Sophisticated Thinking Research Articles

Collaborative Learning Based on Sophisticated Thinking Laboratory (STB-LAB) and Gather Town as Gamification Tool for Blended Laboratory on Science Undergraduate Student's

Innovation in learning design certainly continues to evolve over time, and so do the needs. Including blended laboratory, which is almost like blended learning, but blended laboratory has characteristics where activities fully use laboratory test results to study theory along with observational. However, blended laboratories must be accompanied by use of the right technology. The presence of the Sophisticated Thinking Laboratory (STB-LAB) in effort to fulfill the implementation of blended laboratory syntactically feels right to be done building collaborative learning and forming collaborative skills of students, and Gather Town as a tool to accommodate blended laboratory is felt very appropriate as a gamification tool. This study aims to find out the implementation of the blended laboratory using STB-LAB assisted by Gather Town as a gamification tool using the Assessment Based on Teaching and Learning Trajectory (AABTLT) with Student Activity Sheet (SAS), and find out the improvement of students' collaborative skills. The results obtained from this study are that all STB-LAB syntax in blended laboratory activities is carried out well, while the increasing collaborative skills results show an increase with very large effect of the Cohen's D Effect Size obtained 2.1 for physics education major and 1.7 for biology education major.

STEM Education and Problem-Solving in Space Science: A Case Study with CanSat

Research has shown that hands-on projects promote stem education, namely via problem-solving. CanSat, literally ‘satellite in a can’, is a stem educational project promoted by the European Space Agency. This paper addresses this issue by researching this STEM project and trying to understand how secondary students solve problems in the STEM CanSat project. We use qualitative techniques of data collection and analysis. The results showed that students used sophisticated thinking strategies to process information within this interdisciplinary project: (a) cognitive testing, cognitive organization, cognitive regulation, and monitoring, in addition to computer language and physical-mathematical calculations, are cognitive and metacognitive behavior strategies revealed in the CanSat; (b) problem-solving was suggested as a specific model, where students’ higher cognitive and metacognitive ordering processes deepen in project development; (c) computational, lateral, or divergent and convergent thinking were detected as thinking types of students associated with and mobilized in the course of problem-solving. The findings of this research have practical implications for STEM education in space science. Hands-on projects using problem-solving are an essential strategy to promote STEM. This project reinforces this. Additionally, they are a starting point to promote meaningful learning and new thinking types.

Trait dialectical thinking is associated with the strength of functional coupling between the dACC and the default mode network.

Dialectical thinking is an overarching and sophisticated thinking style that involves accepting and resolving contradictions. The current study examined whether the dispositional tendency of dialectical thinking is mediated by organizational patterns of intrinsic brain networks. Based on previous theoretical and empirical works, we hypothesized that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), the hub for conflict processing, shows increased couplings with nodes in the default mode network (DMN). A sample of 380 young and healthy participants completed a self-reported measure of dialectical thinking and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Results of seed-based correlational ROI and whole-brain analyses supported our hypothesis that trait dialectical thinking was positively correlated with the strength of the dACC-DMN couplings. These findings demonstrate the possibility of identifying network-level neural representations of sociocultural orientations.

Book Review: The Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching Connecting Sophisticated Thinking From Early Childhood to PhD

Book Review: The Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching Connecting Sophisticated Thinking From Early Childhood to PhD

Cognitive Archaeology and the Minimum Necessary Competence Problem

Cognitive archaeologists attempt to infer the cognitive and cultural features of past hominins and their societies from the material record. This task faces the problem of minimum necessary competence: as the most sophisticated thinking of ancient hominins may have been in domains that leave no archaeological signature, it is safest to assume that tool production and use reflects only the lower boundary of cognitive capacities. Cognitive archaeology involves selecting a model from the cognitive sciences and then assessing some aspect of the material record through that lens. We give examples to show that background theoretical commitments in cognitive science that inform those models lead to different minimum necessary competence results. This raises an important question: what principles should guide us in selecting a model from the cognitive sciences? We outline two complementary responses to this question. The first involves using independent lines of evidence to converge on a particular capacity. This can then influence model choice. The second is a broader suggestion. Theoretical diversity is a good thing in science, but is only beneficial over a limited amount of time. According to recent modelling work, one way of limiting diversity is to introduce extreme priors. We argue that having a broad spectrum of views in the philosophy of cognitive science may actually help cognitive archaeologists address the problem of minimum necessary competence.

