Sylvia Rojas-Drummond

Scaffolding the Development of Effective Collaboration and Learning.

Abstract Research in Mexican and British schools provides an empirical basis for arguing that, by the use of certain kinds of interactional strategies, teachers can enable children to become more able in managing individual and joint reasoning and learning activities in the classroom. The research described is based on a sociocultural conception and analysis of education, which focuses on the ways that children can be inducted into the communicative and intellectual activities of the classroom as a ‘community of enquiry’. The research has provided (a) an account of strategies teachers use, and for relating teacher’s scaffolding to the interactive process of knowledge construction; (b) an analysis of ways that children talk when working together on joint activities; and (c) a practical method for promoting children’s effective collaboration, communication, reasoning and learning, successfully tested with British and Mexican primary school children. The results of the research are discussed in relation to a Vygotskian conception of the relationship between ‘intermental’ (social) and ‘intramental’ (psychological) development.

Collaboration, scaffolding and the promotion of problem solving strategies in Mexican pre-schoolers

Research in Mexican schools, drawing upon earlier research in the UK, has led to the development and use of a method for describing, comparing and evaluating the particular approaches and interactional strategies used by teachers and learners. Using this method, qualitative and quantitative comparisons are made to distinguish between teachers who use a conventional, formal, directive approach when teaching 5-year-old children mathematical skills (called the “Official” method) and those who use a more interactive, collaborative, supportive, “scaffolded” approach to teach similar classes of children (called the “High Scope” method). In an earlier study, we found more competent and independent problem-solving among High/Scope pupils than among their peers taught by the Official method. In the present study, discourse analysis and statistical analysis of the relative frequencies of types of teacher-pupil interaction in the classrooms of two “Official” teachers and two “High’ Scope” teachers are used to explain the improved problem-solving of the “High Scope” pupils. The findings support the view that by creating a more collaborative, scaffolded version of classroom education, teachers can more successfully enable children to develop their own problem-solving skills, learning strategies and curriculum-related understanding. The research also contributes to the development and implementation of methods for promoting a more effective style of teacher-learner interaction in the classroom.RésuméEn se basant sur des recherches qui ont été effectuées en Angleterre, la recherche dans les écoles mexicaines a permis de développer et d’utiliser une méthodologie dont le but est de décrire, comparer et évaluer les approches particulières et les stratégies interactionnelles utilisées par les professeurs et les apprenants. En utilisant cette méthode, des comparaisons qualitatives et quantitatives ont été réalisées afin de distinguer les professeurs qui utilisent une approche conventionnelle, formelle et directive quand ils enseignent les habiletés mathématiques aux enfants de 5 ans (cette approche est appelée “méthode Officielle”), de ceux qui utilisent une approche intéractive, collaborative, de support, et d’échafaudage pour enseigner des cours similaires à ces enfants (cette méthode est appelée “méthode de Haute portée”). Dans un travail antérieur, nous avons trouvé une plus grande compétence et indépendance pour résoudre les problèmes chez les enfants de l’approche de “haute portée”, que chez les enfants qui ont suivi la méthode officielle. Dans cette étude, nous utilisons une analyse qualitative et statistiquement significative des différences de la fréquence relative de certains types d’intéractions dans la salle de classe de la part de deux professeurs et, comme il a été dit auparavant, nous expliquons comment la collaboration et l’échaffaudage dans la salle de classe peuvent aboutir à la résolution des problèmes chez l’enfant. Cette recherche a contribué au développement et à l’augmentation de méthodologies qui promeuvent un style plus efficace d’intéraction adulte-enfant dans la salle de classe qui stimule la compréhension des enfants. Cette recherche défend alors l’idée que c’est en créant une version échafaudée d’éducation dans la salle de classe, que les professeurs pourront permettre avec plus de succès aux enfants de développer leurs propres habiletés de résolution de problèmes, leurs stratégies d’apprentissage et la compréhension du programme.

Cooperative Learning and the Appropriation of Procedural Knowledge by Primary School Children.

