Dialogic Education and Technology

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Rupert Wegerif University of Exeter
Dialogic Education and Technology expanding the
space of learning
Dialogic Education and Technology Expanding the
Space of Learning

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Society
Technology
Pedagogical theory
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Dialogic
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Two metaphors of space

• For Aristotle everything has one proper place a
  thing cannot be in two places and and two things
  can not occupy one place. Ergo AA A ? B.
• But into what space is the internet expanding?
• Where is the proper place of my web page?

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• The expansion of cyberspace challenges the
  principle of identity so what do we put in its
  place?

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Identity (or AA A? B)
(OTHER) (B)
(SELF) (A)
OTHER
But what is the unthought in this picture?
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Constitutive difference
Meaning starts with the act of drawing a boundary
-differentiating Figure from Ground (a relation
2 perspectives)
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Abgrund or space of possibility
The precondition of meaning a projected
infinite potential for meaning
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Ontology of difference
(OTHER) (B)
(SELF) (A)
OTHER
X
Je suis un autre (Rimbaud)
(A ? A A All )
Identity as always open and overflowing towards
the other
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Philosophical note Why this is dialogic and not
dialectic

• Hegels dialectic begins with Being (the Whole)
  and moves through differences to a more complex
  and internally integrated Being (the Absolute
  Notion). Hence identity is assumed and we are
  dealing with difference within identity.
  Dialectical conflicts end in synthesis -
  teleological
• Dialogic begins with difference and never escapes
  difference. The system is unbounded there is no
  Being not even Abgrund - only difference

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So where are we? And where is my Avatar?

• The ancient Greeks did not know the most
  important thing about themselves that they were
  ancient Greeks Bakhtin
• Situatedness is a construction implying its
  other all we have is difference within an
  absent whole
• nowthen
• herethere
• selfother
• situatedunsituated
• So how can we understand this?

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Easy switch the founding metaphor from space to
dialogue

• Meaning is like an electric spark that occurs
  only when two different terminals are hooked
  together (Volosinov).

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Dialogic

• Wertsch when a speaker produces an utterance at
  least two voices can be heard simultaneously
  (Wertsch, 1991, p13).
• Dialogic consists of the interanimation or
  inter-illumination of voices
• Bakhtin The text lives only by coming into
  contact with another text. Only at the point of
  this contact between texts does a light flash
  (SG p 162)
• Bakhtin There is neither a first nor a last
  word and there are no limits to the dialogic
  context Even past meanings can never be
  stable (SG p 170)

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The dialogic principle
Dialogic holding more than one incomensurately
different perspective together in tension at
once.
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Monologic versus dialogic

• Monologic metaphor of physical space
• one true representation or perspective
• thinking as the reduction of apparent difference
  to identity.
• Dialogic metaphor of dialogue
• meaning presupposes difference
• thinking as play of perspectives
• in place of reduction unlimited creativity

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Dialogic space

• Dialogos reason (logos) through and across
  (dia) difference.
• Dialogic space is shared meaning space
  characterised by lack of certainty and an
  inescapable multiplicity of perspectives
• . i.e. the space into which the internet
  expands while at the same tie constructing that
  space

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Subject-Tool-Object triangle
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Self-Other-Sign triangle
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Theses on mediation

• Mediation by an other (and by Otherness in
  general) is required for meaning
• Relationship is not similar to mediation by
  things
• We learn first and foremost by taking the
  perspective of the specific other (and through
  this the general Other)
• Relationship precedes and excedes the use of
  tools
• The quality of the relationship is what counts in
  education more than the quality of the tools

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Dialogic and learning to think

• Hobson argues that an individual sense of
  self-awareness and an ability to think creatively
  are intgernalized from the creative
  interanimation of perspectives that occurs in
  dialogues between Mother and child (Hobson,
  1998). These dialogues, beginning with peek-a-boo
  games in the cradle, open up what he calls
  mental space, a space of possibilities through
  which things become thinkable for the first time.

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Phylogenesis of creativity

• Through studies of apes and humans Tomasello
  claims that consciousness originates in
• a species-unique motivation to share emotions,
  experience, and activities with other persons
• Which he refers to as dialogic and claims is
  more fundamental than language or tool use.
• Tomasello et al 2004

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Pedagogy
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Vygotskian theory

• 'all that is internal in the higher mental
  functions was at one time external' (Vygotsky,
  1991, p36).
• Words and forms of social interaction are
  internalised or appropriated as cognitive tools
• Thinking is a way of using words embedded in a
  social practice
• It follows that learning to reason is essentially
  induction into a social practice involving the
  internalisation of language as a tool for
  thinking
• (See Wegerif, Mercer and Dawes, 1999, From
  Social Interaction to Individual Reasoning)

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Change around B12
Pre
Post
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Talk and reasoning

• Several studies of teaching Exploratory Talk in
  the UK and also in Mexico - working with Prof
  Silvia Rojas Drummond of UNAM - have found
  various correlations
• Increased use of explicit reasoning terms around
  reasoning tests
• Improved group solving of reasoning test problems
• Statistically significant gains in individual
  reasoning test scores

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BUT

• The beauty of the experimental design was that
  it enabled not only quantitative correlations but
  also qualitative analysis of the talk of children
  solving reasoning tests.
• So how did they do it? We argued that they did
  it by using language as a tool for thinking but
  in the end I found this unconvincing
• The tools worked by creating a dialogic space in
  which new perspectives emerged uncaused

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To re-iterate

• When researching groups of children solving
  reasoning test problems together it was found
  that the key to success was the children learning
  to listen and to change their minds. This
  suggests a movement into dialogue towards
  identification with the space of dialogue or
  dialogue as an end in itself.

