Bewilderment as a pragmatic ingredient of teacher - student dialogic interactions

UID/FIL/00183/2019Several studies on dialogic pedagogies have contributed to shedding light on how the traditional, authoritative Inquiry-Response-Evaluation (IRE) pattern may be transformed into more open, discursive formats through the inclusion of discursive moves, e.g. questions, that are more "authentic" than others. However, the problem of defining genuine teacher-student dialogue at a discourse sequence level remains open. In this essay, I define this type of dialogue from a cognitive perspective, as a dialogue aimed at fulfilling a sensemaking goal framed in at least three ways: as an individual constructionist, a socio-constructivist, and a socio-epistemological process. I then propose bewilderment, based on the philosophical concept of "critical aporia," as a necessary ingredient of pedagogical teacher-student interactions. These two elements, sensemaking and bewilderment, are then used together as framing indicators of three different profiles of pedagogical dialogues.publishersversionpublishe

The Dimensions of Argumentative Texts and Their Assessment

The definition and the assessment of the quality of argumentative texts has become an increasingly crucial issue in education, classroom discourse, and argumentation theory. The different methods developed and used in the literature are all characterized by specific perspectives that fail to capture the complexity of the subject matter, which remains ill-defined and not systematically investigated. This paper addresses this problem by building on the four main dimensions of argument quality resulting from the definition of argument and the literature in classroom discourse: dialogicity, accountability, relevance, and textuality (DART). We use and develop the insights from the literature in education and argumentation by integrating the frameworks that capture both the textual and the argumentative nature of argumentative texts. This theoretical background will be used to propose a method for translating the DART dimensions into specific and clear proxies and evaluation criteria

Insha\u27Allah I\u27ll do my homework : adapting to Arab undergraduates at an English-speaking University in Dubai

The United Arab Emirates and Dubai in particular have in recent years attracted an increased number of Western teachers for all educational levels, especially universities. As part of the orientation for a Western teacher before entering a classroom, the main differences between Western and Middle East culture are often highlighted without an effort to explain how these differences are manifested in students\u27 behavior in courses, or to suggest how the teacher could address them. This paper aims at helping current and future faculty in their professional practice by considering Emirati Arab cultural characteristics as well as strategies adopted by the author to cope with them. Such strategies have been successful, as her students\u27 evaluations and academic performance distinctions during the last two years have continuously shown

Can teachers implement a student-centered dialogical argumentation method across the curriculum?

PTDC/FER-FIL/28278/2017 DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0066 UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020Does student-centered dialogical argumentation work in authentic classroom settings? Four experienced secondary teachers implemented an argument-based curriculum situated within the contexts of their four respective disciplines - language arts, history, science, and civic education. A mixed-method analysis showed that students who participated in the curriculum performed significantly better on a final argumentative essay, compared to control groups who studied the same content with the same teachers using customary methods. Teachers' interviews suggested additional effects including cognitive, metacognitive and socio-emotional skills. Discussion focuses on teachers' role within a dialogical curriculum and argumentation's applicability and efficiency as a transdisciplinary pedagogical method.publishersversionpublishe

Book review: Teaching as a design science

In Teaching as a Design Science the well-known author Diana Laurillard presents an interesting expansion of her Conversational Framework theory (Laurillard, 2002). Both books aim to improve teaching-learning practice by offering optimized examples of good instruction in specific contexts. However, in Teaching as a design science, Laurillard goes a step further: she merges her well-known framework with the emerging research trend of pedagogical patterns to justify the view not only that teaching and design are similar, but that teaching should be conceived and practiced as a design science

Argumentation and design deliberation: a mutual relationship

Design deliberation refers to the process of thoughtfully weighing options, before making a design decision. This process is strongly related to argumentation, not only because of the well-known relation between argumentation and deliberation, but also due to characteristics of the design process. However, no structural model of team design deliberation exists to guide designers’ practice. This paper checks the hypothesis of inter-dependence between argument structures and group decision-making struc-ture as expressed through prescribed deliberation stages

Same but Different: Perceptions of Interpersonal Arguing In Two Arabic Populations (UAE & Lebanon)

In a region characterized by internal socio-political differences and instabilities, such as the Middle East, the need to study and understand interpersonal arguing is becoming more and more critical. Our focus is on the perception of two socially different populations, the Emirati and the Lebanese, regarding their everyday argumentative interactions. Our sample consisted of 50 Lebanese and 34 Emirati young adults, all of them University students in different majors. The standardised interview used aimed at identifying how people define and perceive the process and outcomes of arguing with one another in different contexts. The Lebanese sample displayed a major understanding of efficient argumentative processes, while the Emiratis seemed more susceptible to the power of the speaker as a prerequisite to success in argumentation. Moreover, the Lebanese mainly defined argument as a process of learning from each other, whereas the Emirati mostly defined it as a fight or strong disagreement leading to an outcome

Introduction to the Special Issue “Boundaries between dialogic pedagogy and argumentation theory”

Dialogue and argumentation are two processes that complement and mutually influence each other. However, this essential relationship is not sufficiently acknowledged by current educational research. This neglected relation is also mirrored by the lack of sufficient dialogue between two fields that are defined by the dialogical approach to education and argumentation, namely dialogic pedagogy and educational argumentation. In this Special Issue, we argue that dialogue pedagogies and argumentation theory and practice should communicate more, bridging their somehow different perspectives for the common goal of engaging learners in productive and constructive discussions

Authentic questions as prompts for productive and constructive sequences: A pragmatic approach to classroom dialogue and argumentation

Goal. The problem of the authenticity of teacher questions has not received sufficient attention from educational researchers interested in the intersection between dialogue and argumentation. In this paper, we adopt a definition of authentic questions as dialogical units that prompt teacher-student interactions that are both productive (i.e., several students participating) and constructive (i.e., students produce arguments of high complexity). Our goal is to analyze whether and how specific types of dialogue prompts can encourage students’ engagement in more sophisticated argumentative interactions, as manifested through the construction of high-complexity arguments. Method. We describe the implementation of our analytical approach to a large corpus of classroom interactions from five European countries. The corpus was segmented into dialogical sequences, which were then coded according to the argumentation dialogue goal expressed in the sequence. We also coded students’ arguments according to Toulmin’s elements and distinguished between low- and high-complexity arguments from a structural point of view. Findings. Our findings show the predominance of the so-called Discovery questions as prompts that are both productive and constructive and Inquiry questions as prompts of argumentative constructive interactions. We discuss the importance of these findings for teacher professional development purposes

Evaluation and Promotion of Argumentative Reasoning Among University Students: The Case of Academic Writing

Two fundamental critical thinking skills that students are expected to develop during their formal education are: the use of evidence for justifying their positions, and the consideration of objections or contrary opinions in their own reasoning. These skills, fully manifested in argumentative reasoning, have not been sufficiently addressed in higher education research. This exploratory case study sheds light on a specific type of argumentative reasoning particularly important for graduate students: the argument-based academic writing. A Ph.D. seminar course (22 lecture hours) was developed based on two main concepts of argumentation theory, namely argumentation schemes and the heuristic uses thereof, i.e. paraschemes. The course was delivered to seven first-year Ph.D. students at a public Portuguese University. The students’ reasoning skills were assessed through their written drafts before and after the three-month course. The assessment method used was mixed (qualitative and quantitative). A significant change was observed in the increase of sound argumentation strategies and the decrease of the ungrounded ones in students’ academic writing. The study concludes with recommendations for both the teaching of academic writing at a graduate level and the promotion of critical thinking skills. Keywords: academic writing; argumentation; critical thinking; Phd student