SIG 20 & 26 Conference 2022

We are pleased to invite you to the Joint 2022 conference of the EARLI Special Interest Groups 20 (“Inquiry Learning") and 26 (“Argumentation, Dialogue and Reasoning”). The conference will be held from Wednesday the 14th to Friday the 16th of September 2022 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The theme of the conference is Dialogue, inquiry and argumentation: shaping the future(s) of education. This important event in the field provides a friendly, cooperative context for meeting researchers and practitioners in the fields of Inquiry Learning, Argumentation, Dialogue, and Reasoning.

The future is uncertain. Climate change, pandemics, economic crisis and more point to the need to prepare students for the challenges of the future. At this juncture in human history, it is time for us to stop walking backwards, equipping students with the knowledge and skills that they would have needed to cope with the past, but to turn around and attempt as best we can to equip them with the kind of education that they need to not only survive but to thrive in the future. Education for dialogue, argumentation, reasoning and shared enquiry are central to any educational response to the challenge of the future. The conference provides opportunities to discuss and recognize how dialogue, inquiry and argumentation can play a role in shaping the future(s) of education, both as pedagogical practices, design perspectives and target skills.

The Joint SIG 20 and SIG 26 conference in Utrecht will offer opportunities for both specific sessions dedicated to either SIG 20 or SIG 26, and sessions that bridge between the two SIGs. Thus, there will be plenty of opportunities to connect to members of both SIGs, during sessions as well as during coffee and lunch breaks.

We are honored to present the following three keynote speakers to you:

Sarit Barzilai is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Learning and Instructional Sciences in the Faculty of Education of the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on epistemic thinking, metacognition, multiple document literacy, inquiry learning, and game-based learning. Her principal interest is investigating how to promote learners' epistemic growth so that they are better able to cope with the challenges of twenty-first century knowledge societies. Dr. Barzilai has extensively studied how epistemic thinking comes into play as learners evaluate and integrate multiple information sources that present diverse perspectives. She also designs and investigates technology-enhanced learning environments for promoting learners' epistemic growth in these contexts. Her recent research focuses on how to address the current "post-truth" climate, and she has co-edited a special issue of Educational Psychologist on educational responses to "post-truth" problems. Dr. Barzilai is a recipient of the International Society of the Learning Sciences Early Career Award, the Journal of the Learning Sciences Best Paper Award, and the EARLI Outstanding Publication Award. Her full profile can be found here: https://sarit-barzilai.edu.haifa.ac.il

Keynote Abstract:

Epistemic Growth in a "Post-Truth" World: Challenges for Argumentation and Inquiry Learning

The Internet and social media have put vast amounts of information at people's fingertips, while disrupting traditional mechanisms for vetting information. Widespread misinformation, disinformation, and science denial are reshaping how we perceive the competencies that students need to develop in order to cope with a changing world. In this talk, I will argue that preparing students for a "post-truth" world requires rethinking the goals of epistemic growth and, consequently, how such growth can be promoted in educational settings. First, I will outline four core "post-truth" thinking problems that have concerned educators: (1) gaps in students' abilities to deal critically with online information, (2) fallible ways of knowing that are amplified by current (mis)information environments, (3) insufficient caring about truth and accuracy, and (4) the prevalence of deep disagreements about how to know. I will use each of these problems to frame challenges and opportunities for argumentation and inquiry learning. Second, building on this analysis, I will propose that addressing the "post-truth" condition requires rethinking how we conceptualize the desired goals of students' epistemic growth. I will present a theoretical framework, the Apt-AIR framework, which posits that education should focus on promoting students' apt epistemic performance. Third, I will describe several instructional directions, derived from the Apt-AIR framework, for addressing "post-truth" challenges. These directions will be illustrated through studies conducted in my research group, while pointing to open questions. Fostering students' dispositions and abilities to reason well in contemporary online environments is crucial in order to sustain democratic societies and respond to crises such as climate change and pandemics. The development and investigation of robust ways to prepare students for a "post-truth" world will require the education community’s sustained commitment and effort.

Ton de Jong holds a chair in Instructional Technology. He specializes in inquiry learning (mainly in science domains) supported by technology. He was coordinator of eight EU projects including the 7th framework Go-Lab project on learning with online laboratories in science and its H2020 follow-up project Next-Lab (see www.golabz.eu). Currently is on the editorial board of seven journals. He is AERA and ISLS fellow and was elected member of the Academia Europaea in 2014.

