Joe Becker

Semiotic aspects of cognitive development: Illustrations from early mathematical cognition.

The premise of this article is that cognitive development involves both conceptual and semiotic achievements. From this perspective, the authors emphasize the distinctness of the semiotic issues and develop a differentiated appreciation of semiotic aspects of cognition, particularly in the field of elementary mathematical cognition. The authors provide semiotic analyses of the differences between counting, adding, and multiplying and of the conventional place-value sign system. The authors introduce the concept of the field of reference of a sign, the differentiation of the field into foreground and background, and the dynamics within the field of reference. Finally, the authors relate these ideas to the dynamics between two dimensions of semiotic relations: the sign-referent dimension and the sign-sign dimension.

Teaching Beyond the Progressive–Traditional Dichotomy: Sharing Authority and Sharing Vulnerability

We explore teaching and learning beyond the familiar dichotomy between the authoritarian concept of the hard place of traditional teaching (in which the individuals experiential knowledge is neglected) and the abdication of authority inherent in the soft place of progressive teaching (in which the achieved cultural knowledge of the teacher is regarded as an embarrassment). Our need to theorize this different place, or a different positioning of teacher and authority, arises in part from the difficulties our students and we ourselves have in a classroom that does not answer to either of these conceptually familiar places. The different place is a place of shared authority. Sharing authority exposes our limitations and leads to a shared vulnerability.

Piaget’s Early Theory of the Role of Language in Intellectual Development: A Comment on DeVries’s Account of Piaget’s Social Theory

In the March 1997 Educational Researcher, Rheta DeVries presented a thought-provoking account of the social factors in Piaget’s conceptualization of intellectual development, primarily in his early works. However, DeVries ignored the fact that in these early writings Piaget made language an integral part of his ideas on intellectual development. DeVries’s elision is unfortunate for two reasons. First, it raises an issue of validity: Are we justified in simply discarding the linguistic element of these writings? Second, DeVries missed the opportunity to show how Piaget’s early ideas on the role of language might be relevant to contemporary interest in socio-cultural aspects of development.

Reconsidering the Role of Overcoming Perturbations in Cognitive Development: Constructivism and Consciousness

Constructivist theory must choose between the hypothesis that felt perturbation drives cognitive development (the priority of felt perturbation) and the hypothesis that the particular process that eventually produces new cognitive structures first produces felt perturbation (the continuity of process). There is ambivalence in Piagetian theory regarding this choice. The prevalent account of constructivist theory adopts the priority of felt perturbation. However, on occasion Piaget has explicitly rejected it, simultaneously endorsing the continuity of process. First, I explicate and support this latter position, arguing that felt perturbation emerges after the construction of a new cognitive structure has already begun. Next, I discuss the broader significance of rejecting the priority of felt perturbation in terms of a distinction between two types of theory of effective change, labeled Lamarckian and Darwinian in analogy with familiar theories of evolutionary change. Rejecting the priority of felt perturbation allows the development of a Darwinian perspective. In turn, the Darwinian perspective offers advantages for elaborating the analogy Piaget proposed between consciousness and the relation of form and content.

The Problematic Relation between Developmental Research and Educational Practice

For some time now inquiry into the meaning of scientific knowledge and its acquisition has not been left solely in the hands of philosophers of science. Researchers in social sciences and education have offered reflections on why and how research is done and on the relations between research and practice [Kessels and Korthagen, 1996]. In this vein, Zimiles argues that developmental research has failed in its attempt to provide knowledge useful in educating young children. According to him, this failure is due to a shift in the focus of developmental research. In the early 1900s, the questions that guided developmental research originated from observations by people who actually worked with children. Children’s teachers and therapists were the people who did the research. That is, developmental research started with a knowledge base gained from people working with children in precisely those settings where the knowledge achieved is used. However, developmental research became an academic discipline. It moved to a knowledge base gained from research governed by the practices and concerns of a discipline dedicated to exploration of universals in child development. This shift in focus resulted in the development of a rigorous research methodology with its own techniques and language that is alien to practitioners. To the practitioner, the knowledge gained in the latter way is fragmentary, contradictory, and not of much use in daily work with children. The world of research has grown increasingly apart from the world of practice.