An introduction to inferentialism in mathematics education

Derry, Jan

doi:10.1007/s13394-017-0193-7

Cited by 27 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The limitation of facilitation pedagogy is that it begins with the material—with experiences from students’ lives thereby ‘privileg(ing) the representational over the inferential’ (Derry, , p. 7). The aim of a facilitation lesson is to understand the experience by drawing on how those with the experience understand it.…”

Section: Facilitation Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge and teaching

Rata

2017

British Educational Res J

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The paper addresses a major fissure in the sociology of knowledge with respect to the theories of knowledge which inform teaching and learning. Instructional teaching, or ‘teaching knowledge to the child’, is compared to facilitation teaching, the ‘teaching the child’ approach to show the extent to which their differences are the result of very different understandings of how knowledge is constituted. In turn, these understandings about knowledge are implicated in major differences about the purpose that education serves in modern society. It is argued that the link between the way knowledge is structured and the way it is organised for teaching justifies instructional teaching as the more effective way to develop students’ learning. This learning is demonstrated in the subject mastery acquired as students connect propositional knowledge to practice knowledge. The facilitation approach is considered to be weak because it is primarily a pedagogical approach concerned with motivating students and fails to account for the type of knowledge that constitutes academic subjects. The paper makes a further claim for the importance of instructional teaching in modern society to argue that the identity of the modern, rational individual depends upon the direct teaching of abstract epistemically structured knowledge to successive generations. These collective representations which constitute the symbolic sphere, support the moral cohesion of democratic pluralistic societies.

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Section: Facilitation Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge and teaching

Rata

2017

British Educational Res J

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“…Our methodology in this paper is to contribute to education theoretic research by engaging with developments in philosophy and semantics that have a bearing on education (Bransen, ; Derry, ). More specifically, we apply the lessons of inferentialism to problems in education theory and research in the vein of, for instance, Bakker and Derry (), Derry (), Hußmann and Schacht (), Noorloos et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mastering as an Inferentialist Alternative to the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors for Learning

Taylor

Noorloos²,

Bakker³

2017

Journal of Philosophy of Education

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A tension has been identified between the acquisition and participation metaphors for learning, and it is generally agreed that this tension has still not been adequately resolved. In this paper, we offer an alternative to the acquisition and participation metaphors for learning: the metaphor of mastering. Our claim is that the mastering metaphor, as grounded in inferentialism, allows one to treat both the acquisition and participation dimensions of learning as complementary and mutually constitutive. Inferentialism is a semantic theory which explains concept formation in terms of the inferences individuals make in the context of an intersubjective practice of acknowledging, attributing, and challenging one another's commitments. We first introduce the key concepts of inferentialism and consider the perspective on learning that inferentialism inspires. Then, we condense the lessons of the inferentialist concepts into a single mastering metaphor for learning and argue that learning consists in the process by which learners come to master concepts and practices. We conclude by discussing how the mastering metaphor could be put to work in a theoretical reconciliation of the cognitive and sociocultural dimensions of learning.

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“…The relevance of Brandom's inferentialism to philosophy of education has been investigated and illuminated by Derry ( and ). We agree with Derry's thesis that inferentialism plays—or should play—a pivotal role in this discipline.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Concept Possession as an Explicit and Social Practice

Marabini¹,

Moretti²

2017

Journal of Philosophy of Education

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We focus on issues of learning assessment from the point of view of an investigation of philosophical elements in teaching. We contend that assessment of concept possession at school based on ordinary multiple‐choice tests might be ineffective because it overlooks aspects of human rationality illuminated by Robert Brandom's inferentialism—the view that conceptual content largely coincides with the inferential role of linguistic expressions used in public discourse. More particularly, we argue that multiple‐choice tests at schools might fail to accurately assess the possession of a concept or the lack of it, for they only check the written outputs of the pupils who take them, without detecting the inferences actually endorsed or used by them. We suggest that school tests would acquire reliability if they enabled pupils to make the reasons of their answers or the inferences they use explicit, so as to contribute to what Brandom calls the game of giving and asking for reasons. We explore the possibility of putting this suggestion into practice by deploying two‐tier multiple‐choice tests.

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An introduction to inferentialism in mathematics education

Cited by 27 publications

References 24 publications

Knowledge and teaching

Knowledge and teaching

Mastering as an Inferentialist Alternative to the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors for Learning

Assessing Concept Possession as an Explicit and Social Practice

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