Conceptualising disability: a critical discourse analysis of a teacher education textbook

ABSTRACT This study examined the conceptualisation of disability in a teacher education textbook. Drawing on Norman Fairclough’s post-structurally informed approach to critical discourse analysis, I deconstructed the language used in a science teacher education textbook to portray disability, and examined relationships to broader socio-political contexts in pre-K-12 education and teacher education. The medical and social models of disability served as conceptual lenses for this analysis because they represent the principal paradigms in the fields of special education and disability studies in education respectively. The analysis showed the textbook’s conceptualisation of disability was imbued with the medical model, representing disability as a finite, knowable deficit that resides in individual learners, and portraying students with disabilities as needy and passive. The textbook’s medicalised conceptualisation of disability is further analysed in relationship to the hegemony of the medical model and the emancipatory ideology of the social model. Implications are discussed for teacher educators seeking to engage preservice teachers in sophisticated thinking about their legal and ethical professional responsibilities toward a more just and equitable education for learners with disabilities.

Children as Investigators of Brunerian "Possible Worlds". The Role of Narrative Scenarios in children's Argumentative Thinking.

Referring to the notion of "possible worlds", the paper aims to investigate an intriguing aspect of children's thinking: the function that play narrative scenarios in sharing with other partners (peers and adults) the child's understanding of the physical and social reality. The idea of possible worlds to which this work relates, can be considered in some way as the legacy of Piaget's pioneering research on symbolic thinking, currently referred in Harris's perspective as "work of imagination". Over the past few decades now, the notion of possible worlds has supported a new representation of the child's thinking that is based on the idea that imagination allows children to explore alternative and multiple versions of reality. Among other things, imagination permits to the child to use sophisticated forms of causal reasoning and understanding of the rules of social life. By reconsidering a part of the literature on "possible worlds" and presenting two empirical observations, this paper wants to draw attention to the central role played by explorative thinking in child's argumentative activities. Angelo, the three-year-old who is the protagonist of the episode reported, is a child like many: constantly relating to the social world, attentive to what is happening around him and, in particular, to the events in which he finds himself involved. Surprisingly equipped to position himself and act in the routines that he knows, but also capable of adopting effective strategies with respect to events that he cannot foresee and that are built constantly, and in a manner situated during interpersonal events. From a certain point of view, he acts in a competent way in the present, but thanks to previous experiences he seems equally ready to anticipate the activities that follow each other in the many scenarios of reality and fiction of which his daily experience is made up. In the example above, Angelo shows a precise interpretation of the situation (evidently based on previous experiences) and provides a solidly argued answer to his mother's request. The reference to the socio-material context fully supports his argument with the use of a perceptive fact that is difficult to contest. As highlighted by the short sequence presented, the dialogue between Angelo and his mother undoubtedly takes on the characteristics of an argumentative activity. As in a court debate, the child/lawyer explores the relationships with the other participants, offering to the jury "material" evidence. This will allow him both to challenge his mother's point of view and to defend his own authoritatively. To give an account of the variety of thinking strategies that Angelo exhibits and also to illustrate the exploratory function of argumentation in children, this paper will explore the idea that during social interaction each participant builds narrative versions of the world from his own point of view. As Bruner (2002) wrote, possible worlds offer the possibility of throwing new light on the "real" world. On a theoretical level, this rapid exchange in the family can be defined as an illustration of sophisticated thinking activities (partly argumentative) in a three-year-old child. In fact, only a few sequences of observation of the unstoppable activities of Angelo are sufficient, as they are of any other child in everyday life situations, to obtain a large number of useful elements to understand the active role of younger generations in challenging the rules of social worlds and in reproducing and creating new cultural forms during social interactions (Corsaro 1997). More specifically, this paper aims to showcase firstly how this way of acting in the physical and social reality emerges early in children's development, especially in situations where they have to defend their point of view or try to convince someone to do something. Secondly, it wants to show that these early thinking strategies are displayed by children mainly as activities of exploration of narrative scenarios (possible worlds) that emerge during social interactions. In order to answer these central questions for the study of thinking in children, this paper will a) analyse the notion of "possible worlds" as Bruner refers to it, b) present two transcripts of social interactions that allow clear examples of the children's thinking activity, and c) discuss studies that support the acceptance of early cognitive activity in children and the multipurpose and flexible nature of child's learning capacities (Gopnik and Meltzoff 1998).

