Peer Discussion and Achievement

Abstract

Introduction:  More than 50 years ago, John Dewey tried to persuade educators to turn classrooms into communities of democratic inquiry.  As part of his Pedagogic Creed, he believed that education had failed by its neglecting the ". . . fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life" (Dewey, 1959, p. 23).  He explained that we should look upon the learning process as an "experience" shared by student and teacher rather than a didactic situation where the teacher is a dispenser of facts.  Interaction was what his "educative experience" was based on.  Practical in intent, his principle implied as one of its educational goals the fostering of cooperative activity.  Among educators this view has enjoyed a continuing dialect with the belief that competitive situations are the more educational.