Supporting elementary school children to engage in collaborative argumentation: developing a kaleidoscope framework of inquiry dialogue

ABSTRACT

While the early years of children’s education have long been acknowledged as crucial in supporting learning and development, there has been less focus on argumentation literacy as a way to promote active learning. This conceptual paper explores a new cross-disciplinary teaching framework, called the kaleidoscope framework of inquiry dialogue, which explicates the role of elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry dialogue. The two key theories (reflective devices) in the framework include reflexivity and epistemic cognition. Using a kaleidoscope metaphor, we conceive of dynamic theoretical interactions which depend on aspects of children’s collaborative argumentation skills and learning/teaching contexts (the pieces of coloured glass contained within the kaleidoscope) that are in focus at any particular point in time. This paper first discusses inquiry dialogue and collaborative argumentation, followed by an overview of the underlying theories of reflexivity and epistemic cognition used in the kaleidoscope framework. Implications for supporting elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry are discussed throughout.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic cognition
• epistemic reflexivity
• air framework
• collaborative argumentation
• inquiry dialogue
• elementary school education

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the feedback provided on an earlier draft of this paper by the Epistemic Education group at Rutgers University (20 November 2018) and a range of individuals from this group who provided individual feedback during follow-up discussions, avoiding identifying any of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joanne Lunn Brownlee

Joanne Lunn Brownleeis a Professor in the Faculty of Education, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Over the last decade her research has explored how teachers and children’s beliefs about knowledge and knowing are connected to teaching and learning respectively. A recent Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery project investigated changes in children’s beliefs about knowledge with respect to moral reasoning over the early years of primary school. Her current ARC research explores teacher educators’ epistemic reflexivity in the context of supporting preservice teachers to teach diverse groups of children.

Mary Ryan

Mary Ryan is Professor and Dean of Education at Macquarie University. Her research is in the areas of teachers’ work in, and preparation for, diverse classrooms, reflexive learning and practice, writing pedagogy and assessment and reflective writing. Her current Australian Research Council Discovery projects are in the areas of classroom writing and preparing reflexive teachers for diverse classrooms.