ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that, in order to meet existential challenges, humanity requires more abstract reasoning and logic than was the case in the past. Such reasoning includes developing dispositions that question facts and critically challenge ‘given’ knowledge. In all the cases where facilitation of dialogic thinking together was successful, there were statistically significant differences between the gains on the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices test pre–post achievement scores in favour of the experimental groups. Where teachers were unable to promote the desired level of dialogue in their classrooms, namely where the participants were judged to have not met the criteria required to successfully engage their students in thinking together activities, there were no statistically significant improvements in Raven’s test score. The new and different learning that took place during dialogic thinking together on science and mathematics topics was improved abstract reasoning abilities as measured by the Raven’s tests and, as such, can be classified as ‘far transfer’.
