The relationship between teaching and argumentation is becoming a crucial issue in the field of education and, in particular, science education. Teaching has been analyzed as a dialogue aimed at persuading the interlocutors, introducing a conceptual change that needs to be grounded on the audience’s background knowledge. This paper addresses this issue from a perspective of argumentation studies. Our claim is that argumentation schemes, namely abstract patterns of argument, can be an instrument for reconstructing the tacit premises in students’ argumentative (...) reasoning and retrieving the background beliefs that are the basis of their arguments. On this perspective, the process of premise reconstruction is followed by a heuristic reasoning process aimed at discovering the students’ previous intuitions that can explain the premises and concepts that are left unexpressed in their arguments. The theoretical insights advanced in this paper are illustrated through selected examples taken from activities concerning predictive claims on scientific issues. (shrink)

The relationship between teaching and argumentation is becoming a crucial issue in the field of education and, in particular, science education. Teaching has been analyzed as a dialogue aimed at persuading the interlocutors, introducing a conceptual change that needs to be grounded on the audience’s background knowledge. This paper addresses this issue from a perspective of argumentation studies. Our claim is that argumentation schemes, namely abstract patterns of argument, can be an instrument for reconstructing the tacit premises in students’ argumentative (...) reasoning and retrieving the background beliefs that are the basis of their arguments. On this perspective, the process of premise reconstruction is followed by a heuristic reasoning process aimed at discovering the students’ previous intuitions that can explain the premises and concepts that are left unexpressed in their arguments. The theoretical insights advanced in this paper are illustrated through selected examples taken from activities concerning predictive claims on scientific issues. (shrink)

The deep influence of affectivity on learning is now widely acknowledged (Keefer et al., 2018; Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2021). For instance, it has been shown that affect influences key learning-relevant processes, such as motivation, perception, behavior, and critical thinking (Izard, 2002; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Evidence also shows that emotion and mood strongly influence attention, which in turn drives learning and memory (Elbertson et al., 2010; Elias et al., 1997). Intersubjective phenomena, such as the degree of affection and respect between (...) child and teacher, also affect the child’s learning processes, academic outcomes, and brain development (Kusché & Greenberg, 2006; Ryan & Patrick, 2001). However, the relevant literature is not paying attention to increasing evidence showing that affective phenomena are rooted in interoceptive and homeostatic self- and co-regulatory processes within and between people’s living bodies (Barrett, 2017; Carvalho & Damasio, 2021; Craig, 2015, 2018; Fotopoulou et al., 2022; Fotopoulou & Tsakiris, 2017; Seth & Friston, 2016). In this theoretical chapter, we explore this connection and its importance for learning. We argue that affective experience plays a fundamental role in learning, and that affective experience is rooted in the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies. Therefore, the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies plays a fundamental role in learning. In other words, there is an intra- and interpersonal somatic dimension of learning that demands explicit consideration in educational contexts. In this way, we aim to contribute to an understanding of learning and education that moves away from an individualistic, brain-centered information-processing conception toward one centered on sentient, interdependent living bodies. (shrink)