Week two: Revisiting the theories and impact of educational dialogue
Welcome to week two!
In this module we will discuss what we mean by educational dialogue and review categories of dialogue in a way for you to reuse and present to your colleagues. The module will also provide basic theories behind educational dialogue and a summary of related research findings and evidence that dialogue promotes student learning. Your objective this week is to revisit this theory and impact and consider how it is applicable to your setting specifically and how you can present it to your colleagues in an engaging and accessible way to promote buy-in.
Focus of the week
Watch the following video for an overview of this week’s theme:
This week’s readings and resources are as follows:
A Teacher’s Guide to Dialogic Pedagogy Part 1: The What and the Why: This is a series of posts where Neil Phillipson explores “what dialogic pedagogy is, why it might be valuable and how a classroom teacher or school might get started with it”. Take a look at the reading list at the bottom of the page as well because it’s what I would also recommend for further reflection.
Knight, Simon (2014). Creating a supportive environment for classroom dialogue. In: Hennessy, Sara; Warwick, Paul; Brown, Lloyd; Rawlins, Diane and Neale, Caroline eds. Developing Interactive Teaching and Learning Using the IWB. Open University Press. http://oro.open.ac.uk/36484/
T-SEDA section 1: This is a section from Version 8 of the T-SEDA pack, which offers a helpful introduction to educational dialogue. Note that I have divided the T-SEDA pack into sections that relate to the specific weekly topic areas.
Wikipedia page on dialogic education: While I normally wouldn’t recommend a Wikipedia page as a resource in a course like this, I wrote this page a few years ago. Note that edits may have been made by other Wikipedia users since then and it looks like a bit of content has been removed but may otherwise also be a helpful starting place.
Please review and complete the following activities for this week:
In Part 3 of the facilitation plan template (or your own version if you’ve created one), include the following in the section titled ‘Arrangements needed for meetings’:
Where and when you might be able to host an initial workshop for your colleagues to review the theory and impact of educational dialogue together as a group.
Which resources and readings you will share with your colleagues so they can better understand the theory and impact and buy into the approach. You can include the reading list from the ‘read’ section above as well as any others that you think would be helpful for your setting.
Which activities you will recommend your colleagues should try in the classroom to stimulate dialogue. Here are two possible ones from OER4Schools:
Activity 1: Developing ground rules for your classroom
Examples of ground or talk rules to support student participation include:
Only one student can talk at a time, and the rest of the class needs to be listening carefully.
Students must back up any claim or counter-claim they make with reasons or evidence.
Everyone is prepared to accept challenges.
When students disagree with their peers, it must be done respectfully and to encourage further dialogue.
Talking points can be helpful in stimulating dialogue and opening up a space for dialogue in small groups or as a whole-class discussion. They can be open-ended and can be provocative or used to understand students’ comprehension about a topic. They should allow multiple ideas and views to come forward, and should encourage students to challenge each other directly. Examples of talking points include:
Some people, like footballers, get paid too much.
Things that give out light (like the sun) are always hot.
Dark is a form of energy that is weaker than light.
Throwing rubbish into a pit is a good way of getting rid of it.
Recycling means that you don’t cause any damage to the environment.
You should also set up the response / debate system carefully and make this visible to students throughout the discussion on the board or on cards. These responses can include: ‘I agree because…’, ‘I disagree because…’, ‘I partially agree because…’, etc.
Tip: smaller group activities will likely mean that students are more confident and willing to share their views, so this may be a better starting point before moving onto whole-class discussions. In small groups of students, one student in each group should be the ‘chair’. This student manages the discussion and makes sure all students in the group contribute.