collaborative design in school

How to cite this article (preprint): Tartas, V., & Giglio, M. (2016). Collaborative design in school: Conflicts, contradictions, agreements and

disagreements to learn. In E. Railean, G, Walker, L. Jackson & A. Elci. (Eds.), Handbook of Applied

Learning Theory and Design in Modern Education (pp. 431-450). Hershey: IGI GLOBAL.

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Collaborative design in school: Conflicts, contradictions, agreements and

disagreements to learn

Valérie Tartas,

Université de Toulouse, Unité Interdisciplinaire Octogone ECCD, France

Marcelo Giglio

HEP-BEJUNE, and University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

ABSTRACT

This chapter presents a literature review on collaboration to learn with some illustrations to

design adequate collaborative settings to promote learning in the classroom. From a socio-

cultural approach of education, the authors present the way teacher and students participate

together in several discursive activities to elaborate a shared understanding of the topic or task

under study. This chapter offers two collaborative designs: an argumentative tool-based

collaboration in astronomy and a creative collaboration in music education. Some examples are

proposed in order to identify different conflicts, contradictions, agreements and disagreements

between students to solve a problem, complete a task or create a product in collaboration..

Keywords: collaborative learning, collaboration, social interaction, conflict, cultural tools, artefacts, signs

INTRODUCTION

Learning in interactive groups was increased in scholastic contexts. The reviews of literature on cooperative

and collaborative approaches aren’t very clearly different (Menges & Austin, 2002; Thousand, Villa &

Nevin, 1994). Several researchers report researches and practices with regard on cooperative and

collaborative learning engaged by students (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991, 1996; Bosworth &

Hamilton, 1994). In a collaborative setting, student accountability is less prominent in collaboration than

in cooperation, recognizing that knowledge is communal (Bruffee, 1995). As distinctive characteristics, in

educational approach to teaching and learning, collaborative learning involves groups of students working

together to solve the problems, complete some tasks or create products (Laal, & Laal, 2012; Welch,1998).

Collaboration is a social interaction that evolves between individuals with a common purpose through

certain ideas and shared knowledge (Miell & Littleton, 2008, Moran & John-Steiner, 2004; Sawyer, 2008).

It is a recurrent activity emerging during social interactions in favorable contexts but it sounds different in

educational ones or in professional settings where people are assessed individually rather than




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collaboratively. As a consequence, learning is often studied or explained as process relying only on the

individual cognitive abilities. What happens when it is defined as a collaborative discursive or dialogical

activity (Baker, 2009; Grossen, 2010; Mercer, 2000, 2009; Perret-Clermont, 1996). Such a sociocultural

perspective of learning and social interaction implies not only to consider the tool and sign uses but also

the reflective uses of these tools and/or signs (Gillepsie & Zittoun, 2010). The main aim of this chapter is

so to present a literature review on collaboration to learn and to provide some illustrations with special

attention paid to the design of adequate collaborative settings to promote learning in the classroom. How

can teachers design school-collaborative-based activities? How do pupils/students use the tools proposed

by the teacher and in which conditions these tools become appropriated and are used in a following

collaborative activity? In other words, it proposed situations to examine how school enables distanciation

from the here-and-now, from the environment and may develop children’s collaboration to learn. Relying

first on the literature about the conditions for “productive collaboration” involving the role of agreement

and disagreement, the role of initial knowledge, the role of tools as well as resources or artefacts and the

role of discourse-based activity, we proposed to shed light on the relationships between students and

between teacher - students using productive and collaborative activities. As a matter of fact, productive

collaboration needs to be guided by the teacher in the classroom. It is not sufficient to say to students they

have to collaborate or work together to solve a problem, complete a task or create new objects. Inspired by

Mercer’s studies (1995, 2004), collaborative experiences in teaching can require also some teachers’

techniques to discuss with the students by eliciting knowledge from learners, responding to what learners

say and describing significant aspects of shared collaborative experiences.

From a socio-cultural approach of learning and teaching, this chapter proposed to illustrate the way teacher

and student participate together in several discursive activities in which the elaboration of new ideas may

emerge. As Saxe, Gearhart, Shaughnessy, Earnest, Cremer, Sitabkhan, et al. (2009) pointed out, the travel

of ideas in the classroom had to be studied as and within tool-based activities. The specific collaborative

aspects are proposed in this chapter in order to understand (a) how teacher constructs devices/settings in

order to permit students to collaborate and exchange about a topic to learn and (b) how students elaborate

together new ideas (or become creative) in such settings. Rather to oppose guidance from adults to learning

in peer groups or dyads, we examine situations where peer’s collaborative actions take place under the

teacher’s guidance. We need to illustrate how children not only interact but also “interthink” or think

together (Mercer, 2000) and the teacher’s difficulty to guide these situations (Giglio, 2013, 2015). The

teacher needs to change her/his actions to support the creative collaboration in the classroom.

In such a context oriented by collaboration to learn, the teacher does not propose an answer to the children

rather she/he invites them to participate in different social and individual situations in which they are lead

to act together, use several tools and elaborate knowledge through dialogical activities. The teacher tries to

initiate activities, render explicit some points of view and make the children reflective regarding their own

productions or others’ productions. He organized several activities grounded in dialogue, exchanges of

ideas using several systems of signs. How do the tools proposed by the teacher may become a sign for the

pupils in a following activity? This specific development in the uses of tools/signs will be of particular

interests in our examples.

