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'The tooth fairy comes, or is it just your Mum and Dad?': A child's construction of knowledge |
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Joy Cullen
Massey University College of Education
Helen Hedges
Auckland College of Education
Sociocultural theory promotes a view of children as capable and competent learners who construct their knowledge through participation in authentic, meaningful social experiences. This article describes one child's search for understanding about the ‘tooth fairy', sea creatures, and principles of physics. The child's inquiries demonstrate that prior knowledge contributes to the individual learning motivation and collaborative meaning-making that lead to expanded knowledge. The child's knowledge construction is situated in the contexts of both active individual inquiry and co-constructed in pedagogical relationships. The contribution of subject knowledge to meaningful learning is raised. Consistent with sociocultural theory, the article highlights the central roles of dialogic inquiry and reciprocal and responsive relationships in community of learners and community of inquirers models of knowledge construction.
AJEC Volume 28 No 3 September 2003 You can purchase this issue of the Australian
Journal of Early Childhood now.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 03 September 2010 )
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