The implemented knowledge transforming in the classroom, regarding both the curriculum offered and the students' outcomes. A microgenetic analysis

Abstract

This contribution deals with knowledge transformation as it occurs between the intended objectives of the teacher, the effective co-construction of knowledge, and the assessment of individual knowledge evaluation. Most research focusing on school effectiveness and students outcomes underestimate the way knowledge is implemented by the teacher and becomes significant for the students. The methodological framework allowing to highlight the relationship between these three dimensions of the teaching-learning processes will be presented. The intended objectives of the teacher will be focused on through an analysis of the school setting and the individual assessment through content-knowledge tasks. The analysis of the effective co-construction of knowledge proceeds from microgenetic studies, aiming at the “processes of knowledge acquisition on a short time and in a specific situation” (Richard, Bonnet & Ghiglione, 1990). We extended this framework to instructional setting (didactic microgenesis studies). The main hypothesis is that the components of knowledge can only progress during the on line interactions if a “zone of common meaning” (Saada-Robert & Balslev, submitted) can be constructed in parallel and jointly by the partners, students and teacher. The transformation of knowledge and of the zone of common meaning will be analysed in a “dictation to an adult” activity as part of the curriculum concerning literacy in elementary school, in a dyadic situation (a student elaborates and dictates a text to the teacher who then writes it down). Several sessions of this activity engaging two different teachers with their 5 year-old pupils are compared according the way knowledge is transformed thanks to a zone of common meaning co-constructed by the teacher and the child.