4.3. Awareness of dialogic inquiry process and metacognition

4.3. Awareness of dialogic inquiry process and metacognition

This course design provided learners the affordances to reflect on their learning and be aware of their dialogic inquiry process. For example, the questioning by peers and educators, exposure to alternative perspectives on the same issues, the task of rating their ways of inquiry and concept mapping contributed to their metacognitive awareness.

The Map of Dialogical Inquiry provided opportunities for the learners to reflect on their inquiry approach and ways of thinking. Sandra was able to reflect on the various processes and emphasised that time was needed for a particular experience to evolve. For example, reflecting on experiencing, Sandra recalled the experience of implementing the concept learnt in this class in teaching: “By implementing, doing my own class, ok, it was quite a wonderful learning experience for myself and my students… that was something which started out slow.” Thomas shared the same opinion, recalling the changes and reflecting: “through this exercise of KB (knowledge building) you do a lot of self-reflection, you reflect on a lot of things then you share, because you need to reflect before you put in the KB.”

Kathyshared that there was a progressive improvement in the scores of her Map of Dialogical Inquiry because initially the technical aspects of using Knowledge Forum and their motivation and enthusiasm of inquiry gained traction when the team members began to know one another better and were able to talk the “same wavelength” . Diane opined that the ways of thinking suggested in the inquiry map reflects the logical progression of thinking: “At the beginning I think we tend to look for more concrete ideas, and then the more specific things, then as we move along…I think that being able to generalize certain ideas.”

There are other learners who felt that the scores for inquiry map could vary depending on a number of factors. For example, the nature of the discussion could have an impact on the learners’ inquiry approach, as Dylan shared “the growth of that particular domain stopped when the activities, or the kind of discussions we had was actually shifted onto other forms.” Dylan also shared that the rubrics provided has helped in this reflection process. Figure 4.1 shows the changes in Dylan’s map of inquiry over time, which shows a general increase in the various aspects of inquiry.

Quentin, likewise, shared that the inquiry process started again when a new topic was introduced and there was stronger inquiry during the weeks when the group was leading the discussion and class presentation. Quentin used the term “roller coaster” to describe the variation of inquiry scores over the weeks. To Quentin, the learning also suffered when there were lower scores, reflecting lower level of inquiry:

I think maybe I hazard a guess that the dialogic process, when it works and it deepens, it deepens deeply. When the discussion was quite surface, and not enough people are contributing, it tends to also weaken, so that - those weeks reflected, to my inquiry, reflected those weeks where discussion, I felt wasn't as enriching. So it'll be lower. Therefore, some of my scores were lower as a result.

Compared with the map of inquiry of Dylan (Figure 4.1), Quentin’s map of inquiry (Figure 4.2) shows more variation across weeks though there is still a general increase in scores in all aspects of inquiry.