Getting Dialogic Teaching into Classrooms: Making Change Possible

190 Pages·2020·2.276 MB·English

by  Klára Šeďová, Zuzana Šalamounová, Roman Švaříček, Martin Sedláček

Understanding Teaching-Learning Practice
Klára Šeďová
Zuzana Šalamounová
Roman Švaříček
Martin Sedláček
Getting
Dialogic
Teaching
into Classrooms
Making Change Possible
Understanding Teaching-Learning Practice
Series Editors
Robert A. Ellis, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Peter Goodyear, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
This series publishes research on contemporary teaching-learning practices, and in
particular,studiesthatprovideevidenceoftheintertwinedrelationshipbetweenhow
practice informs research andhow theoutcomesof research caneffectively inform
practice. The series publishes studies that make use of diverse methodologies and
conceptual framings that foreground real-world practice and trace the connections
between teaching, learning activities and experiences, and learning outcomes.
Focusing on research that goes beyond disciplinary, sectoral and national borders,
theseriesreflectsthefollowingviewsonunderstandingteaching-learningpractice:
(cid:129) Student learning is central: one cannot understand effective teaching without
understanding successful learning.
(cid:129) Evidence of the quality and character of teaching-learning practice is best
understood in context; the broader landscape in which it occurs must figure
prominently in its analysis.
(cid:129) A real-world application of research outcomes to improve teaching-learning is
best informed by a real world analysis of its practice; the challenge lies in
completing the circle.
(cid:129) Innovations in learning and teaching practice, including those which involve
new technologies, create quality, coherence and sustainability issues, which
need to be addressed.
Theseriesacknowledgesthegrowingcomplexityoflearningandteachingactivities
in context and studies the roles of digital and material tools and new spaces in
teaching and learning. In doing so, it recognises the increasingly diverse nature of
educational work and aims to publish studies combining multiple data sources to
create richer, robust, more interpretable, more action-oriented evidence.
Theongoinggoaloftheseriesistoimprovethescholarlinessofpractice-helpingit
to be better informed by research - and synergistically, to improve the practical
applicability of research designs and outcomes.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14356
á Š ď á Š á
Kl ra e ov Zuzana alamounov
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Š říč áč
Roman va ek Martin Sedl ek
(cid:129)
Getting Dialogic Teaching
into Classrooms
Making Change Possible
123
Klára Šeďová Zuzana Šalamounová
MasarykUniversity MasarykUniversity
Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic
RomanŠvaříček Martin Sedláček
MasarykUniversity MasarykUniversity
Brno, Czech Republic Brno, Czech Republic
ISSN 2522-0845 ISSN 2522-0853 (electronic)
Understanding Teaching-Learning Practice
ISBN978-981-15-9242-3 ISBN978-981-15-9243-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9243-0
©MasarykUniversity2020
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar
methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom
therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregard
tojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Contents
1 Thinking About Classroom Dialogue: Introduction
and Theoretical Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 What is in the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Turning to Talk as a Springboard for Dialogic Teaching. . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3.1 Sociocultural Theory and the Relation Between
Thinking and Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3.2 Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.3 Dialogic Theory: Voices and Communicative
Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.4 Power Patterns—the Classroom as a Community
of Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Elements of Dialogic Teaching and How to Get Them into
Classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Elements of Dialogic Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 Repertoires of Teaching Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.2 Indicators of Dialogic Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.1.3 Principles of Dialogic Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 Teacher Professional Development Programs as a Tool
for Delivering Dialogic Teaching to Classrooms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 Troubles with Dialogic Teaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.1 Organizational Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.2 Teacher Mindset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.3 Unbearable Complexity of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
v
vi Contents
3 How to Change Classroom Talk: TPD Program Design
and Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 The “Effective Classroom Dialogue” TPD Program . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.1 The TPD Program Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.1.2 The TPD Curriculum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.3 Teachers Participating in the Teacher Development
Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 Research Aims and Data Collection Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1 Data Collection Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3 Analytical Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.1 Quantitative Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3.2 Qualitative Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4 Ethical Aspects of the Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5 Limits of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4 Did Transformation Happen? The Effects of the TPD Program
on Classroom Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1 Research Questions and Procedure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2 Changes in Dialogic Teaching Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.1 Open Questions of High Cognitive Demand . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.2 Uptake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.3 Open Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.4 Student Thoughts with Reasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3 Changes in Dialogic Teaching Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3.1 Collectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3.2 Purposefulness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4 StudentThoughtswithReasoninginRelationtoOtherIndicators
and Principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.4.1 Student Thoughts with Reasoning in Relation
to Other Indicators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.4.2 Complex Model of Relationships Among Dialogic
Teaching Indicators and Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5 The Case of Daniela: The Nonlinear Development of Change . . . . . 69
5.1 About Daniela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2 The Series of Lessons that Daniela Taught During the TPD
Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.3 How to Understand the Nonlinear Development of Change. . . . . . 94
5.3.1 Critical Reflection as the Motor for Change . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3.2 The Phenomenon of Unintended Consequences. . . . . . . . . 95
Contents vii
5.3.3 The Role of Gestalt in the Process of Change . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.4 Reflection as a Way to Overcome Gestalt . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3.5 Teaching Methods as Instruments for Implementing
Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6 The Case of Marek: Tension and Conflict in a Dialogic
Teaching System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.1 About Marek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2 Series of Lessons Marek Taught During TPD Program. . . . . . . . . 104
6.3 How to Understand Inner Tensions and Conflicts in a Dialogic
Teaching System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.3.1 When Dialogue is Not Purposeful. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.3.2 Purposeless Riddles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.3.3 Quasi-Evocations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.3.4 Quasi-Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.3.5 Neighborly Chatter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.3.6 Why Does Purposefulness Occur in Teaching? . . . . . . . . . 136
6.3.7 When Dialogue is Not Collective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.3.8 Overcoming of Inner Tension in the Dialogic
Teaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
7 Teachers’ Self-understanding and Emotions as the Catalysts
of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.1 Concepts and Data Analysis in This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.2 Self-understanding of Teachers Participating in the TPD
Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.2.1 Perfect Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.2.2 Eager-to-Learn Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.2.3 Positive Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.2.4 Insecure Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.3 Connection Between Self-understanding, Emotions,
and Change in Teaching Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.4 Why Do Emotions and Self-understanding Make
a Difference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
8 Generic Processes Behind Dialogic Teaching Implementation:
Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.1 What Have We Found?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.2 What Made Change Happen? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
viii Contents
8.2.1 Troubles with Dialogic Teaching Overcome . . . . . . . . . . . 160
8.2.2 Implementation of Dialogic Teaching as Process
of Appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.2.3 There is No Profound Change Without Reflection . . . . . . . 169
8.3 Concluding Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.3.1 What Did We Learn About Dialogic Teaching?. . . . . . . . . 173
8.3.2 What Did We Learn About the Professional
Development of Teachers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
8.3.3 An Unexpected Epilog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
8.3.4 Where to Next?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
8.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Appendix. .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 183
Chapter 1
Thinking About Classroom Dialogue:
Introduction and Theoretical
Background
Abstract Thischapterisanintroductiontothisbook.First,werevealourmotivation
forwritingit—tocontributetounderstandinghowteacherscanimproveclassroom
dialogueandtherebybooststudentlearning.Second,wepresenttheorganizationof
thebookandthecontentofindividualchapters.Third,wedefinedialogicteaching.
Fourth,weoutlinetheessentialconcepts andtheoreticalinspirationsthatwerethe
basisforthisstudy.
1.1 WhatisintheBook
This book is based on the assumptions that students learn through talk and that
engagingstudentsinclassroomtalkpositivelyaffectstheirlearningoutcomes.Notall
formsofclassroomtalkarecomparablyeffective.Studentslearnmoreinsomekinds
of classroom talk than in others (Resnick et al. 2015). One approach to classroom
discoursethatisseenaspowerfulisdialogicteaching(Alexander2020).Thisisastyle
of teaching that harnesses talk to engage student interest, stimulate their thinking,
advance their understanding, and at the same time empower them. This book is
focusedondialogicteachingandthequestionofhowtogetitintotheclassroom.
Existingresearchhasconsistentlyrevealedthatrealclassroomdiscourseinvarious
countries is far from the ideal of dialogic teaching. Therefore, a number of inter-
vention projects have taken place over recent decades aimed at making classroom
discoursemoredialogic.Wearepartofthisresearchstream,andthisbookexpands
ontheresultsofinterventionresearchconductedintheCzechRepublic.Thebook
describestheeffortsthattheparticipatingteachers,withthehelpoftheresearchers,
invested in attempting to teach differently than they were used to and to instigate
a rich and authentic dialogue with their students. Our results show that if teachers
changetheirtalkpatterns,thisisthenfollowedbyadesirablechangeintheirstudents.
Buttheresultsdemonstratethatitisnoteasyforteacherstochangetheirteaching
andtalkingpractices.
Theaimofthisbookisnotonlytoreportonasuccessfulintervention,butmost
importantly to investigate in depth the teacher experiences and ways of learning
©MasarykUniversity2020 1
K.Šed’ováetal.,GettingDialogicTeachingintoClassrooms,
UnderstandingTeaching-LearningPractice,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9243-0_1