THE DYNAMICS OF NON-CONVERGENT LEARNING WITH A CONFLICTING OTHER:INTERNALLY PERSUASIVE DISCOURSE AS A FRAMEWORK FOR ARTICULATING SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Yifat Ben-David Kolikant Sarah Pollack

School of Education Melton Center for Jewish Education

The Hebrew University of JerusalemExeter, June, 2015

THE NECESSITY OF A DIALOGICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION: WHY? WHAT FOR?

Globalization, digitalism, & multi-cultural societies

Frequent encounters with different Others

Learning potential – enriched by means of the Other

threats to local cultures – might cause people to become entranced in the local and the familiar

School can and should prepare students for these encounters

The convergence metaphor• The (CS)CL literature defines fruitful collaborative learning in terms “convergence”:• In this symposium we will use the term ‘cognitive convergence’ to

encompass various concepts that have been used to explain the important processes underlying successful collaboration, such as intersubjectivity, co-construction, knowledge convergence, common ground, joint problem space, and transactive reasoning. (Teasly, et al., 2008)

• Students’ diversity is a good starting point, a means to increase the depth of learning in collaborative settings, a stimulation for a vivid discussion, but in the end they have to converge

Jeong & Chi, 2007

Processes of convergence: “joint exploration”

• Processes in which all group members unite in the effort to increase their shared understanding (Roschelle & Teasly, 1995; Schwartz, 1995).

• (a) integration-oriented consensus • and (b) conflict-oriented consensus.

• Dispute is viewed as less promising in terms of successful collaborative learning• When confronted with an opposing claim, one can:

Disputative discourse deliberative or exploratory discourse (Mercer, 2000)

Goal is to persuade, to defend a certain viewpoint and undermine alternatives.

to arrive at a coherent, consensual explanation through weighing the various pieces of evidence.

Therefore students might limit their discursive actions to the two following responses: (1) dismiss counter-arguments and

maintain their position; (2) agree with counterarguments locally,

but deflect their impact by turning to other claims in support of their position;

Individuals are likelier to allow themselves the full range of the above responses.(3) integrate counterarguments by

qualifying or adjusting their position; or, (4) accept counterarguments and

abandon their position

Students’ argumentative

background (e.g., modern schooling)

also influences their behavior in

collaborative activities

(Felton, Garcia-Mila, and Gilabert, 2009)

The limited power of the convergence metaphor

Convergence aligns with

Traditional information-focused agenda - students converge towards the school-approved body of knowledge throughout a process of confronting alternative conceptions and explanations.

Paradigmatic mode of thought and the scientific conventions that require one to produce a theory coherent with all evidence and responsive to alternative explanations, coming closer and closer to the objective truth(Bruner, 1996; Parker, 2006).

However…

Life-long learning is about ongoing refinement of one’s knowledge with and from others, regardless of whether they share the same goals or not, or whether the process would eventually result in increased overlap in the knowledge of the people involved in it.

Narrative mode of - underlying reasoning and epistemological practices associated with the Humanities.

The limited power of the convergence metaphor

• The educational goals associated with the Humanities: to humanize students, to assist them in re-examining how they perceive themselves and others and in becoming aware of the limitations of their understanding of the world (Wineburg, 2001).

• Successful collaboration in this context might simply lead to one’s deeper understanding of the text and better understanding of other people and their worldview. (Parker, 2006).

• Multiple narratives and interpretations are legitimate• Two historians, working with the same source materials and using

the same methods, might reach different yet legitimate and reasonable interpretations of the same past events, (for an example, see Wertsch and Poleman, 2001).

Internally Persuasive Discourse

IPD -“a dialogic regime of the participants’ testing ideas and searching for the boundaries of personally-vested truth.” (Matusov & von Duyke, 2010, p. 174)

Such a process can bring participants “to transcend their ontological circumstances” (Matusov, 2009, p. 208).

The Other - “[i]n collaboration, participants need each other not simply because they help each other accomplish some common goals that, otherwise, they could not accomplish on their own, but because they define a dialogic agency in each other” (Matusov, 2001, p.397)

The ideological nature of language• People from different groups may use different terminologies to create

historical representations (narratives) of the same events.• A speaker always invokes a social language and genre when

producing an utterance, depends on our perception of the situation and our affiliation• Social language - “a discourse peculiar to a specific stratum of society”

(Bakhtin, 1981, p.430). • Social languages differ from one another not only in terms of vocabulary but

also in terms of forms of expression and manifestation of intent (Bakhtin, 1986).

• A speech genre is defined as situation-dependent discourse (e.g., salon conversations, Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) classroom discourse).

• These languages and genres shape what the speaker can say, but at the same time can be shaped and changed a dialogue with the Other.

