Blogging the 2014 AECT International Convention.

Yesterday Barb Hall and I facilitated a workshop on intersubjectivity. Our workshop materials are on our intersubjectivity wiki so you can explore further.

As always, when I work with Barb, I learn something new or find new concepts to ponder. I appreciate the partnership that allows for continued learning!

Notes, Ideas & Resources

Here are some notes, interesting ideas, and resources that came out of the workshop:

• Conversation: Is constructionism a philosophy or a learning theory?
• Remember: interaction is the process, and intersubjectivity is the product created when citing sources and peers in peer responses to synthesize new knowledge
• We created synchronous intersubjectivity in the introductions – the participants talked to each other, and then came up with a table name and introduced the table (as opposed to just individual introductions)
• Sentence starters can assist students in creating responses at higher levels – i.e. “I see it another way”. Accountable talk is a source for additional sentence starts.
  • Accountable Language Stems
  • Accountable Talk Toolkit

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  One of the differences to reach intersubjectivity is actually thinking about what the other person said and referring to what they said in your response

• The difficulty of making connections or thinking of a way to bridge ideas. A safe place is needed online to practice these types of responses, a place that allows for experimenting with the ideas.
• Taxonomies other than Bloom’s: Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix of Webb & Bloom; Marzano’s New Taxonomy
• When teaching adult learners, it is important to include their experience in the discussion prompt
• For discussion prompts in the STEM fields, have students share how they solved the problem. There is a right answer, but there are different ways of getting there. They can learn from each other’s methods of problem solving.
• It seems also that creating more structure and direction for peer responses would help. Some of the structures from this Critical Thinking site could be helpful for requirements for peer responses.
• Tip for facilitators: use the IAM phase and try to work at phase 3 – modeling for the students making connections between the different peer responses.
• I’m still mulling over the tendency to write discussion requirements about logistics (1 initial post, 2 replies, post by Wed, etc.) vs. the possibilities around writing discussion requirements that are content/intersubjectivity based.
• F2F teaching techniques such as group roles, fishbowl discussions, 360 evals are all useful online as well.

IAM Phase Sentence Starters

1. Sharing and Comparing

• I agree because…
• Something like that happened to me when…
• I saw the same thing happen…
• What do you mean by…
• So, you think the problem is…
• How would you describe…

2. Dissonance

• While you think, I actually think…
• I am not sure I agree…
• Is it that you think X, or is it that you think Y?
• Consider that the textbook says…
• I don’t think we really disagree, it’s just that…

3. Negotiation and Co-Construction

• If we use your example, then…
• So taken together, we’re saying…
• While that may be true, consider…
• While I still disagree with X, I do think you’re / we agree about Y…
• So, you’re really thinking that X means Y, when I think that X means Z…

4. Testing Tentative Constructions

• That hasn’t been my experience, though…
• That disagrees with Author’s findings that…
• This doesn’t make sense when you consider…
• This makes sense when consider Author stated that…
• I don’t know if that would apply for the X community…

5. Statement & Application of Newly Constructed Knowledge

• Let’s apply this new idea to X…
• I could use this new idea when I…
• In thinking this through, I learned that…
• So if what we’re saying is accurate, then…
• As a result of this discussion, I now think…