Abstracts - Earli

I 2130 August 2007 14:30 - 16:30Room: 7.59SymposiumOnline reflective dialogues: Integrating social and cognitivedimensionsChair: Rupert Wegerif, University of Exeter, United KingdomChair: Baruch Schwarz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelOrganiser: Rupert Wegerif, University of Exeter, United KingdomDiscussant: Steve Higgins, University of Durham, United KingdomDiscussant: Paul A Kirschner, Utrecht University, NetherlandsComputer supported collaborative learning has long been seen as a good way to teach thinkingthrough argumentation. However some argumentation schemes have proved too narrowlycognitive to capture the way in which social dynamics impact upon the quality of shared thinkingin online environments. The papers in this symposium all explore different ways of going beyondthe cognitive tradition in studies of online reflective dialogues. In different ways they illustrate theimportance of what has been called ‘social meta-cognition’ or the awareness of participants indialogues of how social processes impact upon their shared learning and thinking. Wegerif and DeLaat argue that thinking occurs in a ‘dialogic space’ that can be opened, widened and deepened bytechnology. They illustrate how this approach can impact on the design of tools and pedagogy tosupport reflective dialogues online. Schwarz reports on a study of using an online tool to supportreflective dialogue within a classroom where the use of the tool led to a change in the socialrelationships of the classroom in a way that impacted positively on the quality of shared learningand thinking. Andreissen and Baker explore the inter-relationship between group problem-solvingonline and a process cycle of the tension and relaxation of social relationships suggesting thataffect and cognition are intrinsically connected. Näykki and Järvelä, like Wegerif and De Laat,look at tools that support reflection, in this case focusing on the use of pictorial knowledgerepresentations which, they show, serve the double function of supporting greater reflection on andso understanding of knowledge contents while also structuring social interactions that support theconstruction of knowledge.A networked dialogic learning design framework for teaching thinkingRupert Wegerif, University of Exeter, United KingdomMaarten de Laat, University of Exeter, United Kingdom‘Higher Order Thinking Skills’ and meta-cognition have traditionally been conceptualisedprimarily from the perspective of individualistic psychology as properties of individual minds.From this perspective engagement with computers, particularly programming languages andsimulations, has been seen as a way of promoting higher order skills and strategies. Increasingly,however, thinking and learning have been conceptualised in more socially situated ways, as theproperties of communities of practice for example, and technology enhanced learning has beendesigned to support social and communicative practices. Often this shift in perspective from afocus on the individual mind to a focus on socially situated practice has meant that the pedagogicalgoal of teaching for higher order thinking has been rejected as no longer appropriate. In this paperwe argue that, accepting the shift away from individualistic cognitive psychology towards– 527 –