Productive Disagreeing: Collaborators' Exploration of Ideas During Moments of Contested Knowledge

• In Event: 31.092 - Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: 31.092-4 - Learning Sciences SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Collaboration is often used to support learning as it affords opportunities for elaboration and construction of new knowledge. Within collaboration, individuals make knowledge claims, and at times are presented with counter-claims from collaborators. While some counter-claims are accepted without debate, others initiate extended sequences in which knowledge is contested. Although prior work has not distinguished between these forms of dispute, we demonstrate, through close analysis of collaborations, that these forms are interactionally distinct and afford different opportunities for the exploration of knowledge. Unlike corrected-knowledge sequences in which counter-claims are accepted without debate, contested-knowledge sequences afford knowledge exploration over multiple turns. We believe that these different forms of dispute may differentially influence what knowledge individuals subsequently use.

Authors

• Jessica J Andrews, Educational Testing Service

• Danielle Keifert, Exploratorium