An IPD-oriented pedagogical model: the “DOING HISTORY TOGETHER”

PROJECT

Inter-ethnic foursomes(G)

Wiki environment , school commitment

Reading review articles

Writing joint account

Jewish Pair (JP) Arab Pair (AG)

Reading review articles

Writing joint account

1st (dyad) encounter

Review AG account Review JG account2nd (interim) encounter

Sarah Teacher? Salwa

3st (triad) encounter Writing either a joint account or an analysis of the

disagreement

Research goals: what learning occurred? By what process(es)?

Interlaced Roots Doing History Together

Participants 12 graduate students

104 Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab/Palestinian post-primary students

sources -Individual and pair essays-ReflectionsTranscripts of e-interaction

-Pair essays, foursomes essays -The e-discussions transcripts. (26 in total)

Analysis -thematic analysis tri-phasic discourse analysis and historical content analysis

A thematic comparison between the essays Topic Theme Joint essays

(n= 16)

Others

(n= 10)    AP JP G  AP JPThe Western agent’s policy

1. Discriminative policy: the support of the Zionists at the expense of the Arabs in order to gain control in the area

6

40%

1

7%

5

33%

4 40% 1

10%

2. Balanced policy. Promoting both sides’ interests3

20%

10

67%

5

33%

1 10% 9

90%

The causes/circumstances for the Arabs’ objections

3. Unjust. The Arabs resisted the discrimination against them / the West deceived/broke their promise to establish a state for the Arabs.

14

94%

2

13%

7

47%

9

90%

0

0%

4. non-pregmatism. The Arabs resisted the British/UN policy because they resisted the concept of dividing the territory.

1

6%

13

87%

5

33%

0

0%

9

90%

The causes/circumstances for the

Jews’ acceptances

5. Promoting Jewish goals. The Jews accepted the policy because it promoted their interests. 12

80%

1

7%

5

33%

7

70%

1

10%

6. Compromise. The Jews agreed to compromise (on what was previously promised by the British) due to concerns that Britain/the West would withdraw its support

6

40%

14

93%

9

60%

2

20%

10

100%

Results: viewpoints on the Arab historical agent (Churchill’s White paper ,1922)

JP's essay AP's essayThe Arab population did not agree with the white book because they interpreted the promises made in the white book [to the Jews?] exaggeratedly

The response of the Arabs side are negative. They were angry because their lands were taken from them

Group essayThe Arab population did not agree with the White book because it perceived it as the beginning of the process of taking their lands [from them]

The narratives

J

A

JB

JA

B

A

B

AP JP Q

Joint essays: mosaic• (a) composed of themes that had originally appeared

in the pairs’ essays, • (b) did not contradict either of the in-group historical

(meta-)narratives• and yet, (c) included less moral judgment, and • (d) reflected a more complicated, multi-dimensional

view regarding the historical processes and the interrelationships among the historical agents who were active in these processes, in comparison to the pairs' essays. “Double

construct”, a settlement

(Kelman, 2010)

Episode type average (SD) N 

Discussion type

Total historical

non-elaborative

Elaborative

Organizational

Social

 4.3

(1.14)

2.63(0.89)

1.69(0.48)

3.00(1.03)

2.25(1.06)

 16

Elaborative Discussions:

4.36 2.5 1.5 3 3 2 1.Joint

exploration

4.35 2.64 1.71 3 2.1414

2. Fission

3.70(0.67)

3.70(0.67)

0.00(0.00)

0.30(0.67)

0.80(0.79)

 10

Non-elaborative Discussions:

3.875 3.875 0 0 0.625 8 3. Cycles of

Dispute

3 3 0 1.5 1.5 2 4. Diluted voice

Two dynamics of elaborative discussions

• In both, the opportunity for elaboration emerged when the Other recognized a flaw (weakness) in one’s argument

the genre remained disputatious. The challenges were aimed at and perceived as undermining the arguments of the opposing pair, rather than presenting opportunities for group inquiry. As such, the responsibility for addressing them remained solely in the hands of the “attacked” pair. The ensuing breakthrough in understanding the event was therefore a within-pair affair, rather than a shared process.

Participants understood the utterances as belonging to the genre of collaborative inquiry, rather than to the disputatious genre. the question became a matter for joint exploration. The new knowledge collaboratively created as a result was recognized by the discussants as group knowledge

JP: But the White Paper did not indicate that your lands would be taken.

AP: So what did it indicate? JP: That we will continue with the Balfour

Declaration. Which says that a “Jewish home” will be established here…It [the White Paper] doesn’t necessarily mean that your lands will be taken…

AP: No, it [the White Paper] did not indicate it [that lands will be taken] but it took [the lands].