The two case studies proposed in this chapter permit to illustrate (a) the difficulties for the teacher to guide

learning in, through and after some peer collaborative sessions and for peers to collaborate (in the sense of

co-constructing common goals and meanings) in some science, music and interdisciplinary lessons, (b) the

role of resources in structuring collaboration to learn. This will be illustrated by some cases extracting from

two different research: (a) a research conducted in astronomy in elementary school; (b) another research

conducted on the difficulties for the teacher to scaffold a musical composition and to guide a discussion

about these collaborative activities between students (Giglio, 2012, 2013, 2015; Perret-Clermont & Giglio,

in press). We conclude our chapter by proposing and discussing some future perspectives and

recommendations regarding designs for using collaboration to learn in educational contexts bringing

together practice and research.




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UNDERSTANDING PRODUCTIVE COLLABORATION TO LEARN: A REVIEW The materiality and the social dimensions of the interaction are two key elements of the social interactions

taken into account in the sociocultural perspective of teaching and learning situations. The process of

learning and thinking are possible with and through cultural artefacts. Learning is not only internal process,

but takes place at a social plan with artefacts. One of the roles of the culture is to provide students ways of

perceiving reality and its manifestations. Students may learn the knowledge integrated in artefacts through

social interactions as the encounter with the artefact is not an individual one but guided by partners such as

a teacher or a more experienced peer who can introduce the artefact and its mode of uses. We consider

collaborative interactions as co-substantial to learning (Radford, 2011). So, four poles have to be considered

to study learning: child-other-object to learn- and artefacts.

The theoretical background of the study of collaboration and its role in learning is rooted in the experimental

studies about peer interactions in learning more particularly the socio-cognitive conflict studies. They

considered first social interaction as a factor for learning and then lead to open the social interaction “black

box” in order to reconsider verbal interactions and to study step by step the processes at stake when two

pupils or a group of pupils interact to solve a problem. Then, the role of verbal interactions in learning

process have been mostly studied relying on Vygotsky’s (1978) definition of language as both a cultural

tool -for the construction and sharing of knowledge among members of a community on the social plane-

and a psychological tool -for structuring the processes and content of individual thought on the

psychological plane (Rojas-Drummond, Littleton, Hernandez & Zuniga, 2010). Relying on this

sociocultural perspective, different kinds of educational dialogues have been studied and education success

or failure may be explained by the quality of educational dialogues rather than just being the result of

intrinsic capabilities of individual students (Littleton & Mercer, 2010).

Two specific aspects of the collaboration in the classroom are important:

(a) the teacher’s uses of collaborative dialogues as a way to scaffold students’ development of

knowledge and as a “thinking space” (Perret-Clermont, 2013) for providing them some artefacts to

reason, to argue, to think one head higher than their individual actual thinking,

(b) the more symmetrical interactions between students and opportunities to work, talk and learn

between peers.

On the one hand, studies on productive collaboration in classroom led by the teacher shed light on specific

dialogues that promote learning but which are not so frequently used by the teacher. Depending on the

authors, this kind of dialogues is called exploratory talk (Mercer, 1995, 2000) or accountable talk in

classroom dialogue (Michaels, O’Connor and Resnick, 2008) or ‘dialogic teaching’ defining how teachers

as well as children develop social interactions to learn (Alexander, 2010). These research lead to the

conclusion that the teacher relies on different talk formats in the class and needs to create with the students

a community of practices who progressively become able to coordinate their thinking through

argumentation and collaboration. Reasoning is visible in the talk and proposals are challenged and counter-

challenged, agreement is seen as a basis of progress and all this kind of - conversation-in-the process- is

guided, allowing by the role of the teacher who proposes, organizes, orchestrates this process to

scaffold/promote learning.

On the other hand, some studies focused rather on peer collaborations in order to explain productive

dialogues (Howe, 2010). Experimental studies focusing on the effects of peer interactions on learning have

been conducted and revealed the sociocognitive conflict (i.e. conflict/contradiction and its resolution or

agreement) as an important process implied in cognitive progress after peer interaction (Doise, Mugny &

Perret-Clermont, 1975; Perret-Clermont, 1980). These researches shed light on the necessity of involving

exchanges of different opinions in the service of joint goals (Howe, 2010, p. 43). They also pointed out the




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problem of evaluation of progress, i.e. there is more effect in delayed post-test than in immediate post-test.

Different studies showed progress rather during the interaction phase itself or from/after the collaborative

session. This has implications in pedagogical settings: how to orchestrate the class in order to learn about a

specific content within collaborative discussions in class but also in order to learn how to dialogue and how

to collaborate with each other to improve learning.

The following section details empirical cases in order to present main lessons learned from a series of

classroom-based research projects designed to improve the quality of students’ collaborative activity. More

specifically, we have worked with teachers to try to implement some collaborative activities in science

(astronomy) and in music education in order to follow the quality of the children’s talk, thinking and

learning.

