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Dialogic interactions in the cooperative classroom
ARTICLE

International Journal of Educational Research Volume 76, Number 1, ISSN 0883-0355 Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

Abstract

Attention in recent years has turned to the key role talk plays in mediating students’ learning when they work cooperatively together. There is no doubt that talk, albeit by the teacher or peers, has the capacity to stimulate and extend students’ thinking and advance their learning. Teachers do this when they encourage students to engage in reciprocal dialogues where they exchange information, explore issues, interrogate ideas, and tackle problems in a cooperative environment that is supportive of these discussions. In turn, students learn to listen to what others have to say, consider alternative perspectives, and engage critically and constructively with each other's ideas by learning how to reason and justify their assertions as they cooperate together. This study involved three Year 7 teachers and 17 groups of students (3–5 students per group) from their classes. The teachers had agreed to teach two units of cooperative, inquiry-based science across two school terms. All three teachers had been trained to use a dialogic approach to teaching designed to challenge children's thinking and learning. This paper presents examples of both teachers’ and students’ dialogic interactions and discusses the complementarity of these discourses even though the teachers used slightly different dialogic approaches in interacting with their students.

Citation

Gillies, R.M. (2016). Dialogic interactions in the cooperative classroom. International Journal of Educational Research, 76(1), 178-189. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from .

This record was imported from International Journal of Educational Research on March 1, 2019. International Journal of Educational Research is a publication of Elsevier.

Full text is availabe on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.02.009

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