Dialogic Teaching and Learning

Dialogic learning and teaching refers to teachers and their pupils participating in an interactive discourse about the learning in order to extend pupil thinking and understanding. This is about much more than teachers imparting knowledge; rather it’s about the dialogue and questioning that both teachers and their pupils have a stake in. Dialogic teaching can go both ways; generally the teaching objectives are aimed at increasing the pupils’ understanding but through this type of discourse, sometimes it is the teacher who becomes the learner!

The COS-5 allowed numerous glimpses into the classroom to see the extent of the dialogic learning and teaching that took place. In the first part of the observation scales, both the Language and Numeracy sections broke teaching down into analysis and meaning-making activities, where dialogic teaching was likely to have taken place as opposed to basic skills activities, where it was much less likely to happen. The time the teacher and the child spent on basic skills and learning facts and the time they each spent on analysis and inference was also recorded. These gave a good indication of the proportion of time where dialogic teaching might have been used.

The second part of the COS-5 observation (the ‘classroom codes’) offered further insight into the use of dialogic teaching. As well as providing numerical ratings on a number of factors, researchers recorded in more detail their qualitative observations of the learning and teaching in the classroom including the ‘richness of instructional methods’, ‘classroom climate’, ‘use of instructional time’, ‘evaluative feedback’ and ‘teacher sensitivity’. All of the aforementioned provided evidence for dialogic learning and teaching.

The IEO provided further information about the use of dialogic learning and teaching. On the scoring sheets, researchers recorded both their numerical ratings and their qualitative observations of Maths ‘analysis’, ‘depth of knowledge and pupil understanding’ and ‘maths discourse and communication’. The Literacy IEO allowed researchers to give numerical ratings and record qualitative observations about ‘reading as meaning making’, ‘higher order thinking in writing’, ‘purposeful development of writing skills’ and ‘instructional conversations’. These were all areas where dialogic learning and teaching was likely to take place. Added to these, researchers provided field notes of the lesson and these proved to be rich in descriptive detail.

The overall amount of time spent on teaching and learning analysis, inference or planning was very little (scores were all low or very low) and only one of the differences between the groups was significant. Children in Group A spent significantly more time learning and performing analysis and using inference skills than children in good schools. (see Table 3.9a).

63 Table 3.9a Dialogic teaching and learning: comprehension and analysis activities overall*

Characteristics of Year 5 classrooms in schools with . . .

Group A: Excellent schools Group B: Good schools Group C: Poor schools Target child is learning/

performing analysis or inference

Low** Low** Low Teacher is teaching analysis,

inference or planning Low Low Very Low***

* _{Unless otherwise stated, differences in qualitative descriptions indicate significant differences} (p<.05) between groups.

** Difference is significant (p<.05)

*** Differences are not significant

When looking more deeply into the results for Literacy and Numeracy, once again, very few differences are found. There were no significant differences for any of the Literacy measures (‘comprehension’, reading as meaning making’, ‘higher-order thinking in writing’. For Numeracy, children in poor schools spent significantly less time than children in other year 5 classes on three of the four measures (‘use of maths analysis’, ‘depth of knowledge and understanding’ and ‘locus of maths authority’). This suggests that the way in which Maths is taught is particularly important.

Differences in communication were found between the three groups of Year 5 classrooms (see Table 3.9b). Children in excellent schools spent significantly more time in instructional conversations than their peers. In addition, these children, as well as children in good schools spent more time on Maths discourse and communication. Not surprisingly, communication, and the specific type of communication, is important for dialogic teaching and learning.

Table 3.9b Dialogic teaching and learning: communication* Characteristics of Year 5

classrooms in schools with . . .

Group A: Excellent schools Group B: Good schools Group C: Poor schools Instructional conversations in

Literacy Very High High** Medium**

Maths discourse and

communications High High Low

* _{Unless otherwise stated, differences in qualitative descriptions indicate significant differences} (p<.05) between groups.

** Difference is not significant.

A significant part of dialogic learning and teaching is concept development, problem solving and analysis and well over half of all lesson observations provided evidence of these. While some of these instances were brief, about three quarters of them involved sustained episodes of dialogic teaching. This indicated that while the principal component of lessons in these classrooms was not necessarily dialogic learning and teaching, this pedagogical strategy was frequently employed. We will compare this with the teaching in classrooms in less effective schools.

64 In preparing her pupils to work on some money problems (as an example of a real-life application of Maths), the School 5 teacher told the children not to worry about the answers. She explained she was more concerned with them being able to identify the operations and, by implication, the strategies required to solve the problems that she was about to give the children than calculating the correct answers. At one point in the lesson, she asked the children to write down the operations required to solve a problem and told the children they were not allowed to write down the answer. Some of the children found this very hard and the teacher reassured one child by saying “You look quite hesitant. Don’t worry about the answers; you are very good at Maths. Write down the operations only.” This teacher went beyond offering the children in her class the opportunity to focus on strategies rather than answers by insisting that they did not work out the answers. The children were encouraged to discuss their solutions with each other and there was a great deal of sharing of ideas and strategies between the children (S05, Numeracy IEO).

In S08, 5 of the 8 COS-5 observations were rated very highly on concept development/problem solving/analysis/inference dialogic learning and teaching. The researcher commented that the children were “not stifled” (COS-5, cycle 4, p. 5) implying that children felt free to ask questions, request feedback and to discuss their work with each other and with the teacher. In this particular lesson, although the children were working on basic maths skills (number bonds to 100), the teacher encouraged them to work in small groups and discuss their work and their strategies with each other. The researcher noted that the teacher encouraged two boys with SEN to participate in the whole class activity and used questioning and humour to keep the entire class engaged in the lesson.

The S08 teacher also spent a great deal of time during both the Numeracy and Literacy IEO observations questioning the children in her class. During the Numeracy data handling lesson, she frequently asked the children to explain concepts (What is the mode? Explain what the data mean. How will we deal with all these data?) and then used their answers to further clarify their meaning (School 8, Numeracy IEO). During the Literacy lesson about a poem, she stopped often to question pupils about the inferences that could be drawn from the poem and whether or not they could justify their interpretation of one of the characters in the poem from what was actually written.

What does effective dialogic teaching and learning look like in Year 5 classrooms?

In preparing her pupils to work on some money problems (as an example of a real-life application of Maths), one teacher told the children not to worry about the answers. She explained she was more concerned with them being able to identify the operations and, by implication, the strategies required to solve the problems than she was about the children calculating the correct answers. At one point in the lesson, she asked the children to write down the operations required to solve a problem and told the children they were not allowed to write down the answer. Some of the children found this very hard and the teacher reassured one child by saying “You look quite hesitant. Don’t worry about the answers; you are very good at Maths. Write down the operations only.” This teacher went beyond offering the children in her class the opportunity to focus on strategies rather than answers by insisting that they did not work out the answers. The children were encouraged to discuss their solutions and there was a great deal of sharing of ideas and strategies.

65 Key findings on dialogic teaching and learning:

1. Children in excellent schools spent much more time learning and carrying out analysis than their peers in good and poor schools.

2. There was a clear distinction in the approach to maths between poor schools and the approaches observed in excellent and good schools. In excellent schools teachers encouraged discussion, analysis and depth of understanding of mathematical concepts and shared the responsibility for learning with the children.

3. In literacy, teachers in excellent schools supported and promoted discussion for deeper understanding whereas this strategy was rarely seen being used by teachers in poor schools.

Year 5 teachers in excellent schools excel at:

• Providing opportunities for children to learn and practise analysis. • Encouraging discussion, analysis and depth of understanding in Maths • Sharing the locus of Maths authority with their pupils

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