Study On Characteristics Of Peer Teaching And Learning Behaviors Among Preschoolers In Mix-aged Class From The Perspective Of Theory Of Mind

Currently, mix-aged classes mode has been noticed by more educators, and this kind of educational organization form could maximize interaction between the same or different aged children, thus to promote children’ social development. Teaching and learning behavior between preschoolers is a special form of peer interaction, which is common in the mix-aged classes. Teaching and learning is often accompanied with the use and gain of theory of mind (ToM), that is to say, theory of mind is the psychological basis of teaching and learning. Because of the differences of children’ ToM, the behavior they teach and learn from others are also different, and that is pretty regular. Therefore, on the basis of relative researches, this study selects 30 children as research objects who are from three mix-aged classes in a kindergarten of Hangzhou. We use indirect observation with the help of direct observation and the combination of time and event sampling. We do qualitative research mainly with collected materials, and sum up the different ToM level of children’ performance in teaching and learning behavior, supplemented by quantitative description.This study explain each teaching and learning event in two perspectives, which is understanding of teaching and learning concept, teaching and learning strategies, initiative while teaching and learning. It was found that children of different ToM levels are different in every respects. Low level children understand teaching as "action", usually demonstrate to others, and they explains teaching from the angle of the teacher. Besides, they often learn by means of "watch" and easily influenced by the teacher. Medium level children understand teaching as "tell", and they think that the result of teaching is to bring the change of the learners, and they often repeat requests, ask for rules, skills to learn. They also could judge specific knowledge of himself and others. High level children realize whether they have the ability to teach others or not, and conclude the change of the psychological state, thus to adjust their teaching methods. They often ask questions and praise when teaching and act actively, besides they tend to explain teaching from the perspective of learners’learning, and use various learning strategies such as requesting evaluation, explaining content where is not understood or giving feedback forwardly to ensure the success.Finally, this study put forward relevant suggestions from two aspects, which is attaching great importance to the peer resources and provide children with examples in order to remind teachers of using the advantage of mix-aged education fully to promote children’ all-round development.