“New Biology” and Its Educational Outcomes

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.

Conceptual Change and Education: The Neglected Potential of Developmental Teaching Approaches

“…They are specifically designed to develop the mastery of academic knowledge in order to foster conceptual development, including by overcoming the CC challenges. The available evidence on their results is encouraging (Arievitch & Stetsenko, 2000;Chudinova, 2019;Davydov, 1972Davydov, /1999Davydov, , 1988Davydov, /2012de Araujo et al, 2020;Ferreira, 2005;Gordeeva, 2020;Hedegaard & Lompscher, 1999;Karpov, 1995;Karpov & Bransford, 1995;Karpov & Haywood, 1998;Lantolf et al, 2020;Rubtsov & Ulanovskaya, 2020;Venenciano et al, 2021). This is the first paper to systematically address the connections between CC research and DT research.…”

“…The available evidence on the learning outcomes of DT approaches since the 1950s shows their consistency (Arievitch & Stetsenko, 2000;Chudinova, 2019;Davydov, 1972Davydov, / 1999Davydov, , 1988Davydov, /2012de Araujo et al, 2020;Ferreira, 2005;Gordeeva, 2020;Hedegaard & Lompscher, 1999; 1995; Karpov & Bransford, 1995;Karpov & Haywood, 1998;Lantolf et al, 2020;Rubtsov & Ulanovskaya, 2020;Venenciano et al, 2021). It was collected in different national contexts and covered different age groups and subjects ranging from mathematics to science.…”