FIRST EMPIRICAL CASE: DESIGNING ARGUMENTATIVE TOOL-BASED COLLABORATION IN ASTRONOMY

From examples defined as relying on four poles (the student, the teacher or the other students, the object to

learn and the systems of signs and artefacts used), the aim of this first case is to illustrate different ways of

participating to an argumentative interaction in elementary science school lesson (grade 5). It is interesting

both from the point of view of the teacher as well as the researcher in developmental psychology or didactics

to study the travel of ideas in the class (Saxe, Gearhart, Shaughnessy, Earnest, Cremer, Sitabkhan, et al.,

2009): how ideas are transmitted, disappear in the course of the social interactions mediated by artefacts

and how new ones are generated by the students guided by the teacher. Three teachers and their students

participated to work on the seasons by using an inquiry- and argumentative-based approach of learning

science. Three classes (grade 3, grade 4-5 and grade 5) participated to the project called ESCALATE

(Enhancing Science appeal in Learning Through Argumentative Interaction, European Project FP6-Society,

n° 20790 coordinated by B. Schwarz). The same scenario was implemented in each of these grades. Only

examples at the fifth grade are presented in this chapter to propose some recommendations to design

collaboration to learn.

The design of the different teaching-learning sessions elaborated in ESCALATE project (Tartas & Frède,

2007) will be presented and some main principles underpinning this design will be illustrated. It is based

on a sociocultural approach of the development of knowledge. We made the assumption that allowing

students to interact in small groups (peer interactions) and in whole class group and going from one to other

in different moments of the process of learning. It is source of transformation of their participation in the

learning activity. It also may lead to a potential development of their understanding of the season

phenomenon. In this sense, giving students the opportunity to re-use some semiotic tools they elaborated

in a previous interaction to engage themselves in a new activity is very important in such a design. In other

words as we developed elsewhere relying on Furberg & Arnseth (2009), we proposed to reconsider the

conceptual change from a sociocultural perspective. This reconsideration leads to take seriously social

interactions and cultural tools at stake in the meaning-making process (Tartas, 2014). As previously

mentioned, more often the studies in conceptual change are centered on the students’ individual

representations to the detriment of collaborative dialogical activities of meaning construction. We proposed

that a methodology called a didactic micro-history (which is a micro-history of a learning situation) based

on experimental micro-history design proposed in previous quasi-experimental works (Nicolet, 1995 ;

Perret-Clermont, 1993 ; Perret-Clermont & Schubauer-Leoni, 1981 ; Tartas, Perret-Clermont, Marro &

Grossen, 2004 ; Tartas, Baucal & Perret-Clermont, 2010 ; Tartas & Perret-Clermont, 2012) provides a

relevant framework to understand how students elaborate new ideas together about a scientific phenomena

in class. It is based on the following of different pedagogical sessions where children were conducted to

explore a scientific phenomenon, i.e. the seasons, with different tools and partners. The first step is an




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individual pre-test session where children were invited to answer different questions around astronomy:

rotation, revolution of the Earth, night and day cycle, seasons…. The second session is a collective one in

the class where the teacher proposed the students a debate around “why are there seasons?”, then he invited

them in a third session to examine a document (a scientific figure showing the distances from the Earth to

the Sun at the different equinoxes) and elaborate hypothesis to explain the seasons together in a small and

heterogeneous group of 4 students. In a fourth session, the students were invited on an argumentative

computer based debate in the same small group. In a fifth session, the same small groups were invited to

evaluate the two rebuilt argumentative maps. In a last collective phase (sixth one), a final debate supported

by the printed maps in the whole class was proposed by the teacher. A post-test or final individual session

(same as the first one) allowed evaluating the level of knowledge about astronomy at the end of the teaching-

learning process. All this design activity lasted 3 months.

The elaboration of design of the teaching-learning situations presented here has been co-constructed

between researchers and teachers in accordance with the French national curriculum. The principles

underpinning the argumentative tool-based collaboration design were threefold: firstly, it aims to enhance

inquiry-based approach of science and argumentative interactions so it is based on conflicts or tensions and

the necessity for the students to exceed them. The situation in itself is designed by the teacher and the

researchers in order to generate some conflicts between the learner and her/his own belief through the use

of cultural tools. For example, one scientific figure presenting the distance between the Sun and the Earth

at different equinoxes was distributed to the pupils at the beginning of the activity after they expressed their

own explanations of the seasons and used within the small groups of students to enhance the visible

reasoning-in-talk. Later in the scenario students were confronted with an argumentative map where they

were confronted with their own propositions and may feel in contradictions with. Secondly, the design is

based on the assumption that a way to promote learning is to examine the same problem from different

viewpoints. It is possible through dialogues with others who do not share the same view and it can also be

generated when pupils have to work in small groups then in large class group (in different social planes

also with the teacher or not) and also with cultural tools that may become psychological ones and that

deliver her/his own perspective that she/he can consider as another one. Thirdly, this educational design

based on collaboration to enter in scientific reasoning in astronomy invites to a reflexive stance for the

students. These three principles are illustrated in the following part of this case study.

Designing “contradictions” or “conflicts” at different level and moments of the learning process

In this inquiry- and argumentative-based approach design, the role of the teacher supposed a change in the

class: the teacher did not propose to the student an answer to the central question “why are there seasons?”

but he invited them to participate through different phases where they are supposed to construct knowledge

(to evaluate propositions, to justify them, to question them…) in the course of dialogical activity (Grossen,

2010). The teacher exposed a problem and he invited the students to reflect on it with different kinds of

tools (figures, argumentative maps in synchronous session and in asynchronous ones (with rebuild

argumentative maps), drafts, etc). The teacher organized different activities relying on dialogue, exchanges

of ideas via different semiotic systems in order to make them enter in a new way of thinking about the

phenomena under study- here, the seasons. The objective here is to transform the “culture of teaching of

the answer” (where the teacher is asking a question and giving an answer students have to learn by heart)

to the culture of the “question”, that is to say the teacher tries to create good conditions to make students

ask good questions and engage themselves in a collaborative process of examining possible explanations

in critical ways.

