Dialogue in learning
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
Dialogue in learning, or speech and communication between participants, is a target of social learning perspectives that encourage people to develop understandings by interacting with other people, revealing multiple perspectives, and coming to a better understanding of complex topics through shared meanings. Social learning proponents encourage participants in learning experience to have continual, sustained dialogue when learning about complex topics so that they might see the different sides of a definition.
Definition
Dialogue is the act of two or more people interacting with language. Dialogue can also happen between people and computers if the computer is able to sustain a language-based conversation (see automated chatbots, for instance). Conversations are the typical form of dialogue.
Additional Information
One of the primary goals of social learning is to engage learners in dialogue with each other, with teachers, and with computers. Through language, concepts can be discussed and analyzed, and all participants in the conversation can develop their understanding. Because language is used to process thoughts and ideas in people's minds, the use of language through dialogue and discovering how other people understand the meanings of words is critical toward developing one's understanding about a topic.
Designers who focus on social learning try to maximize the amount of sustained dialogue with participants, especially when they are solving problems, solving challenges, or discussing complex or abstract concepts. Sustained dialogue is typically defined by a conversation that continues on for a long duration and is more than one sided in which each side contributes to the conversation substantively with information, questions, interpretations, and understandings.
Sometimes, conversations stall in learning situations. Additionally, learners may not have developed conversational skills useful for keeping up a sustained conversation. As such, scaffolds and supports can be used by instructors or the technology to prompt participants with conversation topics or questions, notify and remind participants about conversations and their involvement (especially when interactions are asynchronous), and provide hints and tips on how to productively participate in conversations.
A conversation can also occur between a person and computer. With automated chatbots, computers are programmed to mimic a human's ability to have a conversation using natural language. Research and development in social learning has thus included the use of chatbots and digital personae as agents within a conversation as well and potentially useful to a person's learning.
Tips and Tricks
- If your learning experience is built on social learning theories and principles, consider how you will have your participants engage in conversations with each other. If the product is online, what technologies are available to hold a conversation? What methods or supports will you use to encourage and support participants' sustained conversation with each other?
- You could consider the participants' prior experience, comfort, and attitudes toward conversation before they participate and provide applicable supports to help them engage with the conversation at the expected level. If you are providing grades and do not want to grade the group's performance in dialogue, you could think about alternative modes to grading as a group, such as individual reflections on how the dialogue went and what was discussed.
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