Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life, 2nd Edition

Chapter 17Positively Transforming Classroom Practice Through Dialogic Teaching

ALINA REZNITSKAYA AND IAN A. G. WILKINSON

Authors' Note. This research was supported in part by the grant from the Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Grant # R305A120634.

In this chapter, we discuss the challenges and possibilities of helping elementary school teachers engage in dialogic teaching, a pedagogical approach that capitalizes on the power of talk to foster students' thinking, understanding, and learning. We start by reviewing theory and research on dialogic teaching, demonstrating both the educational potential of this approach and the near absence of its use by practitioners. To help bridge the gap between theory and practice, we describe a professional development program in dialogic teaching designed to support teacher use of new discourse practices and their eventual transition to a more dialogic interaction with students.

There is now little, if any, disagreement about the importance of teaching students how to think through complex problems in a deliberate, informed, and rational manner. Numerous scholarly publications and major policy documents call on educators to help their students develop the ability to make better, more reasonable judgments (e.g., Kuhn, 1992; Lipman, 2003; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & The Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2012; Wegerif, 2010). In his ...