ABSTRACT
Measurable learning outcomes in curriculum subjects are important in schools, but it is also important to improve children’s capacity to think and to learn. Chapter 3 describes how higher order thinking skills of individual children originate in dialogues through which they learn to reason, to evaluate, to create new understandings together and to provide relevant information. It is now widely accepted that children can learn how to think and learn how to learn through being drawn into dialogues in which they are questioned, challenged and extended (Hobson, 2002). Learning dialogues are characterised by a shared search for understanding and a willingness to listen and to change. In learning dialogues different perspectives are brought together to help all participants to develop their ideas. Through engaging in such dialogues with others, both teachers and peers, children can be motivated by the desire to understand and to be understood.
