Chapter 4: Bidirectional Process of Knowledge Construction in Teacher–Student Transaction

The process of teaching and learning is a phenomenon shared by educators and developmental psychologists as an important target for scientific analysis. Yet. the process entails complex phenomena of both personal (cognitive, affective) and interpersonal (coordination of goal-oriented actions of the learner and the teacher) kinds. Furthermore, the issues of teaching and learning are targets of different socio-institutional intervention efforts in social practices. Such efforts guide the ways in which researchers think about the teaching/learning phenomena (Valsiner, 1997a; Voss & Valsiner, 1996). Their thinking entails both social-ideological and conceptual facets. Of the latter, the issue of separation of the conceptual spheres of teaching from learning has been crucial.