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Dialogic education

• Takes Vygotsky further by looking not only at the
  internalisation of tools but the
  internalisation of dialogic space.
• It is education for dialogue as well as education
  through dialogue.
• Teaching thinking is induction into dialogue as
  an end in itself.
• Dialogue as an end in itself is the primary
  thinking skill from which other skills follow
  such as
• creativity
• learning to learning
• listening to others
• critical reflection

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Images and exemplars

• Thinking as computation
• e.g formal logic, cognitive structures
• Thinking as situated tool use
• e.g abacus use
• (Cole and Derry, 2005)
• Thinking as shared inquiry
• e.g Bakhtin, Dewey, Lipman

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The transactional It excludes assertions of
fixity and attempts to impose them. It installs
openness and flexibility in the very process of
knowing. It treats knowl- edge as itself
inquiryas a goal within inquiry, not as a
terminus outside or beyond inquiry. Dewey and
Bentley 1947, p 97
BACK TO DEWEY
CoP
Unsituated Central Processor
Cutural tools
Situated social practices
Forms of life
Activity systems
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The core skill of reflection

• An active persistent and careful consideration
  of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in
  the light of the grounds that support it and the
  further conclusion to which it tends. (Dewey,
  1910)

I would augment this with an idea of the creative
space of emergence that opens up in a dialogue, a
space which can be more or less dialogic, more or
less open to the other and to the new (Wegerif,
2005, Reason and Creativity in Classroom
Dialogues)
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Trajectory of identity

• Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical
  fallacies is the notion that a person learns only
  the particular thing he is studying. Collateral
  learning in the way of formation of enduring
  attitudes, of likes and dislikes may be and often
  is much more important than the spelling lesson
  or lesson in geography or history that is
  learned. The most important attitude that can be
  formed is the desire to go on learning. (Dewey
  1938, p29).

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Habits of thinking

• careful, alert, and thorough habits of
  thinking. (Dewey 1933 p56).
• In between the skill of reflection in the
  moment and the longer term project of a
  reflective identity as a learner and thinker
  there are good intellectual habits, ingrained
  semi-automatic responses such as questioning and
  comparing.

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Re-cap on teaching thinking

• Deweys focus on the boundary led him to see
  thinking as transactive inquiry. This stimulates
  a dialogic theoretical framework for the
  practical business of teaching thinking learning
  to think as a trajectory of identity towards
  identification with the reflective space of
  dialogue supported by environments, habits and
  skills.

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Implications for practice

• Promote pauses not just explicit reasoning
• Augment focus on talking with focus on active
  listening
• Augment construction of knowledge with
  deconstruction of knowledge
• Maintain awareness of context, situatedness
  limitedness which is the awareness of the
  unbounded potential

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• Development into dialogue is a kind of oxymoron
  but an illuminating one.
• It is learning as a trajectory of identity but
  also a trajectory away from identification with
  things (self, group etc) and towards
  identification with non-identity ie with the
  multiple and uncertain space of dialogue.

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Negative Capability

• I had not a dispute but a disquisition, with
  Dilke on various subjects several things
  dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me
  what quality went to form a Man of Achievement,
  especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare
  possessed so enormously - I mean Negative
  Capability, that is, when a man is capable of
  being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts,
  without any irritable reaching after fact and
  reason

(Sunday 21 Dec. 1817 Hampstead.)
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Educational technology
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Role of tools and technology
Not direct mediation of cognition as in the idea
of mindtools but opening, deepening, widening,
resourcing a space e.g words and ground rules to
open space of reflection, also to abstract,
consolidate and build on E.G Ong face to face
dialogue limited in space and time - writing and
social practices around reading and writing lead
to the development of an inner space of
reflection now with Blogs and Vlogs does this
inner space of possibility become a shared
space? Quality of thinking is seen in move from
dialogue with specific others to dialogue with
the general Other the Superaddressee or witness
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Teaching thinking

• Open dialogic spaces
• build agora in Athens
• prompt the kids to talk together when engaged in
  a game
• Deepen dialogic space
• give a topic more time for reflection using
  marker
• objectify dialogue as provisional artefact
• Widen dialogic space
• let women and slaves talk in the agora
• design for multiple voices
• Resource dialogic spaces
• E.g role play and staging
• E.g role play and staging
• tools as voices not voices as tools

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Coding
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What sparks Aha moments?

• Analysis of the argument maps suggests that new
  perspectives are emerging after open questions
  and/or disagreements
• This co-occurrence will be investigated using
  critical event recall interviews in conjunction
  with the playback facility of the system.

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Society
Technology
Pedagogical theory
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Thank you! www.rupertwegerif.name Contains
recent papers and draft chapters of Dialogic
Education and Technology r.b.wegerif_at_exeter.ac.uk