Abstract
This paper reports on an educational experiment promoting relational reasoning as a form of argumentation with graduate students of ICT in learning. Relational reasoning includes working with mind maps, concept maps, use case diagrams, decision trees, flow diagrams, dialogue maps, situational maps and more. More broadly we can say that relational reasoning consists firstly of using nodes and arcs to represent and overview interrelated meanings as visual networks and secondly allowing the interaction with these networks to generate new dynamic perspectives on the content. The educational experiment consisted of four dedicated lessons introducing different diagramming techniques to students of ICT in learning and supporting them in using these techniques as part of their reasoning and analysis in relation to their semester project. A core example tool was ArcForm that is a general-purpose relational reasoning notation and has been explored as a notational foundation for e-learning systems (Allsopp 2013, 2015). The paper draws a pedagogical insight about the importance of illustrating how tools are useful rather than emphasising their broad usefulness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on E-Learning |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Publisher | Academic Conferences and Publishing International |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Edition | 1 |
| Pages | 10-18 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-5108-3267-1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- relational reasoning
- design/teaching intervention
- ArcForm