Dialogic Discourse
Student Thought and Classroom Language: Examining the Mechanisms of Change in Dialogic Teaching
by Rezniskaya & Gregory | Educational Psychologist | 2013 | 48(2) | pp. 114-133 | PDF
Bakhtin (1984) describes the difference between a dialogue and a monologue
Freire (1993) diagnosed monologic education as suffering from narration sickness.
Burbules (1993) defines dialogue as,
Three main views about knowledge:
Dialogic teaching...
Misunderstanding of concepts, incomplete comprehension of ideas, and errors in justifications and thinking become visible to the group are put to the test of public accountability. Public accountability includes accountability to:
Theoretical model for dialogic teaching and learning
by Rezniskaya & Gregory | Educational Psychologist | 2013 | 48(2) | pp. 114-133 | PDF
Bakhtin (1984) describes the difference between a dialogue and a monologue
- In monologue, "someone who knows and possess the truth instructs someone who is ignorant of it and in error" (p. 81).
- In a dialogic classroom, "truth... is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction" (p. 110)
Freire (1993) diagnosed monologic education as suffering from narration sickness.
- Teacher thinks that his task is to "fill the students with contents of his narration" (p. 52)
- The banking concept of education should be replaced with a more respectful perspective
- We need "problem-posing education [that] regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition" (p. 64).
Burbules (1993) defines dialogue as,
- "Continuous, developmental, communicative interchange through which participants stand to gain a fuller appreciation of the world, themselves, and one another" (p. 8).
Three main views about knowledge:
- Absolutists - knowledge is fixed and exists independently of human cognition. Experts know the truth which can be proven by hard facts. (monologic - dogmatic - behaviorist)
- Multiplists - knowledge is entirely subjective, experts are fallible as laypeople; and no established method is available to help judge the soundness of different arguments or to reconcile opposing opinions. (monologic - relativist)
- Evaluativists - knowledge is subjective, but methods of inquiry guard against biases and errors. People can engage in rational evaluation of different viewpoints and consider some judgements more defensible than others. (dialogic - constructivist)
Dialogic teaching...
- Is egalitarian
- Power relations are flexible, the teacher is a learner
- Responsibilities for the form and content are shared among group members
- Classrooms are learning communities - everyone takes part in asking questions, turn taking, and evaluating the claims presented
- The teachers are experts, but their expertise is limited; teachers welcome innovative method and answers that students generate
- Questions asked are open or divergent - questions problematize or transform commonly accepted facts or answers into problems to be explored
- Students are not expected to reinvent the wheel, but to experience, resolve, and enjoy at least some of the intellectual challenges of the original inventors
- Promotes metacognition - awareness of one's own knowledge content and thinking process, one is able to monitor and regulate his or her thinking.
- Teachers assume the position of "scholarly ignorance." The refrain from posturing as having all the right answers or providing ready-made answers.
- Focuses on the process than the product - the how rather than the what.
Misunderstanding of concepts, incomplete comprehension of ideas, and errors in justifications and thinking become visible to the group are put to the test of public accountability. Public accountability includes accountability to:
- learning community
- knowledge
- rigorous thinking
Theoretical model for dialogic teaching and learning
- According to sociocultural theorists, learning occurs through the mastery of devices of cultural behavior and thinking
- Students need to encounter and use these devices or cultural tools to augment their thinking. Language is the most important tool used to share other cultural tools
- When children learn language, they are learning the foundations of learning itself (Halliday, 1993, p. 93).
- By being engaged in the process of making meaning, students gradually appropriate various cultural tools. When students are puzzled about one of their peers' contribution and ask for clarification, that student will attempt to make her statements clearer later. What started socially gets internalized and can become (with enough experience and exposure) a cognitive habit.
- Internalized knowledge is not a duplicate of external social patterns. According to Vygotsky (1981), "Internalization transforms the process itself and changes its structure and function" (p. 163).
- Participation in inquiry dialogue with others offers an external arena where students can practice using the tools of rational and collective thinking and eventually transform them into individual psychological functions through the process of internalization.
- Mead (1962) argued that individual reasoning is a process of internal argumentation, a dialogue with a "generalized other" (p. 156).
Features of Dialogic Discourse
- Questions - Main questions are open-ended to engage students in critical evaluation and analysis. Students are expected to provide elaborate answers.
- Student-managed discussions - Students assume responsibilities for asking questions, inviting others to share their opinion, manage turns, change topics, and judge answers.
- Teacher's role - prompt for: clarification, alternative perspective, evidence, challenge unchallenged ideas, encourage students to respond to each others' ideas.
- Meta-level talk - with teacher scaffolding, students reflect on and monitor the processes and products of their discussion. What worked, what did not, what needs to be done to avoid doing what did not work, how can good work become better. Meaningful teacher feedback can provide direction and focus.