Abstract
High-quality talk about issues that raise high-intensity emotions in the public sphere is timely needed. Still, researchers committed to the fostering of high-quality types of school talk generally disregard the role of emotions. We show that this disregard is not accidental and that it conveys a customary reluctance in schools to consider the handling of emotions as they pertain to cognition. We argue that helping students regulate emotions in social interactions and in discussions that raise high-intensity emotions is an important educational purpose, and we show that discussions about controversial issues provide a suitable context for this purpose. To support the emergence of high-quality talk that involves strong emotions, we adopted a design-based research approach and developed a new Computer-supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) tool, the Hot Discussions Platform (HDP). The functionalities of HDP are crucial for the emergence and guidance of high-quality talk that involves strong emotions, and they describe a novel professional development (PD) approach to the enhancement and moderation of this kind of talk. In the in-service PD course, teachers are prepared to design, moderate, and analyze discussions about controversial issues. Group assignments in the course and personal interviews revealed that the teachers that underwent this program reported on a very rich list of practices and beliefs about the emotional labor involved in designing and moderating discussions about controversial issues. The study provides an existence proof of a kind of talk that combines compliance with argumentative-critical standards and an eagerness to express and regulate strong emotions. We call this general kind of talk deliberative emotional talk. We conclude by reflecting on future research and technological developments to be invested into studying forms of deliberative emotional talk and support its emergence.
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see his later works Science of education and the psychology of the child (1970) and Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood (1977)
The decision to take isolated turns as the unit of analysis is questionable since, especially in highly loaded discussions, moves follow each other as emotional reactions. The dialogic stance we adopt naturally appeals to other analytical methods, such as Conversation Analysis, which grasps the sequence of turns and considers the function of turns in relation to preceding and following turns. However, the theoretical developments presented, and the description of technologies did not leave enough room for a meticulous analysis of the discussions. The relative shallowness of content analysis helped us illustrate rather than analyze the characteristics of a new form of talk that emerged in the environment we elaborated.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Carolyn P. Rose, Kobi Gal, Adam Lefstein, Gidi Dishon, Efrat Firer, Avi Segal, Michael Sronim, Gal Benedek, Barak Menachem, and Noa Shapira for their invaluable support in developing the project. The authors would also like to deeply thank the anonymous reviewers. Your contributions and sensitive reading helped us refine our ideas and improve the manuscript.
Funding
This study was partially supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 26992017) and the NSF (grant no. 033909).
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Translations of the figured discussions
Utterance Number | User | Text |
|---|---|---|
#516 | Moderator | OK, Itay goes offline, but the conversation remains open, in a student mode, and it will go on, you are welcome to continue… (The text is continued in the “expand” mode—not visible in the screenshot.) |
#518 | Itay Pollak (hosted expert) | Thank you! I will be happy to continue corresponding with you on this matter. Itay |
New Thread | ||
#491 | Moderator | Pollak_Findings: “The actual name of the study program undermines its ideas. The classroom discourse is directed at the consensus, characterizing…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen in the screenshot.) |
#494 | Student 1 | Or perhaps there is also moving away from disagreement, for fear that the temporary state of peace will be disrupted, that a stormy discussion will occur, the end of which can’t be estimated. |
#495 | Itay | I will try to explain and illustrate the matter somewhat, in detail—the students’ lesson about argumentative writing…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen in the screenshot.) |
#497 | Itay | On two separate occasions, this consensus was broken. In the first case, one of the students expresses hesitation. She…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen in the screenshot.) |
#498 | Student 2 | Has the study returned to the same classroom throughout a period of time? Pedagogically speaking, in the beginning of the process I might “sacrifice”… (Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen on the screenshot.) |