The Scales Integral to Ecology: Hierarchies in Laudato Si’ and Christian Ecological Ethics

Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ advocates for an “ecological conversion” to the ideal of “integral ecology”. In so doing, it offers insights into different scales of moral attention, resonating with sophisticated thinking in scientific ecology and environmental ethics. From the encyclical, Christian ecological ethicists can learn about the importance of identifying spatial and temporal scales in moral terms and the usefulness of hierarchical levels that distinguish between local, community, and global concerns. However, the encyclical assumes some hierarchical relationships—among genders, among species, and with the divine—that it does not question. Scalar thinking is a key strength of Laudato Si’ and also a signal of the work it leaves undone regarding the constructedness and limitations of all hierarchical assumptions.

Mary Sheriff and ASECS

Mary Sheriff and ASECS Jennifer Germann (bio) and Michael Yonan (bio) Mary D. Sheriff (1950-2016) was well-known to the ASECS community. Perhaps her most prominent role in the organization was as co-editor of this journal, a responsibility she shared with James Thompson between 1993 and 1998. Some may remember the brilliant Clifford lecture she delivered at the 2009 annual conference in Richmond, Virginia, a version of which was later published in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.1 These highlights were only part of her longtime participation in ASECS, a history that dates back to the late 1970s. Mary also produced numerous doctoral students in her role as Kenan Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Many of her students are now regulars at ASECS and their number includes the two of us. But Mary's legacy with ASECS is more than just that of an enthusiastic participant. It is a special relationship indeed, one that has important implications for the development of eighteenth-century art history in the United States and that requires explanation in order for its full significance to be understood. Colleagues in the other disciplines represented at ASECS—Literary Studies, History, and Philosophy especially—are often surprised to learn that Art History traditionally hasn't had much to say about eighteenth-century art. Prior to the 1970s, the subject was mostly ignored at American universities, with few art historians willing to confess an interest in its visual culture. English-language scholarship remained surprisingly sparse even into the 1980s, certainly when compared to the flood of scholarship on Renaissance and modern art. The reasons for this imbalance are complex. Art History has tended to privilege art that reflects straightforwardly [End Page 151] the social characteristics of its historical moment. It also has a predilection for celebrating art that offers observers profound psychological revelations in aesthetic form. These are qualities that can be assigned to a few eighteenth-century artists, David and Goya notably, but it is difficult to characterize much eighteenth-century art in such terms. The foundational methodological approaches of art history predisposed art historians to find eighteenth-century art lacking. This was especially so for rococo art, as Dena Goodman and Melissa Hyde discuss in their contributions to this forum. The seductive surfaces of rococo painting, its playful subject matter, its delight in whimsy and surprise, and what many critics saw as its femininity, made it a hard sell to scholars trained to regard Michelangelo and Picasso as the pinnacles of Western artistic achievement. Much the same could be said of pastels, Enlightenment religious imagery, and late Revolutionary history paintings, the subjects of the essays by Kathleen Nicholson, Christopher Johns, and Tili Boon Cuillé respectively. Mary Sheriff recognized the potential of ASECS to build the field of eighteenth-century art history in North America. She was not alone in this, for sure; she belonged to the pioneer generation of art historians (many still active in ASECS's conferences) who understood the organization's potential to enliven this underdeveloped area of art history. Yet Mary was among its most enthusiastic champions. She loved eighteenth-century art and was unafraid to say so. In a late-career essay she remarked that some of its imagery is so beautiful that it can move you to tears.2 But she also saw in this beautiful art the potential for major disciplinary revision, a golden opportunity to knock down old assumptions about what makes art important and to build a more diverse and vibrant art history. It was not through the College Art Association, the major American venue for art-historical scholarship, that such revision would be possible, since too many old biases lingered there. That's where ASECS entered the picture. At its conferences she and her cohort found a community of scholars from other fields who valued the period and wished to see sophisticated thinking brought to its art. They began to propose papers, chair panels, and otherwise create a community of scholars who took eighteenth-century art seriously. And since ASECS is an interdisciplinary organization, the cross-pollination of ideas across disciplinary boundaries became an essential quality of...

