Dialectical Learning in Information Systems

The classical dialectical (study partner) learning method of Greek and Hellenistic antiquity remains the traditional learning method of Jewish religious and cultural studies, and enjoys widespread informal use by students in some American universities. The cognitive advantages of dialectical study have led to its adoption as a powerful, general cognitive methodology, for example in Extreme Programming (Beck 1999.) This article describes the author’s experience with formally assigned dialectical study in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in Information Systems at California State University, Los Angeles. ur heritage from the classical Greek and Hellenistic civilizations includes not only specific works of philosophy, art, and science, but also a body of intellectual attitudes and methods of study. One of the most productive of these is the dialectical method of study and learning. The dialectical method is based on the realization that individuals have different perspectives grounded in different backgrounds and cognitive styles. By studying together with a dialectical partner, one gains an opportunity to consider interpretations, insights and solutions different from one’s own. One also gains an opportunity to check one’s understanding and extrapolations against the judgment of one’s partner in study, whose different background and predispositions will often permit her to notice assumptions and errors that might have gone unnoticed when studying by oneself. By limiting interactive involvement to a natural conversation between two (or at most three) participants, dialectical learning puts one in the intellectual focus of one’s partner, a situation that does not permit inattention or dropping out of the discussion. In many cultures, learning and discussion takes place primarily in larger groups. While groups of four or more can often achieve a more refined consensus, in practice discussion in larger groups sometimes leads a few of the participants, particularly those who have, or think they have, less knowledge or experience than the rest, to refrain from contributing with their active participation to the work of the group, in the belief that the time of the group is better used attending to the contributions of more knowledgeable or more assertive participants. In current university courses, it is not unusual for one or two members of a team of four or more students to receive credit for the work of the team without individually achieving the level of mastery that the team project was supposed to demonstrate. Dialectical learning is particularly effective in maximizing the development and contributions of the less advanced partner in the pair. In contrast with the expectation of an essentially one-way transfer of knowledge from master to student in the traditional lecture or question-and-answer formats, in dialectical interactions the more advanced partner – even a much more advanced partner – expects to learn, and benefits from learning, from inputs from the less advanced. In the words of Rabbi Hanina (founder of the Talmudic academy at Sepphoris and the man most likely responsible for the introduction of the Hellenistic method of dialectical learning into the study of the Talmud – still the traditional learning method of Jewish religious and cultural studies) “I have learned much from my teachers, from my colleagues even more, but from my students I have learned the most” (Hanina ca. 300 BCE.) Even when there is a significant disparity of academic level between members of the interacting pair, study partners both benefit from each other’s contributions. Informal dialectical learning arrangements are part of the student culture in the dormitories and other student living groups at some US universities, particularly those where a significant fraction of the incoming students are already experienced in learning together with a study partner. Where this culture flourishes, the existence and advantages of informal dialectical learning arrangements are assumed in the curriculum; the syllabi O