I was reminded of the absolute need for us to make clear the connections and distinctions between ideas by a recent post written by Neil Phillipson http://21stcenturylearners.org.uk/?page_id=119

The very clear distinction between what is to be learned and how best to learn it is one of the most important things we all must get clear.

I must declare my biases that the book ‘Dialogic Education: Mastering core concepts through thinking together‘ Neil and Rupert Wegerif wrote has influenced my thinking enormously in the last weeks. Also as a Science and Theory of Knowledge teacher I am obviously drawn in this direction.

Neil makes very clear that if Knowledge is dialogical, as generally claimed by influential Philosophers such as Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos etc then dialogical education might well be a good idea to deliver an understanding of this knowledge. However, this reminds me of many discussion about constructivism as an understanding of how knowledge is created and how it should be taught. For some constructivism has become a dirty word associated with discovery learning and many other things. I think Neill has put forward the idea that dialogue has led to the best that has been produced so far and there are different pedagogical routes to learn this but to really grasp this knowledge that some form of involvement in dialogue will be needed. I always thought the same that social constructivist methods would be the best ways of supporting learning as individual constructivism was never a viable option given the extensive literature about the development of misconceptions in many conceptual domains.