Dialogic Teaching Talking Science SCI 503 9:30 – 16:00 Corpus Christi, Preston Thursday, 11th July 2019

Overview: Introductions Break Lunch Session 1 Dialogic Teaching. What it IS and what it is NOT. Why should we consider it. The strategies Break Session 2 Practical examples. Questioning. Collaborative Learning Lunch Session 3 Using the National Curriculum to plan for opportunities to develop dialogic teaching

Introductions

Andy Pearson Secondary Science Consultant andrew.pearson@lancashire.gov.uk @LancsLandT

What is dialogic teaching? Session 1 What is dialogic teaching?

What it IS and what it is NOT It is …about how talk with a teacher can help students to develop their understanding of science and take a scientific perspective on the natural world.

What it IS and what it is NOT It is …engaging students in dialogue, teachers can explain ideas, clarify the point and purpose of activities, 'model' scientific ways of using language and help students grasp new, scientific ways of investigating and describing phenomena.

What it IS and what it is NOT It is …enabling teachers to elicit students' everyday, 'common sense' perspectives, engage with their developing ideas and help them overcome misunderstandings.

What it IS and what it is NOT It is …used to lead students on a meaningful intellectual journey through a series of activities and lessons, so that they become able to demonstrate new, scientific forms of understanding.

What it IS and what it is NOT It is …giving opportunities to contribute to classroom dialogue in more extended and varied ways than providing brief answers to teachers' 'closed' questions, students can explore the limits of their own understanding and practice new ways of using language as a tool for constructing knowledge.

What it IS and what it is NOT It is not…consisting of teachers' monologues and questions which elicit only brief responses from students.

Why…? “Psychological evidence, increasingly supported by neuroscience, demonstrates the intimate and necessary relationship between language and thought, and the power of spoken language to enable, support and enhance children’s cognitive development…”

Why…? “Classroom research testifies to the way that the recitation or IRE (initiation-response-evaluation) mode of teaching, which centres on closed questions, recall answers and minimal feedback and is the Anglo-American and possibly international default, remains strongly resistant to change, despite evidence that it is essentially wasteful of talk’s true cognitive and educational potential…”

Why…? “Although pupil talk must be our ultimate preoccupation because of its role in the development of thinking, learning and understanding, it is largely through the teacher’s talk that the pupil’s talk is encouraged, facilitated, mediated, probed and extended - or, in too many classrooms, inhibited.…”

Why…? “an effort to move beyond the essentially monologic and teacher-centred dominance of recitation/IRE and develop patterns of classroom interaction that open up the talk, and hence the thinking, of the pupil.…”

Why…? “ the need for every teacher to develop a broad repertoire of talk-based pedagogical skills and strategies and to draw on these to expand and refine the talk repertoires and capacities of their pupils. Acknowledging the uniqueness of classroom personalities and circumstances it gives the teacher the responsibility for deciding how the repertoire should be applied.”

What it should be… 1. Collective – the classroom is a site of joint learning and enquiry

What it should be… 2.Reciprocal – participants listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints

What it should be… 3. Supportive – participants feel able to express ideas freely, without risk of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers, and they help each other to reach common understandings

What it should be… 4. Cumulative – participants build on their own and each other’s contributions and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and understanding

What it should be… 5. Purposeful – classroom talk, though open and dialogic, is structured with specific learning goals in view.

Organising dialogic talk… • Whole class teaching (teacher–student) • Group work (teacher–student, teacher-led) • Group work (student–student, student-led) • One-to-one (teacher–student) • One-to-one (student–student pairs)

Categories of talk… • Narrate • Explain • Speculate • Imagine • Explore • Analyse • Evaluate • Question • Justify • Discuss • Argue

Conditions for talk… • Listen • Think about what they hear • Give others time to think • Respect alternative viewpoints

The essentials… • interactions which encourage students to think, and to think in different ways • questions which invite more than simple recall • answers which are justified, followed up and built upon rather than merely received • feedback which, as well as evaluating, leads thinking forward

The essentials… • contributions which are extended rather than fragmented or prematurely closed • exchanges which chain together into coherent and deepening lines of enquiry • discussion and argumentation which probe and challenge rather than unquestioningly accept

The essentials… • scaffolding which provides appropriate linguistic and/or conceptual tools to bridge the gap between present and intended understanding • professional mastery of subject matter which is of the depth necessary to liberate classroom talk from the safe and conventional • time, space, organisation and relationships which are so disposed and orchestrated as to make all this possible.

…to consider “What ultimately counts is the extent to which instruction requires students to think, not just report someone else’s thinking.”

…to consider “If an answer does not give rise to a new question from itself, it falls out of the dialogue. ”

Activity Think of staff in your science department. Who is the most effective in their use of questioning? What is it about their questioning technique that makes them so effective

Activity Think of staff in your science department. Who is the most effective in their use of cooperative learning (group work)? What is it about their use of group work that makes them so effective?

Break

Dialogic Teaching in Practice Session 2 Dialogic Teaching in Practice

Some examples… Concept cartoons…

Some examples… Pedagogy and Practice: Teaching and Learning in secondary science

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Questioning

Activity Think of some question stems that match these objectives… Knowledge  Comprehension  Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation

Cooperative Learning

Activity Can you think of other activities that would lead to structured dialogue between students?

Developing Dialogic Teaching Session 3 Developing Dialogic Teaching

Activity Density of an irregular shaped object Consider the ‘traditional’ methods of delivery and assessment Consider any dialogic teaching additions or alternatives

Activity Cognitive conflict – copper sulfate crystals Consider the ‘traditional’ methods of delivery and assessment Consider any dialogic teaching additions or alternatives

National Curriculum KS3 Certain aspects of the National Curriculum lend themselves to open dialogue Using the document, try and identify these areas in order to help develop dialogic teaching.

Supporting resources Etymology of science vocabulary – Science Terms Made Easy Helping Pupils with Exam Questions Today’s Talk - PowerPoint

Activity Implementing change Carefully consider how dialogic teaching might be rolled out in the department (EEF implementation guide)

That’s it for today. Any questions? Please remember to complete and hand in your evaluation forms. Have a restful holiday!