Learning by Collaborating: Convergent Conceptual Change

Abstract

The goal of this article is to construct an integrated approach to collaboration and conceptual change. To this end, a case of conceptual change is analyzed from the point of view of conversational interaction. It is proposed that the crux of collaboration is the problem of convergence: How can two (or more) people construct shared meanings for conversations, concepts, and experiences? Collaboration is analyzed as a process that gradually can lead to convergence of meaning. The epistemological basis of the framework of analysis is a relational, situated view of meaning: Meanings are taken to be relations among situations and verbal or gestural actions. The central claim is that a process described by four primary features can account for students' incremental achievement of convergent conceptual change. The process is characterized by (a) the production of a deep-featured situation, in relation to (b) the interplay of physical metaphors, through the constructive use of (c) interactive cycles of conversational turn-taking, constrained by (d) the application of progressively higher standards of evidence for convergence. Mind as a concrete thing is precisely the power to understand things in terms of the use made of them; a socialized mind is the power to understand them in terms of the use to which they are turned in joint or shared situations. (Dewey, 1916, p. 34) The knower is not simply a mirror floating with no foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is an actor, and a co-efficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth which he helps to create. (James, cited in Cremin, 1988, p. 400). © 1992, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.