In order to develop the culture of questioning the topic under study, the organization of the

contradiction/conflict or tensions is central. The contradiction can emerge at different interpersonal




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moments/phases of the teaching/learning process (when students were working together in small groups or

in the entire class group) and also at a more intrapersonal level (when students had the opportunity to

examine their own proposition as an external one in a following session). The tensions can also emerge

between the learner and the content under study.

The small groups of Excerpt 1 have been constructed in order to generate contradictions or conflicts

between their members (even if the teachers and the researchers were never assured that the contradictions

really emerged in the small groups). They were composed by four students who did not share the same level

of knowledge about astronomy (evaluated with a pre-test) at the beginning of the learning situation. The

conflict can emerge when they were lead to discuss together how to explain the season phenomena and

have to give hypotheses in order to justify why it is hotter in summer than in winter. In the next excerpt

(Excerpt 1), we can see that there are two different hypotheses that were proposed and persist without

competition; they are kept as possible explanations of the phenomena.

Excerpt 1 Collaborating in small group to propose hypotheses to explain why

there are seasons1

Lud. 1: “I don’t know the Earth turns on itself”.

Bri. 2: “Yes, when you have the Earth<he represents the Earth by joining his two hands > when

we are in front of the Sun rays for example in winter, if we are more tilted, the rays turn more

strangely, thus it is not hot.<he develops diagonal gestures to represent the Sun rays arriving on

the Earth>”

Fran. 3: “The Sun is closer to the Earth”

Brice 4: “So it would be concerning the Sun, the Earth that rotates…”<it had a gesture of

rotation with his hands > …(inaudible) the Sun rays tilted…

1 Original Excerpt (French) :

Lud. 1: « je sais pas la terre elle tourne sur elle-même »

Bri.2 : « ouais quand t’as quand la terre <Brice représente la terre en joignant ses deux mains à demi-ouvertes>

quand nous on se retrouve pas face aux rayons du soleil par exemple en hiver si on est plus incliné <Brice fait un

geste d’inclinaison avec ses deux mains> les rayons ils tournent plus bizarrement <il fait des geste diagonaux pour

représenter les rayons du soleil> donc du coup voilà ça fait pas chaud »

Fra. 3: « Le soleil est plus proche de la terre »

Bri. 4: « donc ce serait par rapport au soleil la terre qui tourne <il fait un geste de rotation avec ses mains> et les

rayons inclinés »

Lud. 5: « Le soleil il tourne pas »

Bri. 6: « non pas le soleil la terre qui tourne autour du soleil <il fait un geste des deux mains pour représenter la

terre> ça dépend des rayons par rapport à la terre »

(…)

Un peu plus tard l’enseignant intervient pour leur demander leurs hypothèses :

Bri. 16 : « euh c’est dû à la rotation de la terre par rapport au soleil et la direction des rayons <Brice indique une

direction et représente les rayons par des gestes diagonaux>

L’enseignant 19: « c’est la seule hypothèse que vous ayez ? »

Fran. 20: « le Terre est plus proche du soleil ».

(…)

Enseignant 21: « vous avez deux hypothèses qui ne sont pas les mêmes donc vous devez vous mettre d’accord, vous

devez voir si vos hypothèses sont




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Lud. 5: “the Sun does not move”

Bri.6: “no the Sun does not but it is the Earth with revolves around the Sun…”<he has a gesture

with his two hands to represent the Earth> it depends …(inaudible) regarding the Earth

(…)

The teacher comes back 15: “what are your hypotheses?”

Brice 16: euh it is due to the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and to the direction of the Sun

rays <Brice does again the diagonal gestures to represent the Sun rays arriving on the Earth>

Teacher 19: do you understand what Brice has said? Do you have other hypothesis?

Fran. 20: it is the Earth which is near the Sun

(…)

Teacher 21: “you have two hypotheses which are not the same so you have to agree you have to

see if your hypotheses hold out why and why not…”

When the small groups have proposed one or several hypotheses (on which they agreed), they had to present

it/them to the entire class group. And each proposition was then discussed with the guidance of the teacher

who was reformulated, questioned some proposition, asked students to react to what they just heard… so

the contradictions or conflicts may emerge also in this phase when all the small groups exposed their own

hypotheses and when the latters have been discussed and evaluated.

Then, after this collaborative session, another one was proposed to the small groups through a computer

session: they were invited to examine an hypothesis (a new one compared to their first one or one on which

there was not really a consensus) through an argumentative session on a computer (the same small group

of four students had to enter in a argumentative computer supported conversation or argumentative map)

(see figure 1 for an example).




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Figure 1. Example of an argumentative map in grade 5

This dialogical tool called Digalo was elaborated in order to support collaborative exchanges and co-

construction of knowledge and to make salient relations between the different partners ‘ ideas or between

their own ideas in the course of the debate (i.e. you may notice that your first proposition in the debate was

in contradiction with the one you have later in another step of the debate). The “contradictions” or

“conflicts” were at different level in the learning situation: at an interpersonal level, between the learners

as they were invited to work together while they did not share the same level of knowledge and explanation

of astronomical phenomena but also at an intrapersonal and intragroup level when the same group was

proposed to examine once again a new proposition or the one on which they did not find a consensus. How

did they manage to face this conflicting explanation regarding their previous one?