JP: I don’t understand. The White paper cannot take lands. It was an announcement.

• AP: So where did the Jews live in this country [?] On Arab lands. Right [?]. So, they [Jews] took the lands from them [Arabs]

• JP: The White book was [issued] in 1922.• AP: Yes. And there was also a [Jewish] immigration in this year.

Right [?]• JP: At that period the lands that Jews took were [bought] with

money…Therefore it is not reasonable that the Arabs in 1921 were angry because their lands were taken

• AP: So where is the receipt [of the purchase]? • JP: Jews came here from other countries . Including my own

family . And we bought a house in Haifa and in Emek Izrael. […]We did not have an army at all then…

• AP: But you had Britain• JP: Can we sum up that the Arabs see the white book as a

beginning of a process of taking their lands• AP: Yes

Fission: an intersubjective moment emerging out of dispute• 22 (85%) e-discussions were characterized as disputatious

• Stage 1. all started with parallel monologicity Stage 2. the majority moved to negotiate meaning and viewpoints (19, 73%)

• Stage 3. fission occurred in a pair’s voice as a result of a successful “hit” of the Other (14, 54%)

• All stage-3 e-discussions also included social episodes in their beginnings (greeting, Facebook), some ended with social episodes

Fission-- borrowed from nuclear physics– is an intersubjective moment. It is when one idea connects with another idea, when one’s voice becomes embodied in another voice, or using Bakhtin’s (1984; 1991) terminology, a voice became more polyphonic.

This process was not shallow.

A fission-like discussion: a process of knowledge convergence?

• All conditions for successful collaboration were satisfied: • the elaborative episodes ended with a consensus, all participants

agreed on a certain text for the joint page; • the process by which these agreements were achieved was not quick

or shallow (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006) • (recall that students could have had an easy way out, merely by

juxtaposing their original answers). • Moreover, fissions are intersubjective moments, they occurred in

one’s voice as the Other voice impacted it.

• Yet, convergence? Has the overlap between individuals’ knowledge increased after a successful collaboration?

• (cf. Jeong & Chi, 2007). Jeong & Chi, 2007

Not necessarily…in post-activity individual essays…

• Group members did not converge into the joint text. • They did not abandon their in-group narratives

• Nevertheless, footprints of their participation in the activity were evident

•From one-sided to multi-sided perceptions of the historical eventa) the ascription of at least some accountability for the event to the in-group

historical agent;

b) employing historical empathy towards the Other historical agent, i.e. presenting this agent as acting not only with cold intentions but also within constraints, thereby reducing the moral judgment;

c) the answers reflected an understanding of the event as a more tangled system of interrelations, in comparison to the rather simplistic victim/perpetrator description in the pre-answers.

•Strengthen our claim that mosaic-like joint texts are double construct

Pollack & Ben-David Kolikant, 2011

All conditions for successful collaboration were satisfied:

the elaborative episodes ended with a consensus, all participants agreed on a certain text for the joint page; the process by which these agreements were achieved was not quick or shallow (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006) (recall that students could have had an easy way out, merely by juxtaposing their original answers). Moreover, fissions are intersubjective moments, they occurred in one’s voice as the Other voice impacted it.

Yet, convergence? Has the overlap between individuals’ knowledge increased after a successful collaboration?

The power of conceptualizing (successful) collaborative learning as IPD• IPD captures ‘fission’ moments, a successful form of

collaborative learning. • IPD highlights the role of the Other in stimulating the

development of dialolgic agency in one (Matusov, 2009).

• IPD better captures the dynamics of successful collaboration that does not necessarily involve convergence, common to settings like those of the DHT model and interlaced roots model.

Towards a polyphonic conceptualization of knowledge

• People do not construct their knowledge and memories of the utterances of others (or their own) merely according to their contents (as implicated in the convergence/overlap approach).

• Rather, in their thoughts and memories, people maintain the polyphonic socio-emotional nature of knowledge and “tag” utterances with their authors, contexts, and responses, all comprising one’s knowledge of an utterance.

A new illustration is required • This observation is especially important when the topic

concerns one’s identity, one’s sense of belongingness. • Quartet members were all exposed to the same contents since they

received the same source texts and participated in the same discussion. • However, these pieces of content were judged, tagged, and emplotted

differently by each pair, creating different narratives, different meanings, different knowledge of the event (Bruner, 1986).

• As fission occurred within a pair, it allowed a piece of knowledge identified as belonging the “Other’s voice” a certain legitimacy, ameliorating its negative “tagging” as “wrong”, “capricious” , or “lies”.

• This piece probably became more tangled with pieces used to emplot one’s own narrative, creating dialogical relations between the voices (e.g., echoing in one’s mind when related issues pop up).