Effective Middle-School Collaborative Geometry Learning: A Dialogic Discursive Lens

To understand how students' dialogic engagement contributes to their process of mathematics learning during collaborative work, we explored the learning process of two 9th grade students transitioning to the deductive discourse while solving a geometric task. Drawing on commognition, we found that dialogic engagement contributed to students’ learning in two ways. First, the students were able to correct their initial procedures; second, they were using their partner’s initial procedure as a stepping-stone to the deductive discourse. Our findings suggest that growth in mathematical discourses in collaborative learning may necessitate a specific kind of dialogic engagement that requires students to be able to question the meta-rules at the basis of discourses, to be selective in the steps they adopt and to actively make necessary adaptations. This kind of dialogic engagement may enable students to make critical transitions bolstered with a sense of ownership and agency.