ИСТИНА

The Cultural-Historical Activity Approach in educational psychology founded by L.S.Vygotsky and his scientific school (A.N. Leontyev, P.Ya. Galperin, V.V. Davydov, etc.). The CHAT plays an important role in modern educational practice allowing for the transformation of students’ learning experience into a meaningful one. To attain this goal, the main factor is students’ goal-oriented activity, which should be carefully organized by the teacher. Thus, teachers are important agents in this transformation as they design and choose appropriate actions, provide students with the rationale of their learning activities, and organize the step-by-step CHAT learning process. These features distinguish the CHAT approach from others. The teaching of a child can be organized in various ways that, according to Galperin, exploit the first, second, or third type of orientation basis of action (OBA). The first type means that an OBA offered is not complete, so students have to look for missing features by themselves. When teachers use the second or third types of OBA they not only present OBA to students, but also encourage them to use it. Galperin’s notion of the third type of OBA was developed further by Davydov and his colleagues, who emphasize transformation of the school curriculum as a main factor of Developmental Instruction. Two important points of such a transformation will be discussed during the Symposium. First of all - how to find the proper action that stands behind the concept in the human culture? And the second one - how a concept’s primary function can be presented to students? We will discuss how an educational psychologist can make a contribution to the transformation of the school curriculum. All presenters will talk about their findings in their respective areas of mathematics, science, chemistry, and the teaching of the Elkonin-Davydov approach at the tertiary level.