What Is Meant by Argumentative Competence? An Integrative Review of Methods of Analysis and Assessment in Education

The need to enhance argument skills through education has become increasingly evident during the last 20 years. This need has resulted in an ongoing discussion that focuses on students' and teachers' argumentation, and its support. However, apart from the extended competence-based discourse, no clear and homogeneous definition exists for argumentative competence and its constituent skills. To respond to this deficiency, we conducted an integrative literature review focusing on the methods of argument analysis and assessment that have been proposed thus far in the field of education. Specifically, we constructed an interpretative framework to organize the information contained in 97 reviewed studies in a coherent and meaningful way. The main result of the framework's application is the emergence of three levels of argumentative competence, namely, metacognitive, metastrategic, and epistemological competence. We consider this result the beginning of further research on the psycho-pedagogical nature of argument skills and their manifestation as competent performance

Acció conjunta i desenvolupament d’habilitats sensoriomotores a la sala de psicomotricitat

Aquest treball parteix de la teoria sociocultural de Vygotsky, en què la interacció és clau en el desenvolupament de l’infant. Pretenem analitzar de quina manera infants de tres a quatre anys construeixen el coneixement psicomotor de manera conjunta a partir de l’estudi de la interacció dins del joc sensoriomotor. L’anàlisi de les seqüències d’interacció mostren una gran diversitat d’interaccions entre els infants. D’altra banda, es posa de manifest que el paper de guia del psicomotricista deixa l’espai necessari perquè els infants creïn contextos d’acció propis

The Effect of Task Instructions on Students' Use of Repetition in Argumentative Discourse

The reasoning belief of argumentum ad nauseam assumes that when someone repeats something often enough, he or she becomes more convincing. The present paper analyses the use of this strategy by seventh-grade students in an argumentation task. Sixty-five students (mean age: 12.2, SD = 0.4) from a public school in a mid-sized urban environment took part in the study. The students were asked to either argue to convince an opposing partner or argue to reach consensus with an opposing partner on three dilemmas that dealt with energy sources. Data were gathered according to a between-groups design that included one independent variable (argumentative goal: to convince vs. to reach consensus) and one dependent variable (the degree of argumentative repetitions). We predicted that in the condition to convince their partner, the students would use the repetition strategy more often in their attempts to be persuasive. Our findings show that the mean number of argumentative repetitions was significantly higher for the persuasion group for both of the most frequent argumentative structures (claim and claim data). The mean percentage of repeated claims for the persuasion condition was 86.2 vs. 69.0 for the consensus condition. For the claim data, the mean percentage for the persuasion group was 35.2 vs. 24.3 for the consensus group. Also, students in the persuasion group tended to repeat one idea many times rather than repeating many ideas a few times within the same argumentative structure. The results of our study support the hypothesis that the goal of the argumentative task mediates argumentative discourse and, more concretely, the rate of repetitions and the conceptual diversity of the statements. These differences in rates of repetition and conceptual diversity are related to the amount of learning produced by the instructional goal. We apply Mercer's idea that not all classroom argumentation tasks promote learning equally

The effect of argumentative task goal on the quality of argumentative discourse

In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity-dispute and deliberation-that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks goals on the quality of argumentative discourse. Sixty-five junior high school students were organized into dyads to discuss sources of energy. Dyads were formed by members who had differing viewpoints and were distributed to one of two conditions: 31 dyads were asked to discuss with the goal to persuade the partner, and 34 were asked to reach consensus. Argumentation was analyzed using a schema based on Toulmin (1958). Eleven different argumentative structures resulted from the combination of Toulmin's basic elements. Students in the consensus group scored significantly higher than students in the persuasion group in 5/6 argumentative structures that included rebuttals. The major implication of the present work is that, similar to Mercer's (2000) claim about types of classroom conversation, not all classroom argumentation tasks promote scientific reasoning equally

Converses amb Carles Parellada Enrich

Carles Parellada Enrich és mestre, psicomotricista i terapeuta sistèmic, màster en pedagogia sistèmica per la UDEC de Mèxic i s’ha format en constel·lacions familiars a l’Institut Gestalt de Barcelona.Carles Parellada Enrich és mestre, psicomotricista i terapeuta sistèmic, màster en pedagogia sistèmica per la UDEC de Mèxic i s’ha format en constel·lacions familiars a l’Institut Gestalt de Barcelona

Cuando los alumnos interpretan un gráfico de frecuencias. Niveles de comprensión y obstáculos cognitivos

Partiendo de la necesidad de promover una alfabetización que no sólo incluya textos escritos sino también otras formas gráficas de representación, en el presente trabajo se analiza la comprensión de un gráfico en alumnos de educación obligatoria (de edades comprendidas entre 10 y 14 años). Se parte de la idea de que un gráfico se puede interpretar a distintos niveles de profundidad (comprensión de las informaciones básicas, lectura directa de datos, inferencia y comprensión conceptual). Por ello, se elabora un cuestionario que recoge preguntas de distinta complejidad relativas a un gráfico de barras que presenta las frecuencias de una población de niños y niñas según su peso. Los resultados del cuestionario muestran una baja competencia en la interpretación del gráfico, que apenas progresa cuando aumenta el nivel escolar. El análisis cualitativo de las respuestas de una muestra pequeña de alumnos permite identificar los principales obstáculos cognitivos que se encuentran en la interpretación de un gráfico de este tipo. Estas dificultades tendrían que ser el punto de partida para diseñar una intervención educativa que promoviese la alfabetización gráfica en la escuela

What do teachers think about school leadership competences and their pre-service training?

