LEARNING AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

THIS VOLUME IS BASED ON THREE YEARS OF TEACHING EXPERIMENTS WITH A GROUP OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS AS THEY PROGRESSED FROM THE 3RD TO THE 5TH CLASS (AGES 9 TO 12). WHEREAS TRADITIONAL PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES FOCUS ON THE NATURE OF THE SUBJECT MATTER BEING TAUGHT, HEDEGAARD ASSUMES THAT ANY TEACHING PROGRAM OUGHT TO INCORPORATE CHILDREN'S EVERYDAY CONCEPTS AND MOTIVATIONS. SHE RELATES THIS "DOUBLE MOVE" IN TEACHING TO SITUATED LEARNING AND TEACHING AND SUBSEQUENTLY PRESENTS PRINCIPLES FOR PUTTING THE APPROACH INTO PRACTICE. THE EXPERIMENTS ALSO AIM TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENTAL LEARNING RATHER THAN MERE SUBJECT MASTERY. THE FIRST HALF OF THIS BOOK SEEKS TO BE THEORETICAL, AIMING TO CONCEPTUALISE THE EXPERIMENTS IN A CULTURO-HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK, THE SECOND IS PRACTICAL IN DESIGN. IT PRESENTS AND DISSECTS A TEACHING EXAMPLE FROM HISTORY, AS WELL AS THREE EXTENDED CASE STUDIES OF INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS IN ORIENTATION, AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SUBJECT THAT EMBRACES BIOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY.