Full citation: Jenlink, P., & Carr, A.A. (1996, January-February). Conversation as a medium for change in education. Educational Technology, 31-38.

Purposes of conversation

• Transacting: conducted for the purpose of negotiating or exchange within an existing problem setting
• Transforming: conducted when individuals suspend their own personal opinions or assumptions, and their judgment of others' viewpoints (ref. Bohm & Edwards; see also Carl Bereiter on progressive discourse)
• Transcendent: where the purpose is that of moving beyond or "leaping out" of the existing mindsets of schools, learning, and educational change, and creating an entirely new learning system (ref. Banathy; see also Roy Pea on 3 types of communication).

Types of conversations

• Dialectic conversation focuses on framing a logical argument for distilling the truth.
  It is a scientific approach, a disciplined inquiry into whatever is being examined. In dialectic conversation, participants are often rigid in their beliefs and debate for what they perceive as truths. The nature of the dialectic conversation is one of debate and logical argument within a context of limited negotiations for change. This often results in factionalization or breaking apart of individuals into different camps.

  Regarding school change, participants often see their truths as the only truths, and subsequently see any attempt at school change as a personal attack on their understanding of the school world.

• Discussion conversation is the forum in which many of us advocate for our own individual position.
  Unlike the logical argument expressed by a dialectic, discussion is more subjectively influenced by opinion and supposition. Discussion conversations are transactional in nature, one participant negotiating with others with the advocacy and preservation of personal assumptions as the center of the discourse. Incoherence in thinking is brought on and reinforced by the advocacy or preservation of personal opinions and rigid mindsets, especially when ungrounded suppositions enter the discourse and participants are unwilling to disclose their beliefs or suspend their judgments of others' points of view. This results in a breakdown in communication.

  Regarding school change, most discussive conversation has been about specific change in issues in schools and not within the change process itself.

• Dialogue conversation is a conversation where meaning is constructed through sharing.
  It is a community-building form of conversation. Its purpose is to create a setting where conscious collective mindfulness can be maintained. This form of discourse transforms the individual thinking and thought processes, creating collective thought. It requires that individuals first examine their personal assumptions or opinions and then suspend these assumptions before the entire group. They must step out of their advocacy for personally held assumptions as well as those of others. This type of conversation recognizes variously held common experiences.

  Regarding school change, in a school setting this begins with unconcealing the hidden assumptions or opinions and suppositions which guide the interactions among individuals. It then moves to examining the diverse views of meaning held for educational change. Finally, participants suspend their individual thinking and begin to share collectively, thus creating commonly shared meanings for educational change or constructing a shared purpose.

• Design conversation focuses on creating something new.
  Dialogues help the design participants create collective consciousness as well as clear the minds of distorting or conflicting assumptions that lead to incoherence of thinking. Through creating coherence of thinking, a community evolves wherein collective thought is possible and the creative consciousness may emerge to focus outside the constraints of old mindsets on the process of designing a new educational system. Design conversation goes beyond the suspension of personal opinions and moves into a suspension of mindsets themselves.

  Regarding school change, design conversation is rare in school settings because school practitioners and change agents typically engage in conversations focused on solutions to problems within the existing system, rather than engaging in dialogue through which they can begin to create a design space together. Whereas dialogue transforms collections of individuals into a community of action, design conversation focuses on a change that transcends both systemic constraints within the school and the constraints of a narrow, traditional view of how change should happen.

Design conversation as a change medium

The following table illustrates the spectrum of conversation. To the left we have open systems; these involve change of the system. To the right we have closed systems; these involve change in the system.

Strategies for encouraging design conversation in school change

• Make the commitment to change of the system rather than change within the system.
• Identify and select a facilitator that will assist the school stakeholders in designing a new medium of school change through the design conversation.
• Identify the voices that are to be authentically represented, respecting diversity.
• Build the capacity of participants to engage in the design conversation through creating a common language. This involved deconstructing old conceptual frames that presently govern the type and content of conversations regarding school change.
• Engage in dialogues that unconceal the hidden tacit understandings, assumptions, and routines of the participants.
• Focus on building a conscious collective mindfulness of community through dialogue that creates a common sense of purpose and shared vision.

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