Audience and Context
The following talk will be presented to a group of educational administrators and decision makers at the DC Public Schools Central Office. This group includes the Chancellor of DC Public Schools, Chiefs of Instructional Practice and Teaching and Learning, and the Deputy Chiefs of those branches. This talk will be presented to an intentionally small audience during a round table Professional Development meeting to foster dialogic exchange between participants. This group is concerned with preparing students to graduate high school, college and career ready, with a specific knowledge and outlined set of skills. They are concerned with measuring student achievement and the logics of managing student data. They are singularly …show more content…
Alexander (2008), conducted an investigation of learning interaction in primary classrooms across five countries, England, France, India, Russia and the United States. He identifies the types of learning interactions he observed as rote, recitation, instruction, exposition and dialogue. He defines these interactions as follows; rote, the drilling of facts, ideas and routines through constant repetition; recitation, the accumulation of knowledge and understanding through questions designed to test or stimulate recall of what has been previously encountered; instruction and exposition, telling students what to do or imparting information; and dialogue, achieving common understanding through structured, cumulative questioning and discussion that guide and encourage thinking. He explains that dialogue or dialogic teaching uniquely promotes thinking and supports learning. Alexander describes this dialogic teaching as collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful. He further explains these terms: collective, teachers and children address learning tasks together; reciprocal, students and teachers listen to each other and consider alternative viewpoints; supportive, children help each other to reach common understandings; cumulative, teachers and children build on their own and each other’s thinking; and purposeful, teachers plan and facilitate dialogue with learning goals in mind. Through this description, Alexander argues …show more content…
Meloth and Deering (1999) describe the critical role of the educator in promoting classroom dialogue. They explain that unless students are “helped to dialogue together, they only infrequently give rich and detailed help to each other or engage in cognitively sophisticated talk” (p. 235). They argue that students must be taught the skills to “dialogue together” if they are to learn to use these skills to enrich their discourse and enhance their learning (p. 235). Therefore, the teacher acts as a model for engaging in dialogue with others. Alexander (2008) characterizes the role of the teacher in dialogic teaching as “weaving contributions into a coherent whole, leading children to find meaning and helping them think of further questions” (p. 37). As such, the teacher acts as a guide for engaging in dialogue with others. Teachers will require training, support and time for collaboration and reflection in order to effectively implement a dialogic curriculum. Prioritizing a dialogic curriculum alongside current Common Core State Standards will be challenging and is in the best interest of our
The following talk will be presented to a group of educational administrators and decision makers at the DC Public Schools Central Office. This group includes the Chancellor of DC Public Schools, Chiefs of Instructional Practice and Teaching and Learning, and the Deputy Chiefs of those branches. This talk will be presented to an intentionally small audience during a round table Professional Development meeting to foster dialogic exchange between participants. This group is concerned with preparing students to graduate high school, college and career ready, with a specific knowledge and outlined set of skills. They are concerned with measuring student achievement and the logics of managing student data. They are singularly …show more content…
Alexander (2008), conducted an investigation of learning interaction in primary classrooms across five countries, England, France, India, Russia and the United States. He identifies the types of learning interactions he observed as rote, recitation, instruction, exposition and dialogue. He defines these interactions as follows; rote, the drilling of facts, ideas and routines through constant repetition; recitation, the accumulation of knowledge and understanding through questions designed to test or stimulate recall of what has been previously encountered; instruction and exposition, telling students what to do or imparting information; and dialogue, achieving common understanding through structured, cumulative questioning and discussion that guide and encourage thinking. He explains that dialogue or dialogic teaching uniquely promotes thinking and supports learning. Alexander describes this dialogic teaching as collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative and purposeful. He further explains these terms: collective, teachers and children address learning tasks together; reciprocal, students and teachers listen to each other and consider alternative viewpoints; supportive, children help each other to reach common understandings; cumulative, teachers and children build on their own and each other’s thinking; and purposeful, teachers plan and facilitate dialogue with learning goals in mind. Through this description, Alexander argues …show more content…
Meloth and Deering (1999) describe the critical role of the educator in promoting classroom dialogue. They explain that unless students are “helped to dialogue together, they only infrequently give rich and detailed help to each other or engage in cognitively sophisticated talk” (p. 235). They argue that students must be taught the skills to “dialogue together” if they are to learn to use these skills to enrich their discourse and enhance their learning (p. 235). Therefore, the teacher acts as a model for engaging in dialogue with others. Alexander (2008) characterizes the role of the teacher in dialogic teaching as “weaving contributions into a coherent whole, leading children to find meaning and helping them think of further questions” (p. 37). As such, the teacher acts as a guide for engaging in dialogue with others. Teachers will require training, support and time for collaboration and reflection in order to effectively implement a dialogic curriculum. Prioritizing a dialogic curriculum alongside current Common Core State Standards will be challenging and is in the best interest of our