The conflict can also emerge from the semiotic tools proposed by the teacher regarding the content under

study: in the first small group session, students were invited to discuss “why is it hotter in summer than in

winter?” with the help of a scientific figure where the distance from the Earth to the Sun were given. As

commonly known, the most frequent false explanation when people (adults as children) have to explain the

seasons, is the distance hypothesis. The scientific figure was proposed in order to generate a conflict

between the learner’s initial thinking and the scientific information (distance is not a good explanation for

seasons).

Even if the teacher and the researchers’ objectives in this case were to generate contradictions between

prior knowledge and the scientific figure, sometimes it did not appear: for example, the scientific figure

was not used as a semiotic tool to re-examine the different hypotheses about the season in the first session.

It only becomes a psychological tool three months later when the final debate took place in the class. One

student used it in order to dismiss the distance argument used by some students to explain the seasons. It is

not because it is at disposition that it really functions as useful to reason. At the beginning of the learning

process, students read the figure but it is not used as valuable information in order to reflect on the distance

hypothesis, it can illustrate what has been called bias of reasoning.

Examining the problem from different viewpoints: generating different perspectives in class (small group and whole class group)

Another principle at stake in designing collaborative exchanges to learn in astronomy is allowing students

to enter in different viewpoints through collaborative argumentative-tool-based approach. As we just

presented before the students met different explanations of the same phenomenon at different moments:

within the small group; during the exposition of the different hypotheses by all the small groups in front of

the whole class; during the computer-based session where small groups of students were confronted to

another hypothesis than the one they initially relied on, and during the argumentative printed map session

in small group and entire class group.

The children were invited at each step to go deeper in the analysis of their own propositions in order to

become able to explain the seasons. In the first two collaborative sessions (in small group and in whole

class group) they mainly used oral conversations in order to express and examine their main ideas. Then in

the following session, they are invited to exchange their ideas through ‘dialogue-maps’ supported by a

software, Digalo. These maps are made of boxes of different shapes representing different types of

contributions and relations between them. In our research, Digalo has been used synchronously in a real-

time argumentative dialogue (sort of graphical chat) but also, in the following step, it has been used

asynchronously with printed rebuilt maps. It has been showed that the spatial arrangement of ideas,

examples etc. and their possible links supported by Digalo or argumentative graphs allowed the students in

college or at university to explore various perspectives as pointed out by Baker, Quignard, Lund & Séjourné




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(2003), Schwarz & Glassner (2003), and Wegerif (2010) on other topics. We have shown that these

argumentative maps (in synchronous session and then afterwards in asynchronous use) may become

collaborative spaces for thinking in astronomy at grade 5 in our study but not in Grade 3 (Tartas & Frede,

2007, 2011; Tartas, 2014). The possibility to examine once more a different point of view in a new

collaborative session mediated by an argumentative map allowed students to go deeper into arguments and

to better understand the notions involved in the Excerpt 2: here the revolution and the rotation of the Earth

for example.

Excerpt 2 : Debating in class mediated by a print argumentative map2

Bri. : <he looks at his sheet of paper> For me it is because the Earth is orbiting the Sun <Bri.

made a circular gesture with his hands> there are moments where Earth is near the Sun <Bri.

joined his thumb and his index finger to represent the Sun> so at these moments it is hotter.

(distance hypothesis)

Then Bri. exposed the hypothesis proposed by his small group : <Mar. reads the hypothesis

written on his paper > cause half of the Earth is in front of the Sun and frequently XXX

(=inaudible) and when a part of the Earth is in front of the Sun it is summer and when it is not it

is winter (another hypothesis: front of the Sun= summer).

Teacher: what do you think about Mar. ‘s hypothesis?

Bri. : no but the Earth rotates once a day by itself so if you are in dark side in one day… One

season

This process of entering in a critical thinking has been possible because of (a) the role of the teacher who

invited the students to doubt and question their own propositions or to explain why they think it was the

appropriate explanation in successive different collaborative sessions in small groups and in entire class

group and also because of (b) the role of artefacts or different systems of signs that have been proposed for

use and may become real psychological tools. We have shown in a quasi-experimental study that one way

to promote deeper learning is to give children the opportunity to re-use what they have learnt in a previous

dialogical situation with an adult teacher in a new social one between peers (Tartas, Baucal & Perret-

Clermont, 2010; Tartas & Perret-Clermont, 2012).

Inviting to reflect the process of thinking

In the last steps of this dialogical scientific inquiry-based activity a reflexive stance is proposed when

students are invited to read printed argumentative maps rebuilt by the researchers relying on the effective

maps children have co-constructed together in small group through computer software. Two maps have

been built: (1) a poor argumentative map where propositions were not deeply examined, no link between

them was proposed and there was not real argumentation; and (2) a second one more complete in terms of

argumentation and of content. The propositions in this second map were well organized and allowed to go


Bri. : <Bri. regarde sa feuille> moi c’est parce que la terre est en orbite autour du soleil <Bri. fait un signe circulaire

avec ses mains> il y a des moments elle est plus proche du soleil <Bri. joint son pousse et son index pour représenter

le soleil> qu’ à des moments donc du coup ce qui fait qu’il fait plus chaud ! (hypothèse de la distance)

Après Bri., Mar. expose l’hypothèse retenue par son groupe : <Mar. lit les hypothèses qu’il a écrites




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deeper in the content under study. We identified different epistemological obstacles through a fine-grained

analysis of the final debate in the whole class (Tartas & Simonneaux, in press). In a sense, these steps

(examining the map in small and entire class groups) gave the children the opportunity to re-examine their

own thinking or proposition – giving them the opportunity to consider themselves as another person

(Ricoeur, 1990). The fact that the teacher in grade 5 proposed to enter in such a reflexive activity leads

children to enter in a new form of thinking on the same object: it conducted them to transform their previous

collaborative experience of the season as an object of a new collaborative experience and allow the

researcher to study the passage of one activity to another one. It is what we called a micro-history of

teaching and learning that may enhance teaching and learning experiences. The role of ICT in such

argumentative activity or more generally the role of writing and possibility of examining our own traces of

thinking is an interesting avenue of research.

