Instructional Conversations

Instructional conversations lie at the heart of teaching and learning. Well designed instructional conversations stimulate deep thinking, promote critical reflection and metacognition, and help participants create meaning and leverage ideas to generate something new. This chapter defines instructional conversations and presents a taxonomy of five types, ranging from dialectic conversations to reflective conversations. Illustrations of each type of conversation are provided, along with a discussion of their function and ways to increase their effectiveness. The chapter ends with a set of suggestions for improving professional practice, and particularly for instructors who wish to become more intentional about reaching learning goals.

Conversation Theory

This chapter focuses on the design of conversations in online education. The central feature, conversation design, is presented as a continuous process that takes place not only during the preparatory phases but also during the emerging conversation, which is best understood as dialogue. We see dialogue as a useful way of understanding the principal task of the online tutor; the facilitation of the construction of knowledge by the learner within a framework of significant interaction. Furthermore, the developmental nature of this process requires a process in which the tutor, instead of implementing a series of actions designed previously, must adopt a role similar to that of the action researcher, continually observing, reflecting and adapting the process. The chapter proposes a range of theoretical considerations and practical techniques for structuring and facilitating these online learning dialogues. The aim is to offer theoretical and methodological approaches to the design of learning conversations (dialogue) as a mode of learning and constructing knowledge.

Conversation Design in the Electronic Discussion Age

The goal of the chapter to examine a way in which Pask’ s conversation theory (CT) can be used as a theoretical framework for designing blended courses using a collaborative inquiry approach for teaching and learning in campus-based university. This chapter comprises three parts that explains a) the constructs of CT, and their relations in regard to online collaborative inquiry, b) the four principles derived from the constructs of CT and the possible use of these principles to design a blended course, and c) how the effects of these constructs can be used to assess the effectiveness of this CT based blended course design. This chapter is concluded with the discussion and implications for course design, and future research on CT.

Conversation Theory Conceptualized in E-Learning Environments

This chapter examines Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory, comparing his approach to the current literature about the growing field of E-learning as a vital component for knowledge acquisition. For this chapter, conversation and dialogue are simply defined as an exchange of information between students and instructors. This exchange can be informal like a conversation or more formal like a dialogue (Merriam-Webster’s, 1974). Pask developed his Conversation Theory based primarily on an exchange of information between a human and an artificial intelligence, i.e. a computer

Using the interpersonal action-learning cycle to invite thinking, attentive comprehension

This chapter shows how the interpersonal action-learning cycle (IALC) can be used to invite thinking and attentive comprehension from learners in conversation. It explains what the IALC is, where it comes from, how it works and why. In particular, it offers a logical demonstration that all interpersonal learning takes place within the IALC, and that all competition for dominance lies outside it – suggesting conscious use of the IALC as a desirable practice. The chapter goes on to explore linguistic factors that routinely disrupt use of the IALC, and that can hide its very existence. Strategies for restoring and stabilizing it are offered. Routine use of the IALC can have profound implications for teaching and instruction, collaborative learning, assessment, course evaluation and professional development. These are explored.

Politeness as a Social Computing Requirement

This chapter describes how social politeness is relevant to computer system design. As the Internet becomes more social, computers now mediate social interactions, act as social agents, and serve as information assistants. To succeed in these roles computers must learn a new skill—politeness. Yet selfish software is currently a widespread problem and politeness remains a software design “blind spot.” Using an informational definition of politeness, as the giving of social choice, suggests four aspects: 1. respect, 2. openness, 3. helpfulness, and 4. remembering. Examples are given to suggest how polite computing could make human-computer interactions more pleasant and increase software usage. In contrast, if software rudeness makes the Internet an unpleasant place to be, usage may minimize. For the Internet to recognize its social potential, software must be not only useful and usable, but also polite.

A Conversational Framework for Self-Organised Learning

People learn by making sense of the world for themselves, thereby constructing personal meaning. Effective learners are aware of how they do this and can actively organize this process for themselves. They engage in a reflective conversational process called Self-Organised-Learning (SOL). In Western Cultures the education system inhibits SOL because it is founded on the outmoded belief that all knowledge is objective and that learners are expected to absorb what is given. Teachers and trainers are expected to treat learners as ‘objects’ to be manipulated and they are prevented from developing their capacity to learn. They become ‘other-organized-learners’ and often suffer from life-long learning pathologies, which constrain their growth. This chapter describes conversational techniques for supporting SOL, plus the science and philosophy behind them. The techniques are practiced within a Learning Conversation Methodology designed to empower individual, team, and organizational growth, and have been proven effective in many educational and commercial situations. Fundamental changes and a paradigm shift is essential in education policy to enable many more to become life-long Self-Organized-Learners and through their effective activities transform our cultures. SOL empowers personal skill, competence and creativity and is of value in tutoring, coaching, team learning, e-learning, and distance learning. SOL has implications for teacher training, management development, and organizational learning.

Pask and Ma Join Forces in an Elementary Mathematics Methods Course

This chapter introduces conversation theory as a means of creating an active learning environment in an elementary mathematics methods course. It argues that such an environment, designed for undergraduate candidates in teacher education, will engage the learners in the task of developing deep conceptual understanding to support and give rationale to the procedural knowledge most of them already have. Furthermore, the authors hope that an understanding of conversation theory as applied to teaching mathematics will help instructors and instructional designers to facilitate preservice teachers’ engagement in reaching a deep conceptual understanding of the mathematics they are preparing to teach.

Applying Grounded Conversation Design to Instruction

A grounded conversation design approach is posited as a way to study complex conversational processes within online learning environments. This approach is applied to online learning contexts to leverage conversation quality and learning. Study I examines conversations emerging within an online learning community created within an undergraduate class to critically discuss research. Study II applied conversational protocols derived from study I within an undergraduate online editorial board simulation intended to generate critical discourse. The chapter suggests how basic grounded conversation techniques can be applied in a variety of online learning environments to study conversation and develop grounded conversation theory within the context of online learning. Grounded conversation design is based on the assumption that conversation is situated and grounded within the social contexts from which it emerges.

Designing Online Conversations to Engage Local Practice

In this chapter we present a model for the design of a conversation space to support knowledge-building. While we focus on online environments, the model has much greater generality. The model, an expansion and adaptation of Nonaka’s work, considers knowledge as consisting of complementary explicit and tacit dimensions. It argues that these two dimensions of knowledge are mutually reinforcing, inseparable and irreducible and thus in order to build robust knowledge we must attend to both dimensions and, most critically, the relationship between them. Our model conceptualizes the development of knowledge as a spiral between the complementary processes of Externalization (through collective online reflection) and Internalization (through conscientious local practice) and discusses eight principles for designing online conversations to foster effective Externalization, thus promoting the knowledge-building spiral. The broader message of this chapter is that designers need to expand their frame for thinking about “online” learning to include not only the virtual space but also the local spaces which learners inhabit in order to create useful and engaging learning experiences. All of the eight design principles presented here support this consideration.