Bearded, Sad, and Carrying a Small Volume of Kafka’s Writings: the Golden Youth of the 1960s in the Lithuanian Prose

„Youth“ is one of the most important keywords of the Khrushchev Thaw. Undoubtedly, it was part of the ideology of the era – a young, impetuous, enthusiastic person, who keeps rushing to the romantic horizons and experiences an elevated sense of freedom in a totalitarian state. This was the response of the Khrushchev era to Stalin’s personality cult. The author of the article, by using the cultural and political context of the Thaw, reads two works – long story The Pine That Laughed (Pušis, kuri juokėsi) by Justinas Marcinkevičius and short story A Girl Passed By (Praėjo mergina) by Juozas Baltušis.These works by Marcinkevičius and Baltušis are the texts full of euphoria and utopia typical for the Thaw, which respond to the realities of that time and evaluate them from the aspect of the communist party, also confirming the ideology of the Thaw. Impetuosity, rational having of a purpose, puritanism, faith in education, the pursuit of a society without contradictions, and other traits of classical utopias are found in these texts. In both cases, the official ideology coincides with the conservative rural ethos and the opinion on youth morality that stems from it. The analysis of the works shows the ways in which depiction of the youth correlates with the cult of youth typical of communist ideology of those times, while the critique of the youth corresponds to the official image of a young person.Both writers portray their criticized and re-educated characters (Romas and Liana) as living on an island or under a bell jar and building their separate, but also completely wrong world. They are asocial, deviated from society and real life, cynical, appreciating sophisticated thinking and formalism, insincere, destructive and somewhat dangerous to the healthy Soviet society. Both authors show in their works that such young people are at risk of tragedies in their life. The only alternative is the exemplary path of the Soviet youth.

Cloud accounting in Jordanian public shareholding companies: The role of internal audit

This study showed that in the light of knowledge economy and the emergence of the concept of cloud accounting, it was necessary for the Jordanian public shareholding companies, which aspired to leadership, to develop their regulatory tools. These internal audit tools required the internal auditor to possess the unique element of intellectual capital to keep up with the development of the knowledge economy and the data of cloud accounting, the internal auditor must possess the leading qualities that enable him to keep up with these developments and data and do his work efficiently. Therefore, the present study has analyzed the literature on this profession to try to explain the importance of the possession of the internal auditor of the idea of leadership, which is the strength of observation, the critical ability and the sophisticated thinking of interpreting and linking the phenomena and observations in the organization under the application of cloud accounting mechanisms in the public shareholding companies. This study aimed to focus on the Jordanian contributing companies and how it is hoped to create special sectors of internal auditing and cloud computing that apply the methods and strategies of the cloud accounting with focusing on the necessity of these sectors having the innovative auditing thinking.

Balcony cultivator: New biomimicry design approach in the sustainable device

In 2015 the Biomimicry Institute released a call ’Biomimicry Global Challenge Design 2015′. The Biomimicry Institute is partnering with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation and food and conservation experts to solicit nature inspired solutions for food systems improvement. We decided to create a feasible concept applicable for next decades with the use of modern technology and biomimicry. In our device, we used a biomimetic approach to design artificial surfaces that are capable of directed liquid transport, based on the principles found in the Texas horned lizard. For this purpose, we analyzed the morphology of the capillary network of Phrynosoma cornutum and characterized the material properties of the animal’s surface. The final result was a balcony cultivator – sustainable device which is divided into three functional parts that mutually support each other. The first is a bottom part for composting, the second part is used for plant cultivation and the third part serves the irrigation. Balcony cultivator project is still at the conceptual stage, but within the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge Accelerator programme, the research team has already solved prototyping, testing, and developing business plans for product launch. We created unique design, which besides artistic value, carries sophisticated thinking and sustainable function.