SECOND EMPIRICAL CASE: DESIGNING MUSICAL CREATIVE COLLABORATION IN THE CLASSROOM

How to create spaces for creative social interaction in the classroom with different student roles and

different ways of taking turns in the discussion between students and teacher-students? Several authors

consider a collaborative composition as an evolution of the relationship that already exists between

students; it is evolution with a common purpose: to compose a musical piece through certain “ideas” and

“shared knowledge” to create a new object, something done together (Gall & Breeze, 2008; Hewitt, 2008;

Miell & Littleton, 2008, 2004; Moran & John-Steiner, 2004; Morgan, 1998; Morgan, et al., 2000; Sawyer,

2004, 2008; Seddon, 2004; Seddon & Bachelor, 2003; Vass, 2004; Wirtanen & Littleton, 2004; Young,

2008).We developed, implemented, tested and consolidated a lesson design including five phases (Giglio,

2013):

Pedagogical scenario (Giglio, 2013)

Phase One: The teacher presents the aims of the task to the students (composition or

improvisation: in groups of 3 or 4 students).

Phase Two: The group’s students engage in the collaborative composition using the

instruments/materials/tools available.

Phase Three: The teacher invites each group (one by one) to perform in a mini recital in front of

the class.

Phase Four: The teacher organizes a class discussion on what and how they have created.

Phase Five: Teacher introduces new elements of knowledge and enriches the future

compositions and the capacity of the students to reflect on their work and their creative skills.

This design of creative collaboration in class can provide an interesting way of learning and teaching. In

the next section this design is presented.

Collaborative composition in class: a sample used with students

This teaching design can be a channel for creativity, collaboration and reflection based on a composition in

terms of the forms of creativity they choose by young musicians. A cultural act can involve in the nature of




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the creative process of young and of their social groups and their fashion acts (Lubart, 2009). Creativity is

a social and cultural process and not a solitary one (Valsiner, Glaveanu, & Gillespie, 2015, Glaveanu, 2014).

For example, as an introduction, the teacher asks students to work together forming small groups of three

or four students. Each group must compose a short piece of music for three instrumentalists: drums,

cardboard box, pages of a newspaper, cymbal...

Each group is placed in different spaces of the classroom. When all groups finish their piece, the teacher

asks them to imagine that they are rehearsing in a garage and prepares, themselves, their piece to play in a

mini-recital: the teacher organizes the room to simulate a concert hall.

The teacher describes the chronological order in which the groups will perform. After each performance,

everyone applauds without commenting.

Subsequently, teacher and students prepare the room by placing the chairs in a circle of discussion. As well

as a reporter and with a voice recorder, teacher records the class discussion, like on a radio program, about

how they were able to compose their rhythmic pieces and how they organized together. The students

respond to the teacher’s questions and listen to their classmates.

After approximately two or three minutes, the discussion ends. The teacher places the voice recorder in

front of the class to replay the recorded discussion. Based on his/her observation during the creative tasks

and the mini-recital with what she/he heard from the recording, she/he writes some key words on the board.

She/he catalogues some strategies, skills, knowledge that she/he observed or that were mentioned by the

students. This is how she/he structures her/his lesson.

Afterwards, the teacher works with them on some technical or aesthetic aspects concerning creation,

writing, or interpreting... and makes some decisions about the next lesson.

Two observations: creative collaboration and teacher actions

We have interesting possibilities of observations during this collaborative creative lesson design. We can

observe and analyse the moments in which each one of the three or four students (in each group)

collaborates on completing a new object: in this case, the short musical composition.

On the one hand, we can focus our attention on the forms of collaboration and the actions of the teachers

(see phases 2 and 3 of lesson design).

On the other hand, we can focus the analyse on the class discussion guided by teacher on what and how

they have created (see phases 4 and 5 of the lesson design).

Collaboration to learn between pairs: agreements and disagreements

The research can look for moments in which the students collaborate to distribute work, ideas, dialogue or

make their idea in a materiality (play their instruments, wrote their composition on a piece of paper, and

produce or rehearse their music) with agreements or confrontations. To analyse these moments, the

researcher has to identify the students’ shared efforts for creating, their collective actions, their common

goal: understanding how they completed the task autonomously, while taking into account that at times

they may have needed some interactions with the teacher.

For example, at different moments, the groups verify their ideas and decide if they are going to agree or

not. Through agreements and disagreements, the students negotiate what is proposing. The excerpt 3 shows

a possibility of this type of analysis. The next excerpt (Excerpt 3) shows a group of three students in class

(aged of 7 years): Muriel, Alizée and Jonathan. They should create a small rhythmic piece for clothes and

repeat it for play later in front of the class.




