Building Understanding in Productive Conversation

When we talk, we consolidate and test our knowledge. Speaking out loud requires mental organization. As we speak, there’s an immediate feedback loop as we hear our own ideas. This allows us to reflect on our logic. It’s like holding up a mirror to our explanations, judgments, and arguments. Speaking aloud helps us confront our misunderstandings and inconsistencies and identify ideas that don’t make sense.

The learning benefits of speaking about our ideas are apparent even if nobody listens. Students who read their drafts of written work aloud can more easily expose their grammatical errors and problems with argumentative structure. This is an enabler for self-regulation. Reading and speaking out loud also facilitates checking for understanding by the teacher.

A staple pedagogy in the didactic teaching tradition is the use of questions and answer  (Q and A) sequences to probe student understanding. In Q and A pedagogy, the teacher asks a question, and the students respond. A clever Q and A practitioner can use questioning to challenge students to think more critically about their learning and to lay the foundation for more complex knowledge. That is, Q and A techniques can be much more than a quick check for understanding.

However, I think the Q and A approach is mildly demeaning for the student. That is, the teacher presumedly knows the answers to the questions. The posing of a question for students when the answer is already known can seem like the teacher is mocking the students and can be discouraging. If the teacher clearly knows the answer, why are they asking others? Indeed there are some cultures where Q and A is discouraged. Cultural differences aside, the principle underpinning Q and A techniques is drawn from the idea that speaking aloud has a potent positive effect on learning.

There’s nothing new here; the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (circa 470 BC) is reported to have been a master of probing questions to pursue deeper understanding for his students. For the Socratic method of Q and A the teacher is the master of the subject matter. If knowledge is power, then in this type of Q and A, the master has all the power.

So how can we reap the benefits of speaking aloud for the consolidation of learning without risking building a disrespectful imbalance between the teacher and their students? There needs to be more of a conversation, a democratic sharing of ideas, and a balance where wicked problems are faced together. Teachers can identify problems or issues to be resolved, and then the group can share ideas. The teacher is a partner in the knowledge building, not the owner of the knowledge. Like in many indigenous communities, it could involve a yarning circle. These are a kind of productive conversation that democratizes knowledge, allowing students to learn vicariously from each other and encouraging them to verbally communicate the idea as they share and build their own understandings.

Your thoughts?