Development of Learning Autonomy by the Means of School Education

The inter-psychical action does not occur whenever a skilled adult helps an unskilled child. In order to an ordinary miracle of the new abilities occurrence in a child have happened the joint action has to be mutually active: it has to be built in two designs – both of a child and an adult. Only then a child’s autonomy is possible in the beginning of the inter-psychical action, when the child still can not act alone, unassisted. What is the learning autonomy or the ability to learn? What type of pedagogical help the student needs in order to master how to learn independently, to be proactive in setting and meeting the new challenges, to be independent in monitoring and evaluation of own academic achievements? Based on the data from the ten-year longitudinal study we show that the source of student academic autonomy is a joint search for ways to solve new tasks. Moreover, students are looking for new ways and means of solving problems while teacher is looking for ways to initiate children's search activity and to keep its focus on a new mode of action. A new symbol (model, concept) should become a meeting place for teachers’ and students’ initiatives. It is demonstrated how a teacher can manage the children's search activity. The characteristics of the ability to learn at different levels of schooling are described.

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