Moving from collaboration to critical dialogue in action in education

Eugene Matusov,Lucinda Pease-Alvarez

doi:10.5195/dpj.2020.292

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine and conceptualize our pedagogical and organizational experiences and understandings of how undergraduates and instructors participating in the UC-Links Project from Fall 1996 to Spring 1997 learned together through their engagements in undergraduate courses and afterschool activities with predominantly Mexican-descent children at a local community center. We had started our project privileging collaboration and collaborative guidance as the way to approach our collective engagements; however, the events in the project pushed us to reconsider our practice. It took us 25 years to completely understand that what we have come to call “critical dialoguing in action” is how we now conceive of innovative organizational and pedagogical practice, which stands in contrast to the pedagogical and organizational notion of collaboration. We describe the efforts and struggles participants, including ourselves, encountered developing, implementing, and communicating about innovative teaching approaches and practices that we originally thought aimed to promote meaningful and collaborative learning. We call particular attention to dilemmas participants faced dialoguing about the dynamic teaching/learning processes that emerged in our project. These experiences prompted us to characterize our vision for participants’ involvement in the project as “critical dialoguing in action,” which contributed to our ongoing analysis and understanding of emerging dilemmas in our work.

Highlights

When we began the project that is the focus of this article, we conceived of learning/teaching as a collaborative endeavor involving multiple stakeholders
As we describe below, we became increasingly frustrated with the concept of collaboration as it proved to be constraining and inadequate, prioritizing agreements over disagreements, which, we felt were especially important when it came to negotiating the diversity of perspectives and goals held by stakeholders in a community-university partnership known as UCSC Links
In describing the experiences and perspectives of those who have participated in the UC Links project between Fall 1996 and Spring 1997, we aim to share with the reader a meaningful educational event that represents an important departure from what we have experienced as university students and faculty and from the collaborative approach that we had endorsed

Summary

Introduction

When we began the project that is the focus of this article, we conceived of learning/teaching as a collaborative endeavor involving multiple stakeholders. From sociocultural transformation of participation to critical dialogue in action As we have mentioned, our work with children and undergraduates was originally guided by sociocultural and collaborative conceptual and pedagogical approaches that conceive of learning as participants’ transformation of participation in community practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Matusov, 1998; Rogoff, 1990).

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Conclusion