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Excerpt 3 : With agreements and disagreements3

1. Alizee: But stop. Do not do that!

2. Muriel: But why do you do this?

3. Alizee: Because I want to try something like that. (She takes the claves and begins to play. Muriel

and Jonathan also take the instruments and begin to play. They imitate Alizée)

4. Alizee: But! It does not really have to do that. We have to create it (a rhythm), but you must not

do this (she taps his instrument very quickly)

5. Jonathan: But that's not how to do (He’s showing)

6. Muriel: It is I who write

7. Alizée: I’m first making a song (rhythm) worse after you’re making a song (rhythm)

8. Muriel: It's not you who decides everything!

9. Alizee: I’m doing. After it will be your turn and then, the turn will be to Jonathan (she plays).

Well, I. I made a rhythm. I'm going to play this.

This is a brief dialogue that contains rich interactions in terms of task understanding. In this short exchange,

the proposition of rhythms proposed by Muriel (1) is not accepted by Alizée (3). Jonathan says “But that's

not how to do” and he rejects the idea also with his gestures. After, the three students collaborate on

organizing the rhythm without further discussion to understand (5, Jonathan), to write (6, Muriel) and to

make the rhythm (7, Alizée). But, between Muriel and Alizée there is a dispute about the creative decision

(It's not you who decides everything!).

Relationship between the teacher and the group

The teacher can be also analysed closely and treated separately to find moments in which she or he interacts

with his or her students in such a way that facilitates the completion of the assignment. Specifically, the

researcher can focus on identifying the nature of the scaffolding utilized by the teacher. In summary, this

analysis focuses on what the students do and on what the teacher does when he or she approaches the group

during pivotal moments. Through different actions, the teacher guides the students’ creative collaboration.

In our previous study, we show a possibility of this type of analysis between the activity of the students,

actions or reactions of the teacher and their effects on student work. For example, Giglio (2013, 2015) analysed the fact of one student refuses to join his group in writing the collaborative work and teacher

directs the attention of this student so that he can begin writing with his group. The student works with his


1. Alizée : (Muriel is proposing a rhythm) Mais arrête. Il faut pas faire ça!

2. Muriel : Mais pourquoi tu fais cela ?

3. Alizée : Parce que j’aimerais essayer quelque chose comme ça. (Elle prend les claves et commence à jouer.

Muriel and Jonathan prennent aussi les instruments et commencent à jouer. Ils imitent Alizée)

4. Alizée : Mais ! Faut pas du tout faire ça… Il faut créer ça (un rythme) mais vous devez pas faire comme ça (elle

tape très vite son instrument)

5. Jonathan : Mais c’est pas comme ça qu’il faut faire (Il montre)

6. Muriel : C’est moi qui écris

7. Alizée : Moi, je fais d’abord une chanson (rythme) pis après vous faites une chanson (rythme).

8. Muriel : C’est pas toi qui décide tout ça!

Alizée : Moi je fais, après c’est à toi et après c’est à Jonathan. (Elle joue.) Voilà moi j’en ai fait une. Je vous la joue.




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group. Unfortunately, the group does not understand how to proceed once their rhythm is achieved. Their

teacher realizes this problem and tells them about the steps they need to follow. The students learn how to

make what they have composed as rhythm thanks to the suggestions of their teacher.

The creative collaboration involves disagreements and disputes allow negotiating students’ ideas. Some

moments in which the students can exchange their ideas with a new one, or conserve an idea, thereby

rejecting the new idea (Giglio, 2013, 2015). This last situation can involve a very short disagreement about

a creative idea, but if the students don't know how to discuss and how to manage the conflict, there is not a

real discussion about the new ideas that they choose to make their production better or more creatively. As

the goal is finishing the collaborative task, during the creative act, a way of knowing can become confused

with the creative possibilities: the disagreement is more a simple correction rather than a conflict for

transforming creative ideas.

CONCLUSION: LEARN TO COLLABORATE CREATIVELY IN CLASSROOM This chapter has proposed two collaborative designs from the student perspective, identifying different

conflicts, contradictions, agreements and disagreements to solve a problem, complete a task or create a

product. From the teacher’s perspective, researcher can also identify practices -dialogues and (inter)actions-

to guide student’s creative collaboration, including everything from making a class orchestration to support

their work with the knowledge needed to complete their creative productions. Analyses of dialogues and

collaborative discussions in class can help us to more understand how the teacher’s support affects students’

collaboration to learn and how students’ collaboration affects teacher orchestration in different pedagogical

settings. Observing and analysing this type of social interactions in class involves, on the one hand, to

understand how to improve teaching and learning creatively and, on the other hand, how a collaborative

class setting can allow (or not) some discussions between teacher and classmates for improving creative

and collaborative learning.

The objectives of this chapter are to define, review and illustrate how students collaborate in class in order

to learn different curricular contents by conflicts, contradictions, agreements and disagreements. Two

examples of learning collaborative cases illustrated different kinds of theses characteristics concerning

different scholastic contents. Introducing collaborative practices in the classroom lead to a new kind of

teaching. From an “answer teaching script” centered on the teacher’s answer as the good answer to learn,

it becomes critical dialogues examining students’ propositions in order to be able to criticize one’s

proposition and enter in real collaborative dialogues in search for a consensus or a shared action to realise.

