A sociocultural perspective “presumes that teaching is a highly complex, context-specific, interactive activity in which differences across classrooms, schools, and communities are critically important” (Cochran- Smith & Lytle, 1993, p. 6). While classroom-based research demonstrates effective teaching and learning as complex, multilayered and often messy, what teachers do (their teaching practices, actions) and why they do it this way (theoretical understandings of subject or discipline knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and teacher identity work), affect how they teach (teaching decisions they make in relation to organising and interacting with the class to meet learning needs). “The notion of ‘practice’ communicates something wider than a technique and skill, something incorporating, as well, knowledge, making judgements, intuition, and the purposes for the action” (Beckett and Hagar, 2002 cited in B. Bell, 2011, p. 1).
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The following section introduces “the magic place” where teaching and learning happens. First, this section acknowledges the importance of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987), a concern introduced in Chapter One. The section then describes the importance of interactive spaces for teaching and learning.
3.3.1 Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
The seminal work of Shulman (1987) gave credence to teachers’ professional knowledge when he identified that teachers draw from multiple categories of knowledge. He described these categories as employing knowledge of subject content, adjusted to the knowledge of the students, and knowledge of curriculum to support teaching and learning. Teachers also employ general pedagogical knowledge using a range of teaching strategies, organisation and grouping arrangements – all within the knowledge of educational contexts relating to governance and school and community cultures meeting requisite educational purposes and values (see p. 8). While a great deal of research literature has attempted to elaborate on the multi-faceted knowledge base that teachers draw from (Banks, Leach, & Moon, 1999; B. Bell, 2011; Leach & Moon, 1999). I am interested in teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. Shulman (1987) described this as representing “the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction” (p. 8), and that “pedagogical content knowledge is the category most likely to distinguish the understanding of the content specialist from that of the pedagogue” (p. 8), a requirement for primary school teaching. How teachers employ writing strategies that govern their decision-making as they engage in the interactive teaching and learning zones is of interest to this project.
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3.3.2 Teaching and learning as interactive spaces
A developing understanding of the integrative nature of learning and teaching is evident in the literature. Three orientations that comment on the interactive space for teachers and students informed this study: the zone of proximal development (ZPD), the “construction zone” (CZ) and a “meeting of minds”.
Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) described learning as taking place in the child’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which he defined as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). The individual’s cognitive learning is enhanced when appropriate support is given to the child operating on the edge of their zone of proximal development. Teaching at the edge of a student’s ZPD is based on the understanding that “what the child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow. Therefore the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it: it must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions” (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 188). Vygotsky’s work highlighted the role of language as a scaffolding tool, recognising that:
Just as a mould gives shape to a substance, words can shape an activity into a structure. However, that structure may be changed or reshaped when children learn to use language in ways that allow them to go beyond previous experiences when planning future action. (p. 28)
Vygotsky recognised the socially interactive nature of learning and the role language and dialogue perform in supporting and challenging learners to make meaning where cognitive change is recognised and valued. The role of the teacher or expert plays an important part in knowing what the learner can do and is capable of – so the learner is
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challenged and understanding is enhanced and extended. This kind of instruction is often labelled “scaffolding” and will be discussed later. It is important to also acknowledge Mercer’s (2008) work here. He elaborated on Vygotsky’s notion of a zone of proximal development and introduced the concept of an intermental development zone (IDZ). Mercer explained that: “For a teacher to teach and a learner to learn, talk and joint activity must be used to create a shared communicative space, the IDZ, constructed from the resources of their common knowledge and shared purposes” (Mercer, 2008, p. 38). The notion of a shared space for negotiating learning is explored further through metaphorical representations of a “construction zone” and a “meeting of minds”. The “construction zone” as described by Newman, Griffin & Cole (1993) is “a magic place where minds meet, where things are not the same to all who see them, where meanings are fluid and where one person’s construal may pre-empt another’s” (p. ix). The “construction zone” supports cognitive and social mediation between people. It is a place of shared activity in which inter-psychological processes can take place. The teacher probes and searches for common understandings. This place where minds meet is recognised as being different for all learners and is a place for negotiation, clarification and collaboration where conversation and interchange allow participants to seek common ground for comprehension and understanding. The shared activity, however, “does not necessarily mean a completely shared understanding of the meaning of the activity, or of each other” (Newman, et al., 1993, p. xi), but “the teacher and student acting together may bring about a meeting of minds” (Newman, et al., 1993, p. xii). The metaphorical concept of a construction zone has relevance to this study as it proposes that how students make meaning differs for each child: “things are not the same to all who see them”(p. ix).
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The metaphorical concept of a “meeting of minds” was a term also explored by both Bruner and McNaughton. Bruner (1996) problematised teaching and learning, raising the “issue of how human beings achieve a meeting of minds” (p. 45). He regarded children as thinkers, active participants in their own learning who hold naive theories which are brought into congruence with parents and teachers’ thinking, “not through imitation, not through didactic instruction, but by discourse, collaboration and negotiation. Knowledge is what is shared within discourse, within a ‘textual’ community” (p. 57). Bruner described teaching and learning as moving toward some shared frame of reference; a “meeting of minds” reflected by the dynamic and interactive relationship between students and teacher. McNaughton (2002), drawing on his research, explained that:
Together they [teacher and students] make up a system of teaching and learning. That is, what a teacher does is part of what a learner does, which in turn is part of what a teacher does…. Their mutual influence alters each other’s ideas and actions immediately as well as subsequently. (p. 20)
McNaughton takes a participatory view, but also warned that for some children starting school the process could be “a risky business”. The child’s cultural and linguistic knowledge and their home experiences may differ from those of the school; a disconnection may exist. Teachers, he maintained, must build bridges and connect with children’s prior understandings to establish a “meeting of minds”. Teachers’ noticing and building on the cultural and linguistic expertise that children bring to the classroom can achieve this. The metaphorical concept of “a meeting of minds” poses questions for this study as to whether the teacher and students’ “mutual influence alters each other’s ideas and actions immediately as well as subsequently” (McNaughton, 2002, p. 20).
Each of the concepts discussed above has contributed to my understanding of how students and teachers interact when learning. The
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next part of the chapter explores scaffolding theory as a teaching practice which supports a “meeting of minds’”