее проектирования, психологические особенности ее реализации, симптомы свершения пробы. Рассматриваются примеры учебных проб в обучении-учении школьников 6-7-го классов.Ключевые слова: учебная деятельность, учебная задача, учебная проба, моделирование, усвоение научных понятий, функциональное поле действия. The problem of a child's appropriation of new means of action is one of the most essential in psychology of education. Raised initially by L.S. Vygotsky, it is still far from being solved. Numerous studies on the formation of scientific concepts have been carried out within the framework of D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov's theory of learning activity. Currently, the most mysterious is the point of transition from "someone else's" model/means/ concept to "one's own", i.e. the transformation of the means based on collectively distributed activity of a class into an individual resource of action. The paper suggests a hypothesis on the specifics of learning activity in adolescents which involves not only solving learning tasks, but also conducting so-called learning try-outs. The paper introduces the concept of learning try-out and analyses the organizational and pedagogical conditions surrounding its design and the psychological features of its implementation, finally describing the symptoms of its accomplishment. Examples of learning try-outs in teaching/learning of 6 th -7 th -year students are provided as well.