Complete thesis - Murdoch University

The conversational framework developed by Laurillard and illustrated in Figure 3.4 identifiesthe activities necessary to complete the learning process and provides a model for teachingstrategy. However, its application is seen not to inevitably lead to learning (Milton andLyons, 2003). Within the framework, the teacher sets up the conditions of the world withinwhich the student can act, the learner operates at the level of action within the teacher’sworld, and both parties operate at the level of description within their conceptual knowledge.Figure 3.4: Learning as a discourse (Laurillard, 1993)The pragmaticist basis of this learning model may be seen. Of import is the ‘construction’ andadaptation of the world by the teacher. This is not the teacher’s own conceptualisations, butan adaptation of those for the learning task at hand. The teacher constructs a hypotheticalmodel of the particular conceptual worlds of the learner. Changes can be induced onlyif there is some inkling as to the domains of experience, the concepts and the conceptualrelationships that the learner possesses at the moment. Language enables the teacher to orientthe student’s conceptual construction by precluding certain pathways and making others morelikely (Glaserfeld, 1996). Laurillard’s model focuses attention on key relationships betweenforms of discourse, academic knowledge, interactions with the world and reflection.Pask’s theory included the separation of description from model-building behaviour and thedefinition of understanding as determined by a two-level agreement (Pask, 1976). The criticalmethod for learning is ‘teachback’ – the learners teach another what they have learnt.Teachback and self-explanation (Chi and Bassock, 1989) are both seen as components of alearning dialogue. They force a focus on key aspects of the domain; force deeper processingof the topic, allowing relationships to be forged, and allow failures and conflicts to emerge137