促进中小学生论证能力的发展:理论、实践与评价——访哥伦比亚大学教师学院迪安娜·库恩教授

Developing Argumentative Competence of Elementary and Secondary Students:Theory,Practice and Evaluation——Interview of Dr.Deanna Kuhn from Teachers College of Columbia University

作为一项高阶智力活动,论证不仅能帮助学生有效建构知识,还能推动批判性思维等复杂思维能力的发展。越来越多国家的教育研究者和实践者将论证能力视为一项重要的21世纪技能。为了有效培养学生的论证能力,教师应深入了解论证能力的性质、发展轨迹和评价方式。美国哥伦比亚大学教师学院的迪安娜·库恩教授是将论证理论引入教育研究的先驱人物之一,她已在多个国家的中小学课堂开展了大量的实证研究,取得了丰硕的成果。两位访谈者邀请库恩教授深入阐述她30余年来整合教育学、心理学和哲学理论开展论证研究的成果与思考。库恩教授认为论证能力不应仅被视为一种个人技能,还应被视为一种社会文化实践技能。她所倡导的培养论证能力的对话式论证教学法鼓励学生参与论证实践,因而是经验性的。此外,培养论证能力的研究应整合认知、元认知、认识论和情感等多个维度,这样做不仅有助于从理论上更加全面地理解论证能力的本质及特征,还能推动旨在发展学生论证能力的实证研究、教学实践和评价改革。

Argumentative competence,conceived of as a higher-order intellectual skill for productive knowledge construction and critical thinking activities,is increasingly recognized by educational researchers and practitioners as a major educational objective of the 21 st century around the globe.To effectively cultivate students’argumentative competence,teachers need to develop a deep understanding of its nature,developmental trajectory and evaluative method.Professor Deanna Kuhn,from Teachers College of Columbia University was one of the pioneers in introducing argumentative theory into educational practices.She carried out a wide array of empirical studies on argumentation in elementary and secondary schools across the globe,resulting in rich findings.The two interviewers invited Professor Kuhn to elaborate on her research findings and thinking regarding her 30 years of research that combined educational,psychological and philosophical research to conduct studies on argumentation.Professor Kuhn contended that argument should be studied not only as an individual skill but equally as a social and cultural practice.The dialogic argumentation approach she promoted sought to engage students in argumentative dialogues and is thus experiential.Moreover,an integrated framework that links cognitive,metacognitive,epistemological and affective aspects of argumentative competence holds great promise to advance not only the theoretical study of the nature of argumentative competence,but also empirical research,classroom practices and evaluation reforms related to argumentation.