Conceptual Change Through Collaboration

Abstract

People know many things but do not always understand all of them very deeply. Many know what a sewing machine does, for example, but few could give a satisfactory mechanical explanation when asked how it makes its stitches. Yet, it is also true that we sometimes engage in conversation about a phenomenon none of us "understands" at first and eventually find some plausible explanation, by exchanging proposals and scrutinizing them collaboratively. This chapter characterizes such a social, collaborative endeavor as a cause of conceptual change in its broader sense, proposes cognitive mechanisms for how it is possible, and relates the research on how to support such collaborative conceptual change to emerging research questions in learning sciences