Abstract This paper analyses the development and promotion of self-regulatory strategies for comprehending and learning from text in primary school children (9 years old), using cooperative learning. Experimental and Control Groups were compared for their comprehension of narrative and expository texts: the first was exposed to repeated reading experiences within cooperative learning teams as part of regular classes and using official programs-texts; the Control Group followed regular classroom activities. The Experimental Group showed a marked development of strategies for dealing with texts in comparison with the Control Group. Cooperative learning promoted the acquisition of procedural knowledge (strategies) for processing narrative and expository texts. These strategies do not seem to be promoted adequately by regular classroom activities.

Language for the Social Construction of Knowledge: Comparing Classroom Talk in Mexican Preschools.

This study compares two sets of matching classrooms in Mexican preschools over a period of a year. In one set of classrooms the children improved significantly in independent problem-solving. We looked at videotape and transcripts taken over the year to see, retrospectively, whether the reasons for the improvement in problem-solving could be found in the classroom language. Differences in the two sets of data were explored with a method for investigating classroom talk which combines qualitative interpretation with computer-based analysis. This method had been developed to explore peer classroom talk in the UK and was being applied in a new context. A sociocultural model of how children learn independent problem-solving was also developed and applied to the analysis. This model was found to fit a number of types of teaching and learning exchanges found in the classrooms where problem-solving increased. The method used also enabled us to isolate several specific verbal strategies which carried the social c...

Oracy and Literacy in the Making

This chapter focuses on analysing the development of oral and written communication in Mexican elementary students, in the context of the implementation of an innovative educational programme called ‘Learning Together’ (LT). The programme was designed to enhance oral and written communication in the students, including dialogic interactions, as well as reading comprehension and text production strategies through a variety of collaborative learning activities (Rojas-Drummond, Littleton, Hernandez, & Zuniga, 2010).

Explaining Literacy Development from a Bioecological Systems Framework: Affordances and Challenges

Elizabeth Jaeger’s interesting article [this issue, pp. 163–187] takes on the rather challenging yet exciting task of extrapolating Bronfenbrenner’s seminal theory of human development [Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998] to a new domain, not covered by the original proposal. After presenting an overview of the evolution of Bronfenbrenner’s comprehensive bioecological theory, she shows with considerable skill how this framework could be used to account for the development of literacy, at both theoretical and empirical levels. The paper thus contributes significantly to this latter field by providing a useful theoretical perspective that can aid researchers to explain developmental literacy processes in a broad and systematic fashion. In the next sections I will highlight some of Jaeger’s main contributions in the context of advances in the field of human development in general and of development of literacy in particular. I will first present a brief overview of some affordances of Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical paradigm to account for human development, in the light of other seminal theories in the field. In the second section I will point at some strengths of Jaeger’s accounts of literacy development using a bioecological system perspective. In closing, I will explore some possible future avenues researchers might take to move the field forward, as well as some challenges that accompany this enterprise.

Understanding and Promoting Argumentative Practices in Educational Contexts

Language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is scarcely possible to imagine life without it. As Pinker [1995] pointed out, ‘a common language connects the members of a community into an information-sharing network with formidable collective powers. (...) People can work in teams, their efforts coordinated by negotiated agreements. As a result, Homo sapiens is a species (...) that has wrought far-reaching changes in the planet’ (p. 16). Throughout history, most human cultural achievements have involved the development of ideas through collective as well as individual efforts. It is through joint engagement that ideas are argued over, contested, borrowed, and shared as our understanding is advanced. According to a sociocultural perspective on learning and development, such understanding is a dialogical phenomenon, and its achievement a fundamentally social and collaborative process [Rojas-Drummond, Albarrán, & Littleton, 2008]. In addition, language is arguably the most important milestone in human development. In the words of Halliday [1993]: ‘When children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one type of learning among many; rather, they are learning the foundations of learning itself ’ (p. 93). The field of language development has evolved over the last few decades, from a focus mainly on the child’s linguistic competence, that is, the possession and handling of the language system, to investigating also his or her communicative competence, that is, the capacity to use this system effectively to engage in dialogic interactions in an increasing variety of social contexts [Bachman, 1990; Halliday, 1993;