Session 4 - Collaboration through dialogue

One of the four 21st century competencies is collaboration, which creates communication between different stakeholders. A sense of learning community is created as the stakeholders, such as educators and learners, continuously learn from each other.

In this reflection, I ask whether, irrespective of my role in a learning process, how can I communicate effectively to achieve the fullest in a collaboration environment?

In the article “Exploring Collaborative Dialogue”, the author makes a clear distinction between competitive dialogue and collaborative dialogue. Competitive dialogue is based on debates and arguments whilst collaborative dialogue is the learning between peers as a team, where they can build the same understanding together even when they disagree.

For a learning community to have the best dialogue, it is necessary to have effective persuasion. In the interview with Don Rothman, he argues that

‘persuasion is an ugly word that reveals a desire to abuse others rather than an act of social responsibility that can be performed with respect, even love.’

Rothman states that effective persuasion is constructed through three behaviours, namely:

1. Respecting the views of others - persuasion works to understand what other people are thinking.
2. Respectfully describing sources of disagreement - first understand the position of others so one can articulate them respectfully and clearly. Then, one can stand a better chance of pointing out the fault.
3. Sustaining conversation - being persuasive depends on careful listening.

In 21st century education, effective persuasive dialogue is the way forward towards a comprehensive communication strategy within the collaborative learning community.

References

Exploring Collaborative Dialogue. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://plugusin.pbworks.com/w/page/40688602/Exploring%20Collaborative%20Dialogue 

The writing classroom as a laboratory for Democracy: An interview with Don Rothman. Retrieved on 25th May 2015 from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/9032/Writing_Classroom_as_Lab.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d