Presentation: Peer learning for inclusion

Abstract

It is well known that learning takes place, as Piaget told us, through interactions with others and, as Vigotsky would add, especially when these others (mediators) are somewhat more skilled than the learner himself. Traditional teaching has considered that this role of mediator - acting between the new content and the learner's mental activity - had to be reserved for the teacher, and that interactions between equals (or between peers, as they are called in Latin America) had little educational relevance and should be eliminated, or at least minimised in the classroom. However, we have known for some time that interactions between peers, between students, properly organised, can lead to learning. Certainly not every interaction - understood as dialogue, communicative exchange, joint action... between pupils is equivalent to learning, nor is every interaction between teacher and pupils. But if it meets certain requirements, which we will deal with throughout this monograph, it can be a powerful source of learning.