For more info see: http://users.edte.utwente.nl/jong/Index.htm 

Keynote Abstract:

Let’s talk evidence – what do we know about the instructional effects of inquiry learning?

Since the start of SIG 20 in 2005, 17 years have passed. In these years technology has very much advanced and also the number of studies on technology-based inquiry learning has multiplied. In this presentation I will walk through the existing evidence from the literature and I will summarize results from controlled (laboratory and in vivo) studies, correlational analyses (mainly PISA 2015), and larger scale (curricular) interventions, more specifically comparing inquiry-based with direct instruction. Following that, I will argue that classroom reality is too complex to warrant oversimple conclusions: There are many forms of inquiry-based and direct instruction available for a diversity of domain content and learning goals and each may have their specific virtues and disadvantages. In a well-designed curriculum, different instructional approaches can complement—or even better—strengthen each other and new technological developments may help realizing teaching approaches that are both effective and flexible.

Antonia Larrain is Full Professor of Psychology, at Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and in 2010 she was a postdoc visiting scholar at Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. She has conducted empirical and conceptual research to explore the psychological processes involved in disciplinary learning and concept formation through argumentation, and in understanding the interrelationships between its multiple benefits. She has published in several journals such as Journal of Educational Psychology, Cognition & Instruction, Teacher and Teaching Education, among many others. She is currently President of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP) and Associate editor of Journal for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA div. 24). She is part of the Editorial Board of Review of General Psychology (APA div. 1), Theory and Psychology and European Journal of Psychology of Education.

Keynote Abstract:

Deliberative teaching as educational experience: Weaving together different threads of research to craft education for democracy in the 21st century

This presentation will address the urgent challenge that we face in educating young people for contemporaneous democracies. The starting-point of this presentation is that, as research communities on argumentation, dialogue and education, we have been working on crucial issues and producing relevant empirical data to inform current educational policies. However, somehow, we have been less able to impact the political agenda worldwide, and it is urgent that we do so. Nowadays, in different parts of the world – and I will mostly give a perspective from Latin America – the idea of democracies as rational and well-balanced structures settled after WWII is being put in question, revealing their dependence upon unstable and fragile collective agreements that need to be performed and re-performed constantly to unfold their political power. This is of concern considering the important political and environmental challenges that we – as global and interconnected, but deeply diverse, communities – need to address urgently, to sustain our shared life: social and gender justice and inclusion, climate change, socio-economic inequalities, and inequality of political and social rights, among others. Education is called upon not only to prepare citizens for this new world but also to be recreated as a place where collective agreements are legitimated, understood and re-performed, and not merely obeyed. We need an education that invites young people to imagine their present and future, giving them a sense of belonging and action. Although authors such as John Dewey argued for similar ideas at the inception of the last century, we need to revisit these ideas today with new insights.

Therefore, the initial focus of this presentation will be, first, to show how different trends of empirical research conducted, in large part, by members of this community (including my own research) are telling us a strong story that needs to be told: organizing the teaching of curricular topics around the exercise of deliberative argumentation – what will be called deliberative teaching – prompts students’ knowledge, as well as (linguistic and political) skills’ development. However, to tell this story clearly and loudly, we need to address several research questions that remain, which require new empirical and theoretical approaches. Does the deliberative experience prompt knowledge and skills at the same time? What are the pedagogical conditions for prompting more than one outcome? How does deliberating with others prompt these outcomes on an individual level? What could these findings tell us about the mind? Can we conceive of the mind as a sort of deliberative process, as scholars such as Mead and Peirce, and more recently Billig and Nienkamp, have argued? In the second part of my presentation, I will explore the available empirical evidence (including studies in which I have participated) and theoretical insights to provide speculative answers to these questions, with an invitation to critically explore these interpretations and ideas with the audience.     

Early registration deadline is 8th of June

Fees (including the conference dinner):

You can register for the conference here: https://www.earli-eapril.org/conference/76/registration

Utrecht is easy to reach by train, car and bus, and is close to Schiphol Airport. More information can be found here:

https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/international-staff-and-guests/travelling-to-utrecht-0 (please note that we don’t meet on the Utrecht University campus)

https://www.discover-utrecht.com/practical-information-utrecht/

https://www.u-ov.info/direct-naar/english

The organizing committees can be reached through sig20inquiry@gmail.com and earlisig26@gmail.com