3. Social Construction of Meaning
Mediated Learning Experience: A discussion
between an adult and a child in which the adult
helps the child make sense of an event they have
mutually experienced.
Not only does it take place as a student-teacher
discussion, students
may also use the
mediated learning
experience in a
student-to-student
discussion.
4. Guided Participation
Active engagement in adult activities, initially with
considerable direction from an adult or other more
advanced individual and subsequently with
opportunities for increasing responsibility and
independence.
Other people that can engage children in guided
participation include: parents, siblings,
grandparents, friends, etc.
Guided Participation Example
5. Apprenticeships
Mentorship in which a novice works intensively with
an expert to learn how accomplish complex tasks in
a particular domain.
These tasks become increasingly more difficult as
the student progresses.
Students learn both the skill sets and the language
of the trade (i.e. master weavers – warp, weft,
shuttle, and harness).
6. Cognitive Apprenticeship
Mentorship in which an expert and a novice work
together on a challenging task and the expert
suggests ways to think about the task.
7. Reciprocal Teaching
Approach to teaching reading comprehension in
which students take turns asking teacher-like
questions of their classmates.
Four Effective Reading Strategies:
Summarizing
Questioning
Clarifying
Predicting
8. Authentic Activities
Instructional activity similar to one that a child
might eventually encounter in the outside world.
Enhances students mastery of future career paths
and classroom subject
matter.
Examples:
Politics – debating
Science – experiments
Media – video production
