Webinar: Dialogic Teaching Revisited – More important now than ever?

Back in 2001, Professor Robin Alexander of Cambridge University coined the term ‘dialogic teaching’ for his approach to enhancing children’s engagement and learning through high-quality classroom talk, which he then developed and refined by working with teachers in London, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. In 2014-17, its successful large-scale trial by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), in Birmingham, Bradford and Leeds, provided conclusive evidence that dialogic teachingThe effective use of talk for teaching and learning, involving ongoing talk between teachers and students significantly improves pupil learning outcomes across the curriculum. To date, it is one of only 17 out of the 190 EEF trials to have achieved such positive results.

Robin Alexander has now published A Dialogic Teaching Companion (Routledge 2020), which builds on this work, reviews the latest evidence about the vital relationship between talking, thinking, learning and teaching, and provides a revised and expanded version of his dialogic teaching framework.

In this webinar recording, Robin Alexander was joined by Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of the Chartered College, to discuss these issues and the added challenge of sustaining high-quality talk in the context of Covid-19, in a presentation entitled Dialogic Teaching Revisited – more important now than ever?

The webinar explores:

• Why, at this time, is high quality classroom talk so important for children and society?
• What are its essential ingredients?
• What’s new about the latest version of dialogic teaching?
• What does the Education Endowment Foundation evidence show?
• What is it about dialogic teaching that makes the difference?
• How might schools build dialogic teaching into their development planning?

About Professor Robin Alexander

Professor Robin Alexander’s long career began with teaching in schools. Since then he has held senior posts in universities in Britain and overseas, worked with thousands of trainee and serving teachers and school leaders, researched and published extensively on many aspects of education, advised several governments, directed national enquiries like the Cambridge Primary Review, and received international awards for his work.

Shared links, files and suggested reading:

From the event

• Download the audio transcript
• Download the presentation slides (PDF)
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• The Bercow report
• A systematic review of the impact of citizenship education on the provision of schooling
• Children, their World, their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review
• Oracy All-Party Parliamentary Group
• EEF’s evaluation of dialogic teaching and an article about it
• Article about dialogic teaching in the era of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’
• Robin Alexander’s website includes details of his latest work and publications

A Dialogic Teaching Companion (2020) – Professor Robin Alexander

• Publisher’s information – Routledge
• Order at 20% discount
• More on questions and questioning, including examples of different kinds of questions, and indeed more on the other key moves like extending, discussing and deliberation/argumentation (see Chapter 7)
• There are links to video examples and to transcripts of lesson extracts (see Appendix 2)
• CPD options, with practical suggestions for professional and school development (see Chapter 8)
• More about ‘ingredient X’, or what it is about dialogic teaching, in light of the research evidence, that makes a difference (see Chapter 6)

Articles from Impact on Dialogic Teaching:

• Using wordless texts to develop children’s cultural literacy learning
• Moving towards dialogic teaching

The Education Endowment Foundation Dialogic Teaching Project

• Article about the project

Oracy All-Party Parliamentary Group

• Robin Alexander’s written evidence
• Robin Alexander’s oral statement to the enquiry
• Robin Alexander’s supplementary written evidence, post Covid

Robin Alexander’s website

• Article about dialogic teaching in the era of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’
• https://robinalexander.org.uk

Interested in content on this theme?

• A Dialogic Teaching Companion – Robin Alexander
• Whose discourse? Dialogic pedagogy for a post-truth world
• A pedagogy of responsive attunement
• National Literacy Trust/APPG report on critical media literacy
• Blog: Surviving the infodemic – teaching students to read between the lines
• Arlene Holmes-Henderson – Education for citizenship: a new case for Classical rhetoric and oracy?
• Kat Howard – The Revival of Rhetoric … and why we must teach it
• Helping Students Think Critically about Internet Sources
• Questions in Time: Investigating the Structure and Dynamics of Unfolding Classroom Discourse
• The Big Think