From social interaction to individual reasoning: an empirical investigation of a possible socio-cultural model of cognitive development

Preschoolers’ Causal Reasoning During Shared Picture Book Storytelling: A Cross-Case Comparison Descriptive Study

“…Intriguingly, the groups displayed patterns of interaction that show considerable similarities to patterns found with older children; moreover, the relationship between these patterns and learning outcomes also appears similar to what is found with older children (Howe & Mercer, 2010;Rojas-Drummond et al, 2003;Wegerif et al, 1999). Children in the most-improving group engaged critically but constructively with each other's ideas and explicitly offered justifications of their statements for joint consideration.…”

“…These exchanges resemble the kinds of interactions characterizing exploratory talk but are less readily facilitated in preschoolers' conversations with adults (Schick & Melzi, 2010). Importantly, such interactions can help children appropriate skills that mediate performance on individual nonverbal reasoning tasks (Rojas-Drummond, Pérez, Vélez, Gómez, & Mendoza, 2003;Wegerif, Mercer, & Dawes, 1999).…”

Four social psychological lenses for developmental psychology

“…Over the past decades, important contributions have integrated social and developmental perspectives in psychology (among which Baltes & Staudinger, 1996; Carpendale & Müller, 2004;Durkin, 1995;Duveen, 1997;Mercer, 1995;Perret-Clermont, Carugati, & Oates, 2004;Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991;Rogoff, 1998;Wegerif, Mercer, & Dawes, 1999) and retraced the historical and theoretical evolution of this integration (see Valsiner, 1998;Valsiner & Van der Veer, 2000). In this paper, as a contribution, we propose to identify four basic theoretical models of social situations through which development has been observed in post-piagetian studies.…”

Ten Australian Elementary Teachers' Discourse and Reported Pedagogical Practices during Cooperative Learning

“…These included information on how to establish small-group learning so that students were interdependently linked to achieve the group's goal (i.e., each student had to complete a subgoal or task that was required before the group's goal/task could be achieved) and promote each other's learning; teach the interpersonal and smallgroup skills needed to facilitate cooperation; set expectations for children to contribute to the group; and establish group processing procedures (i.e., ways of monitoring what the group had achieved and what they still needed to do). In introducing cooperative learning to their classes, the participating teachers were also asked to follow the guidelines advocated by Wegerif, Mercer, and Dawes (1999) for establishing exploratory talk in groups. These are: all information is shared, the group seeks to reach agreement, the group accepts responsibility for its decisions, group members are expected to justify their positions or reasons, group members may challenge each other's perspectives, alternatives are discussed before decisions are made, and all group members are encouraged to contribute.…”