Children’s epistemological views according to their learning centre preferences

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the study was to investigate children’s epistemological beliefs in terms of their free play preferences in relation to learning centres. The study was conducted with 115 children coming from families with high socio-economic status (54 girls and 61 boys, 57 five years old and 58 six years old) during the 2015/2016 spring semester. The Epistemological Beliefs Scale for Children was administered to each child individually. In addition, all the children were shown pictures of science, drama, music, literacy, painting and mathematic centres prepared by two researchers and asked to choose the one they preferred for play during free time. Each child was interviewed by one researcher and each interview lasted approximately 15–20 minutes. According to the overall results of the study, children’s epistemological views tended to be dogmatic; however, some children thought more sceptically. Furthermore, children had a sophisticated thinking style in certain dimensions of knowledge while having immature reasoning in others. It was also found that the source of knowledge and hypothesising sub-dimensions of epistemological views indicated dogmatic thoughts. On the other hand, children had sceptical thoughts concerning the sub-dimension of change in knowledge.

The Prioress's Prologue: Dante, Liturgy, and Ineffability

Abstract This article offers a new interpretation of the Prioress's Prologue by examining previously unrecognized source material from Dante and the liturgy. The Prioress's opening prayer has often been read as an expression of her own personal faith, which is typically seen as infantile and anti-intellectual. Proposing that the prologue can and should be detached from this narrative voice and read against its sources, this article shows that it engages in sophisticated thinking about both the potential and the limitations of language as a medium of prayer and praise. Chaucer combines the linguistic self-consciousness he found in Dante's Paradiso 33 with a striking confidence, grounded in the model of the liturgy, in the capacity of human language to articulate transcendent truth. Once distanced from debates about the Prioress herself, the prologue can therefore shed new light on Chaucer's critical engagement with language.

Linguistic Approaches in Teaching History of Science and Technology Courses through a Content Block on Cognitive Sciences

History of Science and Technology (HST) courses are increasingly becoming part of core curriculums for undergraduate students due to an increased emphasis on scientific literacy. HST courses should aim to help students gain an understanding of the nature of science and should enable them to reflect epistemologically. The authors suggest teaching HST courses through several interchangeable content blocks, and herein, present the material and discussion topics that they believe should be implemented in a content block on cognitive sciences through a linguistic component. Language has a special meaning for humankind as it indicates its unique ability in the evolutionary development and in creating a new social environment. Therefore, paying special attention to the linguistic component when teaching HST courses helps students obtain a basic level of linguistic knowledge as its interdisciplinary approaches are increased through the study of cognitive sciences such as evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, and artificial intelligence.In order to represent a practical meaning of linguistics in the processes of constructing social environment, the authors conducted an empirical study based on the analysis of media texts. We asked 63 sophomores majoring in social sciences and humanities, who are affiliated with the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations to choose 60 media texts, both broadsheets and tabloids, on social and political content. Estimating and analyzing the surveys allowed the authors to determine students’ abilities to identify communicative strategies that were used in the media texts, to understand the role of the strategies in forming the social environment of a person or a group, and to recognize how using the tools of cognitive linguistics enhances sophisticated thinking and develops synergetic perceptions of every individual.

Building bridges: outreach to international students via vernacular language videos

Purpose This paper aims to describe librarians’ efforts in reaching out to international students through vernacular language videos at both the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Oregon. The videos were created to help international students familiarize themselves with the new library environment and to stimulate their interest in the future exploration of library resources and services. Design/methodology/approach This paper discusses the challenges of providing effective support to international students in the early stages of their academic life in the USA, explains the rationale for using vernacular language videos as a means of outreach to international students, outlines the factors considered in designing the videos that helped achieve the outreach goals and reviews promotion needs and assessment methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the videos. Findings Using online videos in native languages as a means to extend the reach of the libraries to international students is seen as useful and practical. Feedback from students and library colleagues shows positive reaction to the videos and provides encouragement for further outreach efforts to international students. Practical implications The strategies and experiences detailed here are easily adaptable to other institutions of higher education committed to developing outreach programs for international students. Originality/value The novelty of this case study is the librarians’ sophisticated thinking in developing vernacular language videos as a means of outreach to international students. The video project presented in the paper can function as an inspiring example for institutions preparing for the expected large influx of international students.

The Impact of an Ego Depletion Manipulation on Performance-Based and Self-Report Assessment Measures.