Las competencias para el liderazgo escolar en la formación inicial de los maestros son necesarias porque la acción docente en las aulas se tiene que aliar con el liderazgo y la organización óptima del centro educativo y ello comporta competencias para la coordinación y la colaboración con el entorno. Este artículo se centra en la visión sobre dichas competencias que tienen los maestros y equipos directivos que colaboran en las prácticas externas de los estudiantes. Para ello se realiza un estudio de casos múltiple con metodología mixta, con la participación de tres escuelas de educación infantil y primaria. La muestra de estudio (n=20) la configuran equipos directivos y maestros vinculados a Educación infantil y ciclo inicial de Educación primaria. El instrumento utilizado es un cuestionario ad hoc, distribuido online durante el curso 2016-2017. Los maestros y directores perciben que, del conjunto de las funciones docentes, la coordinación es la más deficitaria, aunque la más importante, por encima del liderazgo y la colaboración con el entorno. Los profesores consideran mejorables algunas competencias relacionadas con el liderazgo como resolución de conflictos, análisis de situaciones complejas, gestión del aula y, por último, relación con familias y entidades del entornoCompetencies for school leadership in the initial training of teachers are necessary because the teaching action in the classrooms must be allied with leadership and the optimal organization of the educational institution and this includes competences for coordination and networking with the community. This article focuses on the views on these competencies of teaching staff and school leaders who collaborate on the practicum stage of students. To this end, a multiple case study is conducted using mixed methodology, with the participation of three pre-school and primary schools. The study sample (n=20) is made up of members of management teams and teachers who are working in pre-school or the two first years of primary school. The instrument used is an ad hoc questionnaire, distributed online during the 2016-2017 academic year. The results show that teachers and principals perceive that, from all the teaching functions, coordination is the less developed although it is the most important, above leadership and the relationship with the socio-educational environment. Teachers, they consider that the following competencies, related to leadership, can be improved: conflict resolution, complex situations analysis, classroom management and relationship with families and entities in the educational contex

Initial teacher training on coordination, leadership and networking with the community

Competencias de coordinación, liderazgo compartido y trabajo en red con la comunidad para el desarrollo de la profesión docente y la mejora escolar. Convocatoria ARMIF-AGAUR (REF. 2015 ARMIF 00041)Las competencias de coordinación, liderazgo compartido y trabajo en red con la comunidad en la formación inicial de los maestros parecen necesarias porque la acción docente en las aulas se tiene que aliar con el liderazgo y la organización óptima del centro educativo. Estamos investigando, a partir de cuestionarios ad hoc, la construcción de estas competencias por parte de los estudiantes del Grado de Educación Infantil de la URV con la colaboración de profesorado y responsables académicos universitarios, y maestros y directores de escuelas donde hacen prácticas. Los resultados muestran que los maestros y directores perciben que, del conjunto de las funciones docentes, la coordinación es la más deficitaria aunque es la más importante, por encima del liderazgo y la relación con el entorno. Sobre la formación inicial de los estudiantes, los maestros y los directores valoran como mejorables las competencias en la resolución de conflictos, análisis de situaciones complejas, gestión del aula y, por último, relación con familias y entidades del entornoSome competences like coordination, distributed leadership and networking with the community seem necessary for initial teacher training because the teaching action in classrooms must be allied with leadership and the optimal organization of schools. We are researching, from questionnaires ad hoc, the building of these competences by university students in the specialty of early childhood education at the URV, with the collaboration of lecturers and academic leaders of the university, and teachers and school principals where university students do their practicum stage. The results show that teachers and principals perceive that, from all the teaching functions, coordination is the less developed although it is the most important, above leadership and the relationship with the socioeducational environment. With regard to the initial training of teachers, in-service teachers and principals consider susceptible to improvement the following competences: conflict resolution, complex situation analysis, classroom management and, finally, relationships with families and entities in the educational contex

Change in Classroom Dialogicity to Promote Cultural Literacy across Educational Levels

In a highly diverse world, cultural literacy is an essential tool for living together in harmony, and dialogic teaching may be a way to promote and develop it among children and adolescents. We define cultural literacy as a set of attitudes (inclusion, tolerance, and empathy) and skills (dialogic argumentation) needed to understand others in our everyday lives. This paper focuses on the effect of a professional development programme to promote dialogue and argumentation to help children and adolescents overcome pre-existing stereotypes and prejudices and foster students' participation in discussions that contrast divergent viewpoints. This was done through debates on social responsibility issues, living together, and belonging as presented in books and short films addressing the following topics: citizenship, the celebration of diversity, democracy, globalisation, human rights, cooperation, sustainable development, and climate change. After the professional development programme was implemented, we video-recorded two of the 15 student-teacher interaction sessions during the project's implementation (session #3 and session #8). We analysed the data using a validated coding scheme across three educational levels (three preschool, four primary school, and four secondary school classrooms). We observed moderate gains in secondary education and preschool, but statistically significant gains in primary education

Acció conjunta i desenvolupament d’habilitats sensoriomotores a la sala de psicomotricitat

Aquest treball parteix de la teoria sociocultural de Vygotsky, en què la interacció és clau en el desenvolupament de l’infant. Pretenem analitzar de quina manera infants de tres a quatre anys construeixen el coneixement psicomotor de manera conjunta a partir de l’estudi de la interacció dins del joc sensoriomotor. L’anàlisi de les seqüències d’interacció mostren una gran diversitat d’interaccions entre els infants. D’altra banda, es posa de manifest que el paper de guia del psicomotricista deixa l’espai necessari perquè els infants creïn contextos d’acció propis.This work is based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory which asserts that interaction is key to a child’s development. We study of sensory interaction during sensory motor play to determine how children aged 3 to 4 years construct psychomotor knowledge. Analysis of the interaction sequences showed a variety of interactions among children. The study also found that the guidance provided by the psychomotrician gave children the space they needed to create their own contexts of action