Learning Across Sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices - Earli

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Socio-cognitive tension in working relations 239
two dimensions, which seem separate, but actually depend on each other. Instability
is the default situation, and it can go in any direction. In a way we are talking
about two separate dimensions: relating to each other (learning to collaborate)
and performing a task. In a CWR, people know how to deal with both.
Some conjectures
Within current institutional contexts, often characterized by knowledge transmission,
collaborative learning can be seen as two individuals trying to solve a
problem, leading to (sometimes unresolved) tensions. We aim to develop a more
systematic approach to the tension/relaxation analysis in order to investigate the
following claims:
• In some problem- solving interactions, the production of arguments is not
driven by participants actively looking for elaboration and better understanding
of a domain, but rather by socio- cognitive tensions.
• Some tensions are the result of participants failing to arrive at a common understanding
of the assignment and its procedures, or from other major differences
between participants that manifest themselves via a different understanding
of collaboration and the working relationship.
• The negotiation of the working relationship as it unfolds during electronic
interaction, can be described as a narrative, whereby the end is characterized
either by tension/relaxation or by explosion.
• Argumentation in most traditional learning situations is interpreted by participants
at the socio- cognitive level, and not at the rational cognitive level.
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deepening
social tension
Figure 14.1 Depicting social tension and deepening by argumentation in the six
sequences