Abstracts - Earli

classroom level, our disciplinary area still suffers from a lack of an analytical and methodologicalframework that integrates the three elements as well as the relation between them. Studies ofteachers and teaching have been poorly aligned with studies of students’ operational learning andvice versa and we know little about to what extent - and how - differences in teachers’ activitiesare related to students’ learning. Few studies of teachers and teaching have examined the extent towhich differences in teacher effectiveness are related to differences in teachers’ subject matterknowledge. Two decades after Shulman and his colleagues’ prominent research program onpedagogic content knowledge as a special amalgam of content and pedagogy essential to teachers’professional understanding we still tend to discuss teaching and learning in general termsseparated from the content coverage involved. In my contribution I will link knowledge challengesin teaching and teacher education to: i) current research gaps revealed throughout classroomstudies in the Nordic countries ii) the poor link, engagement and conversation between knowledgegained within the research field of education and it’s practical dissemination and use at theoperational classroom level, and iii) the need to develop more operational, technical andinstrumental tools that could support and contribute to research based teaching and learningK 431 August 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: -1.63SymposiumLearning through dialogue and collaboration: new findings andconceptualizationsChair: Ed Elbers, Utrecht University, NetherlandsOrganiser: Ed Elbers, Utrecht University, NetherlandsDiscussant: Karen Littleton, Open University, United KingdomLearning through dialogue and collaboration is an important issue in educational studies.However, transforming educational practice from more traditional, transmission based classroominstruction to teaching and learning through dialogue and collaborative group work has proved noteasy. Establishing and sustaining collaboration and dialogues in classrooms demands differentattitudes and new skills for both teachers and students. As we will demonstrate in this symposium,it also demands the establishment of specific ground rules. This symposium brings together recentinternational research on collaborative and dialogic learning and teaching. The papers report onnew findings and will provide new insights in both educational practice and theory. The papersalso show a diversity of applications of dialogic and collaborative principles: online knowledgebuilding, multi-ethnic classrooms, the teaching and learning of science and literacy learning. Thepaper of Judith Kleine Staarman and Neil Mercer introduces a dialogic approach to teaching andlearning. Based on previous and current research on student group work and classroom interaction,these authors propose ground rules for teachers and students to establish and sustain constructiveclassroom dialogue. Sylvia Rojas-Drummond and her colleagues compare the use of talk in twovery different collaborative task settings. They found that working together in open ended tasksinduces students to use different types of talk than in closed tasks. Linda Biro and her colleaguesreport on the introduction of a programme for improving collaborative reasoning in multi-ethnicclassrooms. These authors created a specific intervention to adapt to the challenges of a classpopulation with diverse cultural and language backgrounds. Eva Vass and her colleagues make– 587 –