ABSTRACT
The theme of this book-learning environments as spaces of contact between students’ and disciplinary perspectives-implies a general orientation toward instruction in which the perspectives of students are taken seriously. This orientation has some important entailments. If students’ perspectives are to be well-represented in the classroom, students must take an active role in shaping and guiding ongoing classroom activity. Teachers must relinquish to students some control over the classroom explorations, actively incorporating students’ questions and products into the classroom inquiry. We call this kind of classroom practice student-directed.
