ABSTRACT
The involvement of researchers, designers, and instructors in finding new ways for enhancing learning processes as self-organizing through collaborative practices is now a recognized paradigm in design research. In this context, instructors aim to function as agents of change. The case of teachers as agents of self-organizational change is special since institutional constraints imposed on teachers are enormous. To bring forth change, teachers are involved in two contexts: in design research meetings (with designers, developers and researchers) and in their classrooms. This collaterality of relatively simultaneous participation in two related activities is at the focus of the present paper. We observe teachers dedicated to fostering dialogic thinking in their classes. Shifts in practices and epistemological beliefs concerning teaching and learning are mandatory for such a purpose. To ease these shifts, a design research team developed DIGALO, a tool representing graphically collective argumentation. We observe here shifts in practices and in beliefs. Comparison between teachers’ behavior in the research design team and in the classroom led us to discern several breakdowns. Since the design research team negotiated new ways to guide talk that challenged old practices rooted in their epistemological beliefs, we consider whether these breakdowns evidence processes of identity development.
