Rupert Wegerif

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Information and Communications Technology for All: Colin Hardy, David Fulton Publishers, London, 2000, 92pp, ISBN 1-85346-673-5, The Art of Information and Communications Technology for Teachers: Richard Ager, David Fulton Publishers, London, 2000, 131pp, ISBN 1-85346-622-0

Computers & Education, 2001

Dialogism

Springer eBooks, 2022

Dialogic Education

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Mar 26, 2019

Dialogic education is a relatively new force in educational theory and practice. Despite the vari... more Dialogic education is a relatively new force in educational theory and practice. Despite the variety of approaches to dialogic education, it nonetheless offers a coherent theory of education with implications not only for how education should be practiced but also for the purposes of education. Dialogic education takes place through dialogue which means opening up dialogic spaces in which different perspectives can clash or play together and new learning can occur. But dialogic education is not only education through dialogue, it is also education for dialogue, meaning that as a result of dialogic education learners become better at learning together with others through dialogue. The intellectual background of dialogic education theory goes back at least as far as Socrates and includes thinkers as varied as Freire, who saw dialogic education as a means of liberation from oppression, and Oakeshott, who understood education to be a process of engaging learners in their cultural inheritance, described as “the conversation of mankind.” Bakhtin, an influential source for recent dialogic educational theory, argues that meaning requires the clash and interaction of multiple voices. There are a range of approaches to implementing dialogic education, varying in the extent to which they focus on teacher to student dialogue, small group dialogues, and whole class dialogues. All approaches include some idea of (1) a dialogic orientation toward the other, characterized by an openness to the possibility of learning, and (2) social norms that support productive dialogue. Published assessments of the impact of dialogic education in relation to general thinking skills, curriculum learning gains, and conceptual understanding have been positive. However, the assessment of dialogic education raises methodological issues, and new methodologies are being developed that align better with dialogic theory and with the idea of measuring increased dialogicity, or expanded “dialogic space.” Assuming that dialogic education works to promote educational goals, various hypotheses have been suggested as to how it works, including some that focus on the co-construction of new meaning through explicit language use, others that focus more on changes in the identity of students, and others on changes in the possibilities of engagement afforded by the culture of classrooms. There are many issues and controversies raised by dialogic education. One issue is the extent to which dialogue as a goal is compatible with a curriculum that pre-specifies certain learning outcomes. Another is the extent to which teaching a set of social norms and practices promoting dialogue might be a kind of cultural imperialism that fails to recognize and value the culture of the students. These and other challenges to dialogic education are part of a lively and constructive debate in the field, which values a multiplicity of voices within the broader context of convergence on the value of teaching through dialogue and teaching for dialogue.

Ict and Literacy

Constructive Dispute: Using dialogic education to reduce the threat of polarisation

This theoretical paper revisits the 'three types of talk' analysis widely used in dialogic educat... more This theoretical paper revisits the 'three types of talk' analysis widely used in dialogic education and argues that it needs to be adapted if it is to be useful in combating polarisation. In the current tradition of dialogic education, a type of interaction is encouraged that assumes that participants are open to learning from each other and to reconsidering their positions, often referred to as 'Exploratory Talk'. 'Disputational Talk,' on the other hand, which is characterised by resistance to learning from different perspectives, has been largely dismissed as educationally unproductive. We argue, using evidence from research, that dialogues between students lacking an initial willingness to learn from others can still offer educational benefits. We termed the new type of talk we propose 'Constructive Dispute'. To support our claim, we provide evidence that a carefully designed pedagogical approach can facilitate students' understanding of different perspectives, even when the participating students are not predisposed to question or revise their fundamental beliefs. This educational process promotes both knowledge acquisition and an attitudinal change. Students shift from outright dismissal of opposing views to recognising them as legitimate contributions to a continuing dialogue. We propose that a 'Constructive Dispute' pedagogy is particularly applicable to contentious subjects where strong identity commitments preclude the effectiveness of established dialogic teaching methods. This paper outlines strategies for implementing 'Constructive Dispute' in the classroom and underscores its importance in cultivating critical engagement with a plurality of viewpoints.

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Science, Talk and Ict

Introduction to the theory of dialogic education

Computers, talk and learning : using computers to help coach reasoning through talk across the curriculum

. Computers, talk and learning : using computers to help coach reasoning through talk across the ... more

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Designing Education to Promote Global Dialogue: Lessons from Generation Global—a Project of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Civitas educationis. Education, Politics, and Culture, Aug 24, 2017

This paper focuses on the issue of how to design pedagogy and technology in order to overcome the... more This paper focuses on the issue of how to design pedagogy and technology in order to overcome the much reported echo-chamber effect of the Internet and promote global dialogue. Some of the findings of a large scale evaluation of Generation Global—a project of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change—(previously called, ‘Face to Faith’) are presented in order to establish that this project is effective in promoting its aim of dialogic open mindedness. Some of the features of the programme are described and analysed, especially the latest version of the web-site which supports team-blogging for young people in schools around the world. We argue that this specific combination of technology and pedagogy offers one potential model for the induction of children globally into the effective use of the Internet where such an induction is understood as a necessary precondition for a potential future global democracy.

思维、技术与学习综述（上）

ARGUNAUT deliverable D6.2: Evaluation report on the pedagogical content of the Argunaut system - Preliminary findings

Dialogue and teaching thinking with technology: Opening, expanding and deepening the ‘inter-face’

... He echoes the infinity that Lévinas refers to when he claims that the meaning of ... A dialog... more

The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education

Routledge eBooks, Sep 26, 2019

Digital technologies, particularly networked technologies, are changing the way we communicate wi... more Digital technologies, particularly networked technologies, are changing the way we communicate with others and interact with information. Dialogic Theory helps us to understand the new ways in which students and teachers are making meaning with networked technologies, for instance by drawing our attention to the concept of 'dialogic space'. This chapter explores how discursive practices in classrooms are shaped by teachers and students within this dialogic space, by looking at the ways in which networked technologies impact on pedagogical link making in science lessons. We redefine and challenge existing theoretical ideas to construct an interpretative framework that helps us to understand how networked technologies reshape classroom discourse and the teaching learning process. Examples are taken from several research projects over a number of years in two different countries (UK and Catalonia), supporting the feasibility of using our framework in different contexts. Our results show that networked technologies empower students' voices in the educational dialogic space, blur the space and time limits of school and out of school learning, and move the focus of teaching practices towards a competence-based approach, to enable students to establish meaningful knowledge-building links in a wide, digital, dialogic network.

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Commentary on Section A

Routledge eBooks, Aug 3, 2023

Researching Online Dialogues: Introducing the ‘Chiasm’ Methodology

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Methodological Developments in Research on Educational Dialogue: Mapping the Field

Interview with Rupert Wegerif: education for meaning. : the role of theory and philosophy in educational science

Education into dialogue

Theory of Teaching Thinking: International Perspectives

Technology, Education and Enlightenment

Rupert Wegerif

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