Developing dialogical concept mapping as e‐learning technology

In a recent paper, Laurillard (2008) describes the use of educational technology for facilitating action research of pedagogy through a conversational framework. This is an important shift in emphasis for e-learning, which has been previously defined by the issue of ‘appropriateness’ for enabling learning and teaching rather than researching it (see also Beetham & Sharpe, 2008). In my view, this shift is highly desirable, but I also think that the problem of surfacing pedagogy is more intractable. The issue is that the conversations of higher education commonly presume a knowledge that is independent of the person that knows. For this reason, much of my previous research has focused on the role that Novak's concept mapping method (Novak, 1998) can play in visualising the mental constructions of students (see Hay, Kinchin & Lygo-Baker, 2008; Hay, Kehoe et al, 2008 in this edition of the British Journal of Educational Technology). While I have not changed this position, I have also become increasingly aware of the limitations of concept mapping for capturing and enabling the dialogue through which ideas are internalised and understood. Shavelson, Ruiz-Primo & Wiley (2005), for example, describe Novak's concept maps (Novak, 1998) as ‘windows into the mind’ (p. 413). The implication is that the approach reveals the inner workings of cognition. I disagree and suggest that Novak's methods of map making are best suited to summarising knowledge that is already worked out (ie, Novak & Musonda, 1991). My reasons are as follows: (1) Novak's rules of hierarchy and atomic knowledge structure largely preclude experimentation with ideas that are not yet made personal; (2) the rules of the proposition (on which Novak's method depends) lead to explanations of meaning that are frequently superficial; and (3) Novak's definition of meaningful learning depends solely on assimilation learning theory, effectively excluding transformation or threshold-concept learning. Therefore, I have begun to develop a new dialogical approach to concept mapping: one that is deliberately focused on the facilitation and externalisation of ideas that are being made personal. The approach is summarised in Figure 1. A summary of the dialogical concept mapping process The person that learns is shown in one continuous cycle of dialogue. Sometimes, this is with an actual person (ie, a lecturer, teacher or peer as ‘other’), but more often, it is with a text (or textbook), a field of study, a learning community, a professional group or a scientific paradigm. Concept mapping (A–F) is used iteratively to facilitate this dialogue. The act of expressing and concretising personal understanding (speaking/writing) enables comparison with ‘the other’ whether feedback is provided by a teacher, a peer group or the listening/reading self in dialogue with alternative or ‘authorised’ forms of knowledge. Dialogical concept mapping is about facilitating and recording the outcomes of the cognitive processes that underpin personal understanding. The method enables individual construction, and its essence is best conveyed by thinking about the relationship between an architect and a series of drafts or designs. Here, making marks on the page externalises a mental image, but doing so, the representational form also changes the fabric of construction in mind (see Glanville, 1999) from whom the design metaphor is borrowed. The process of surfacing and concretising representation invariably alters the nature of internal understanding, but this is not a problem with the dialogical approach; in fact, it is exactly what dialogical concept mapping is designed for. In practice, the approach is learner-centred and necessarily begins with the individual attempting to externalise their personal understandings however tentative these may be. In this, the dialogical concept mapping method has much in common with Marton's phenomenographic approach, originally developed for enabling descriptions of specific phenomena in the absence of a well-developed personal lexicon (Marton, 1986). But using dialogical concept mapping, the development and surfacing of understanding is facilitated as the thinker (or speaker) makes maps to encode and summarise their personal understandings.1 Thus, the emerging map is a self-generating source of prompts for further cycles of explanation and development. Consequently, dialogical concept mapping is cybernetic (Pask, 1975), enabling the map maker to act as both speaker (writer) and listener (thinker) in recursive dialogue. In higher education, this is inevitably grounded in the individual's emerging relationships with discipline and field. Sometimes, the dialogue will be with a teacher or a peer group, but more often, it will be carried out with the texts, debates and the information of a subject (or the explanation of these in textbooks and other publications). This is a crucial utility of the method, and it corresponds with what Bakhtin (1981) first described as the dialogical process in his work in literary theory. At its most fundamental, dialogical concept mapping means that the learners can move freely between the tentative explanations of their own understanding and critique of their externalised representations from the perspectives of the ‘other’, including the authorised form. This is particularly important in educational environments where opportunities for formative assessment are declining. For use in teaching, however, the most striking potential of dialogical concept mapping is that it enables teachers to look into their students' learning process. The maxim that ‘I need to see your workings’ has always been important in mathematics education, but it is probably a fundamental principle for all of higher education. Dialogical concept mapping makes the workings visible and enables feedback anchored in a concrete record of learning processes rather than its finished products. For most disciplines, pedagogy is subsumed in ways of thinking and practicing (Hounsell & McCune, 2002, p. 31), and this in turn lives more externally in discourse and writing practice or in apprenticeship behaviours. Surfacing and documenting dialogue that is commonly private means that interactions between teachers and students can be better informed, and because feedback is already externalised, this approach enables the larger teaching and learning process to be visualised, framing and informing progressive cycles of dialogue. In my opinion, capturing these dialogical cycles and using them to develop more explicit pedagogy is where the real potential lies for development of e-learning. Several detailed explanations of the methods and technologies of dialogical concept mapping are now in preparation for publication. The method can make implicit teaching and learning processes explicit and may therefore lead to a new set of educational technologies that are emergent properties of specific disciplinary discourse and practice. At the very centre of the approach is a focus on the person that learns (sensu: Jarvis, 2006). Seen thus, the distinction between ‘internalised understanding’ and ‘external representational forms’ coalesce is a single definition of higher education grounded in the dialogical process of ideas made personal, whether one is learning to become‘a chemist’, ‘a historian’ or ‘a doctor’. I would like to acknowledge Noel Entwistle for sharing with me many rounds of conversation, all of which have shaped this paper. Noel also gave me the title for the dialogical concept mapping method. I am grateful to Saranne Weller for comments on several drafts of this paper.