We investigated the impact of ego depletion on selected Rorschach cognitive processing variables and self-reported affect states. Research indicates acts of effortful self-regulation transiently deplete a finite pool of cognitive resources, impairing performance on subsequent tasks requiring self-regulation. We predicted that relative to controls, ego-depleted participants' Rorschach protocols would have more spontaneous reactivity to color, less cognitive sophistication, and more frequent logical lapses in visualization, whereas self-reports would reflect greater fatigue and less attentiveness. The hypotheses were partially supported; despite a surprising absence of self-reported differences, ego-depleted participants had Rorschach protocols with lower scores on two variables indicative of sophisticated combinatory thinking, as well as higher levels of color receptivity; they also had lower scores on a composite variable computed across all hypothesized markers of complexity. In addition, self-reported achievement striving moderated the effect of the experimental manipulation on color receptivity, and in the Depletion condition it was associated with greater attentiveness to the tasks, more color reactivity, and less global synthetic processing. Results are discussed with an emphasis on the response process, methodological limitations and strengths, implications for calculating refined Rorschach scores, and the value of using multiple methods in research and experimental paradigms to validate assessment measures.

Sophisticated Thinking: Higher Order Thinking Skills

The information-based society determines that the key factor to achieve success is the development of sophisticated thinking. That said, the thinking process cannot be just a mere imitation of cognitive work, since the digital age requires the authentic skills of working with a flow of information that is being constantly updated. This paper deals with the last stage of the study devoted to the development of sophisticated thinking. It focuses on the enhancement of higher order thinking skills. We claim that the cognitive processes should be based on three phases: development of disposition towards both thinking process and processed information; development of lower order thinking skills which serves as an indispensable basis for developing higher order thinking skills; and development of higher order thinking skills. The omission or reordering of any of these phases may result in significant deterioration of the obtained results. The special emphasis is put on the idea that higher order thinking skills are more effectively developed when lower order thinking skills have already been interiorized. Furthermore, the development of disposition is regarded as the cornerstone of the development of sophisticated thinking in general. Also, due to its defining feature of polysemy, a literary text is considered to be the most appropriate basis for enhancing students’ thinking skills. For the purpose of verifying the theoretical ideas, a qualitative study has been conducted. The two groups of students, who participated in the first and second stages (three-month cycle each) of our project, continue to be involved in this one. They are second-year bachelor students of the Higher School of Economics who are studying English as a second language. On the basis of the ideas expressed by B. Bloom about the division between lower and higher order thinking skills and by J. Mezirow about transformative learning we designed tasks to enhance higher order thinking skills. These tasks were related to the short stories written by D. Barthelme and printed as a collection, Sixty Stories. To teach the students of both groups (control and experimental), the text-based approach with special techniques to measure the students’ level of understanding and the ability to apply the given information was used. The results of the experiment indicated that the students of both groups made headway in their application of thinking skills. However, the students of the experimental group demonstrated a more significant shift due to the fact that the development of their disposition towards cognitive processes and processed information had been specifically targeted over the course of the first and second stages of the project. Another important outcome of the study was that the participants’ frame of reference was extended which allows us to speculate that the development of sophisticated thinking may result in the change of a person’s interpretation of socio-cultural situation. Hence, a further in-depth study of the issue should be conducted.

Knowing the law and deciding justice: lay expertise in the democratic Athenian courts

In the rhetorically charged law courts in which ancient Athenian lay judges exercised their knowledge of the laws and so decided questions of justice, particularly where the quaestio iuris was most at issue, they exercised some quite sophisticated thinking. The judges abided by their oath to vote ‘according to the laws’, but did so with a comprehensive understanding both of the multiplicity of laws that might apply to particular cases and of the even greater number of legal principles implicit in them. After sketching the democratic aspects of Athens’ legal system, the paper begins with Plato’s Apology of Socrates before going on to detail legal reasoning advanced in Lysias’ On the Murder of Eratosthenes and Hyperides’ Against Athenogenes.

Using the Seminar Format to Explore Pre-service Teachers’ Argumentative Abilities in English as a Foreign Language

The current study describes the introduction of seminar discussions in a literature course to track students’ growth in argument production across the semester. Sixteen students enrolled in a required teacher education course were asked to plan and facilitate a 50-minute seminar discussion on a literary text, following the Paideia Seminar protocol. The course was taught in English, although the students’ first language was Spanish. Over the course of the semester, I monitored students’ progress in developing evidence-based coherent arguments and counterarguments. Pre-service teachers not only gained expertise as seminar facilitators, but their oral and written responses to seminar issues revealed an increase in more elaborated arguments, use of textual references, counterargument production, and overall sophisticated thinking.