Sociocultural Approach to Mathematics Learning and Instruction
Sinikka Kaartinen
University of Jyväskylä
Department of Teacher Education
P.O.Box 35, FIN-40351 Jyväskylä, Finland
My presentations during this week elaborates on the sociocultural approach to mathematics
learning and instruction. The aims of the presentations are twofold: Firstly,
the theoretical foundations of sociocultural approach to mathematics learning
and instruction will be discussed and demonstrated via practical examples.
Secondly, the attention will be directed to the design and evaluation
of learner sensitive instructional situations in mathematics. Spesific questions
to be reflected are gender and mathematics, identity building and the usage of
cultural tools in the community of learners.
In recent years participatory approaches realised in communal learning
activities (Kaartinen & Kumpulainen, 2002, Kumpulainen & Kaartinen, 2000) based
on sociocultural learning theories have started to challenge
cognitively-oriented approaches to mathematics learning and instruction, which
seem to define learning as an acquisition process which takes place as the
result of the individual's active re-construction of mathematical knowledge. In
this learning process the role of the teacher is seen as a designer of learning
environments within which learning processes are facilitated. Since the
acquisition approach conceptualises mathematical knowledge as a kind of property
that can be possessed, the goal of learning is seen as the individual enrichment
of mathematical concepts and principles (cf. Sfard, 1998).
Sociocultural approaches to mathematics learning and instruction pose challenges
towards pedagogical and methodological approaches with regard to the design and
the evaluation of investigative learning situations. On the pedagogical front,
there is a need to construct instructional settings that provide the space and
appropriate tools for learners to elaborate their views and perspectives in
investigative, socially shared mathematical activities. From the viewpoint of
assesment there is a need to develop analytical tools that take a dynamic and
process-oriented account of social interaction and learning, and which untangle
the interplay between the social and cognitive elements of situated social
practice.