From a socio-constructivist viewpoint, there are four main reasons why such processes are appropriate in a course of professional education. They are associated with: the construction of professional knowledge and evaluation of its viability; the development of corporate meanings within the group; the development of metacognitive awareness; and the development of a disposition to reflect on professional issues to develop higher levels of meaningful practice.
The processes involved in the construction of professional knowledge suggest that students should have opportunities to articulate their tentative constructions, and to test them for viability against the shared, corporate understanding of the class. However, articulation does more than provide an opportunity for students to test their understandings for viability against corporate meaning: it also contributes to the generation of corporate meaning by providing a further opportunity for construal to other members of the group. Whilst evaluating the contributions of other students, individuals may contrast the interpretation being offered with their own thoughts (Clarke, 1994).
Many of the techniques used by tutors to support student development during interactive seminar teaching might be described as scaffolding (Bruner, 1985). The metaphor has an unfortunately rigid sound to it and is sometimes interpreted as a series of funnelling questions leading the student down a narrowing path to a predetermined solution (cf: Bauersfeld, 1988). However, the scaffolding we attempt to use in our face to face seminars is dynamic in character with the tutor drawing on ideas articulated by students but using focusing questions to gently steer the discourse, encouraging students to contribute to strategic thinking (cf: Wood, 1994, Tanner & Jones, 2000b). Tutors are continuously asssessing responses in order to evaluate student perceptions and understandings and deciding whether to adapt their teaching to provide further help, or whether to move on to the next teaching point.