The Training Model as a Unit of Learning and a «Grain» of Development

The article discusses the problem of detecting the training «pace» that leads to the act of development. The forming experiment, conducted on the material of the school subject «Biology» allows to justify the hypothesis of a «grain» of development that appears while students work on constructing and transforming the training model. The nature of the class's activity in building and mastering of such an operating model is described in detail; the children's work that reflected the formed understanding are analyzed, the operational capabilities of the model are used. The properties of the educational model that are required to produce a self-developing «grain» in an individual are identified. Such a «grain» transforms human experience and allows an individual to perceive a new situation as a situation of action, and for such an action the individual has his own resource.