Neil Mercer

He is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Director of the study Centre Oracy Cambridge and a Life Fellow of the college Hughes Hall.[2][3] Prior to moving to the University of Cambridge, he was Director of the Open University's Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technologies (CREET).[2] and a member of the Centre for Language and Communications. He was previously co-editor of the journal Learning, Culture and Social Interaction,[4] editor of the journal Learning and Instruction[5] and the International Journal of Educational Research.

Mercer has emphasised the use of language to "inter-think" and build "common knowledge" – shared understandings and perspectives to work together, particularly in classrooms.[6] From Common Knowledge[6] onwards his work has been explicitly Vygotskian in nature, fitting into a wider sociocultural and dialogic learning focus in education. (See e.g.[7]) However, in contrast to Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, Mercer proposes we consider the 'Intermental Development Zone'[8] – the space that language creates which allows peers to interact and develop their reasoning together, in the absence of a guiding teacher. This work is cited as important in development of understanding of language for learning. [9]

Mercer's key interest is in the quality of talk and its impact on educational outcomes, including talk in the home[10] for example, arguing that "'social interaction and collaborative activity' in class can provide 'valuable opportunities' for learning"[11] and that classroom talk should be oriented around co-operation rather than competitiveness, to encourage exploratory talk rather than disputational[11] where the former focuses on explaining ideas, listening to others, and the building of mutual understanding and the latter on a lack of constructive argument which is characterised by disagreement with little explanation.[12] Research exploring this typology and its third component – cumulative talk, in which ideas are shared but not built upon or critically analysed – has found "evidence of the link between the development of children's communication skills and improvements in their critical thinking.",[13] leading to the suggestion that there should be more focus on these skills in classrooms, and commensurately teacher education programs,[14][15] including in the context of computer use.[16][17] This approach has been termed (and researched under the banner of) "Thinking Together".[18] This approach has been used internationally particularly in Mexico (see e.g.[19]) and recently Chile.[20] Mercer's research into the educationally salient components of discourse has been grounded in 'sociocultural discourse analysis' – a theory to which he has contributed.[21] Sociocultural discourse analysis focuses on what language is used to do, and in Mercer's work, how it is used to share meaning, create common knowledge,[6] and interthink.[21]

• Thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk
• Tes.co.uk