#500 | Itay | This may have happened. But it is unlikely that throughout the entire collection of data, we would not encounter these material events…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen on the screenshot.) |
#506 | Student 2 | What in your opinion are the teacher’s main didactic and pedagogical tools in the classroom, to raise a political discussion? Which climate and which…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen on the screenshot.) |
#507 | Student 2 | What in your opinion are the teacher’s main didactic and pedagogical tools in the classroom, to raise a political discussion? Which climate and which…a (Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen on the screenshot.) |
#509 | Itay | I think that the foundation is there. We have found a lot of openness in the classroom discourse in terms of participation structure—students…(Text is continued in the “expand” mode, not seen on the screenshot.) |
#513 | Student 3 | Do you think teachers should introduce ideas themselves? |
#515 | Itay | I think that the ability to think about the subject from different points of view isn’t simple or natural to most students… |
New Thread | ||
#510 | Itay | And here are some of the sources that I talked about: |
#511 | Itay | D. (2001). Teaching with and for discussion. Teaching and teacher education, 17(3), 273–289. |
#512 | Itay | Parker, W. C. (2005). Teaching against idiocy. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(5), 344–351. I see… |
Discussion title: Conversation with Itay Pollak
Appendix 2
The Hot Discussion Platform (HDP): “Post Discussion (Retrospect) reflection” mode
Discussion Title: Conversation 207, Group 2000 (on) Curriculum
Utterance Number | User | Text |
|---|---|---|
#1221 | Moderator | Should the Palestinian narrative be taught in Jewish classrooms? |
#1229 | Student 1 | This is a very complex question, and I think this question connects to a larger topic of teaching history in general. I think… |
#1244 | Student 2 | I have already written in the first discussion that the question about what a teacher can teach in the classroom and what is inappropriate to talk about in the classroom depends… |
#1245 | Student 3 | Certainly, but not equally to the Zionist narrative. I always teach the other’s narrative (Nazi, Maximillian…). |
#1246 | Student 2 | You have expressed well what I have written. |
#1332 | Student 1 | I agree that the Zionist narrative should be emphasized more—this is the main part of learning. |
#1334 | Student 4 | Personally, this question and the fact that it is asked at all is very difficult for me. It is clear to me that the students should be taught how to be… |
#1439 | Student 5 | The Palestinian students in the classrooms learn the Palestinian narrative from their own sources and different places…if there had been an orderly program… |
#1442 | Student 5 | If the Jewish students…continue not to study the Palestinian narrative…they will get it from all of the extreme sides… |
Reflection Mode (yellow thread) | ||
#1554 | Student 6 | On the surface, there is one principal position here: most of the group members believe that it is correct to teach the Palestinian narrative… |
#1566 | Student 7 | A very charged discussion on the part of Student 5. According to him, there is no orderly program to present the Palestinian narrative and actually the teachers… |
#1577 | Student 6 | I think that this puts the narrative in a very judgmental place, which is the tendency in any case…why already introduce… |
#1585 | Student 7 | I would try to go towards a discussion about sedition versus freedom of speech, because I’m not knowledgeable enough about the facts. I would like… |
#1587 | Moderator | Let’s work like we are teaching to speak, and at the same time dealing with arguing about the conflict. Student 7, address the class and… |
#1596 | Student 7 | I totally accept that I am the responsible adult. On the other hand, my students are very ignorant, and I would not be able… |
#1607 | Student 6 | This is how I understood the moderator’s question in the first place…This is why I would like to bring the discussion back in that direction… |
#1594 | Student 6 | Why their fate? If you like, our fate…and this is why we have to continue discussing the existing possibilities… |
#1603 | Student 7 | I accept the question that you suggested and add to it: what are the advantages and the disadvantages of the option… |
#1617 | Student 6 | If so, can we end with an agreement on the question? |
Appendix 3
The Hot Discussion Platform (HDP): “Online Discussion (Fishbowl) Reflection” mode. Title: Additional Check
Appendix 4
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Slakmon, B., Schwarz, B.B. Deliberative emotional talk. Intern. J. Comput.-Support. Collab. Learn 14, 185–217 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-019-09304-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-019-09304-3