The change of the students’ work is accompanied by the change of teacher’s status. With a common goal,

students enter in an active and constructive work together and need to collaborate in order to solve the

problem they faced or to create a new object. In such collaborative contexts, the teacher becomes a “creator”

of the learning situation: he orchestrates different points of view that may generate collaboration without

being sure of reaching such an objective. But, these collaborative approaches are not always easily to

implement in order to facilitate learning through conflicts, contradictions, agreements and disagreements between students working together. For example, in certain creative collaborations as well as the task of

collaborative composition observed by Giglio and Perret-Clermont (2010), the collaboration is very

complex but the students are motivated when they work together:

Agreements and disagreements arise when creating a together “common task” a common object

(…). They are solved in various ways, sometimes with cognitive elaborations likely to lead to

cognitive advances for the individuals involved but not always: sometimes, they are useful and at

other times less so – but most of the time they are concessions and rarely common solutions reached

after an explicit argumentation that would have taken into account each person's perspective. (p.99)

A collaborative act is not automatically a learning act. The teaching needs to be enriched with design and

dialogues encouraged by the teacher in order to build awareness by students to learn.




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This chapter also shows the importance of experiencing conflicts or disagreements between classmates but

also between the students themselves (confronted with her/his own traces). Students can search a

collaborative dialogue to solve the problem or to create an object. But sometimes, if the teacher orchestrates

a collaborative learning situation, students can search to learn about a specific content or to improve a

reflexive approach relying on diversity of points of view. They negotiate the applied contents in their work

and their procedures or the ‘how’ of the process. Further researches are needed to go deeper into the

understanding of both failure and success of these types of collaborative learning.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

It is clear from these two cases that the collaborative practices have an impact not only on learning together

by conflicts, contradictions, agreements and disagreements but also regarding on how to work together.

The research on collaboration has focused more on collaborative learning about academic or scholastic

subjects. As future direction, there is a necessity to develop process-oriented approach of learning rather

than product-oriented approach of collaboration in learning contexts. Moreover there is also a necessity to

pursue collaborations between experts in different domains such as developmental psychology and

didactics or more generally within learning sciences in order:

- to develop collaborative learning practices in the classroom.

- to understand the socio-psychological conditions to help students to engage in more collaborative work.

- to examine deeply the role of technology in sustaining collaboration to learn and in learning to collaborate.

Both are important. Social interactions have been studied in order to shed light on the processes at stake

when two peers scaffold each other or when a more expert guide the less one. The metaphor of scaffolding

have been recently extended to the different tools and in particular the way different softwares contribute

to enhance collaboration thanks to both tools and teacher who appropriate these new tools and propose them

for the students.

- to specify the collaborative ways of solving problem or creating new products regarding the content of

the activity. It is necessary to develop collaborative research and different levels of analysis of the same

data or corpus.

- to know more about how students can interact with agreement and disagreement to propose, negotiate and

choose new ideas. It is necessary to offer collaborative design to creative learning in teaching.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Artefacts: something shaped or designed by a human being. In a sociocultural approach it has been proposed by Vygotsky in order to study the fact that human-environment interactions are not directed but are mediated by artefacts or tools that can be of two kinds: technical artifact that mediate human beings and physical world and semiotic ones or signs that mediate the relation between individuals and between an individual and himself. Collaboration or collaborative learning: these expressions have been used to designate a learning situation in which learners attempt to learn something together. It is opposed to individualistic approach of learning and rather focused on the socio-cognitive conditions for learners to reach a shared definition of the learning situation (shared goal for example). It includes face-to-face interactions or teacher-students’ interactions in classroom and also computer mediated interactions (forum, chat rooms, etc.). Collaborative learning can include collaborating writing, joint problem solving, collaborative creative work, debates, study teams etc.

Collaborative dialogues: Collaborative dialogues have been proposed in order to specifically focused on the role of dialogues and talk in learning situations and can include dialogical teaching, exploratory talk etc. Creative collaboration: Collaboration is very linked with creativity. Creative collaboration describes a relationship between two or more persons with a common purpose of creating new objects through certain ideas and shared understanding of something new and a common goal. Dialogic teaching: this expression means to use talk more effectively for carrying out teaching and learning. It involves ongoing talk between teacher and learners and not just a teacher-led approach of teaching-learning situations. It gives more opportunities to students to contribute to classroom dialogue in order to build together knowledge and enter in the process of its elaboration. They can explore the limits of their understandings through dialogues as a new tool for constructing knowledge. Teachers can explain ideas, clarify some points and reformulate, help students grasp new ways of learning in order to make them enter in a dialogical way of learning. In its first uses (Alexander), it is oriented towards the teachers in order to help them diagnose students’s needs, assess their progress… It requires interactions which encourage students to think in different ways, discussion and argumentation, a specific environment that contribute to enhance such collaborative work.




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Exploratory talk: It has been defined by Neil Mercer to designate a specific mode of social interactions in the class. Exploratory talk is that in which partners engage critically but constructively with each other’s ideas. Relevant information is offered for joint consideration. Proposals may be challenged and counter-challenged, but if so reasons are given and alternatives are offered. Agreement is sought as a basis for joint progress. Knowledge is made publicly accountable and reasoning is visible in the talk (Mercer 2000:98). Scaffolding: it used as a metaphor to design learning activities. In its original use (Bruner, 1975) scaffolding describes interactions where a parent or educator and a child or between a tutor and a student or between a student and a teacher. The more expert partner provided just enough support based on the progress made by the child. Nowadays, scaffolding is no longer restricted to social interactions between individuals but artefacts, resources and environments may also be used as scaffolds.

Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Valérie Frède, researcher in Astronomy in the

ESCALATE project who participated to design and collect the data presented here in the South

West of France (first example) and all the children and teachers who participated in the study.

collaborative design in school

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