Collaboration, knowledge sharing and digital environments: What about argumentation and questioning skills?

Abstract

This work aims at explaining one online platform (ArguQuest) whose main objective is to stimulate learning through argumentation and questioning in a collaborative virtual environment. It is expected that students clarify their knowledge by explaining what they know to their peers. They have to make themselves precise and clear so that their peers can understand them and the ideas they want to express. In this online environment students are invited to discuss topics in dyads, in a certain number of modules where the level of discussion centered on arguments and questions become deeper. In some points they are invited to discuss the contents with other dyads and, to conclude, an argumentative map is presented by the system and changed or not by the participants. Conclusions of studies developed in Brazil and Portugal reveal that the platform stimulates peer discussion develops questioning and arguing skills. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.