PDF File).Collaborative Deliberation and Cooperative Argumentation
Collaborative deliberation engages participants in the invitational act of cooperative argumentation, which is built on a foundation of what is shared in terms of commonplaces, definitions, and claims/counterclaims.
No matter what the end product or the supporting documentation, in order to facilitate strong collaborative deliberation, participants must work together to create a common language from which to deliberate. They do so according to the needs and conventions of their discipline.
Performances and Documentation
Cooperative deliberation can take many forms (often called “performances”), such as:
- an informal discussion
- a “fish bowl” discussion
- a panel
- a traditional debate structure (such as Lincoln-Douglas)
- a cooperative debate
- an online event (in real time or through a message board)
Such deliberation can rely on written documentation such as:
- annotated bibliographies
- reviews of literature
- issues briefs
- position papers
In order for students to engage meaningfully, however, they need to speak a common language. In addition to agreed-upon commonplaces, definitions, and claims/counterclaims, they need to be working collaboratively rather than competitively when collecting information and perspectives.
The Resource Bank
In most successful applications of this model, students work from a common resource bank to develop items related to deliberation. For instance, consider this scenario for students in a psychology class who are exploring the contribution of gender on the likelihood of an adolescent developing an eating disorder:
Each student is responsible for contributing one article to a resource bank that will be available to all participants through the course Blackboard site. (The instructor reviews all contributions, communicating concerns when appropriate.)
Each article includes a coversheet, developed by the contributing student, that articulates content, empathic, and critical readings of the author’s perspective. (This item usually carries an individual grade with it.)
Once all contributions are made, the resource bank is closed to further additions, and participants then must draw from it for subsequent research project tasks (i.e. developing an issues brief, writing position papers, providing “evidence” during cooperative debate, etc.)
