Align formal instruction with students' prior culturally fostered tool use¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 theoretical), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The article argues that teaching requires providing mediation involving students in problem-solving with appropriate cultural tools: 'a teacher who demands that students use tools outside their cultural repertoires for tasks that do not build on their prior problem-solving experiences is not teaching, but assigning and testing'. When there is little congruence between formal instruction and students' prior tool use, and no reciprocal relationship regarding tool use, instruction will fail. Heath (1991) is cited noting school mediational means must be congruent in some way with students' prior learning experiences.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Teachers must engage in a reciprocal relationship with students regarding appropriate tool use

Constraints¶

• The article notes the problem of incongruence is most obvious in school, where attendance is mandatory and students may not believe in the institution's goals

Target Learners¶

• school students, particularly nonmainstream students

Target Learning Goals¶

• school learning that builds on culturally fostered problem-solving experiences

Affordances¶

• Genetic Method Tool Sign Mediation

Claims¶

• Moll and Greenberg found Mexican American students judged deficient in school displayed complex cognition in their home community [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Peter Smagorinsky. (1995). The Social Construction of Data: Methodological Problems of Investigating Learning in the Zone of Proximal Development. Review of Educational Research, 65(3), 191-212. https://doi.org/10.2307/1170682