Talk It out! Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment with Dialogues

Abstract

Getting all students involved in a class can be a difficult task. Getting students excited about reading, writing, and learning can be an even more difficult task. Fortunately, using dialogues is an easy strategy that any teacher can implement in any grade in any subject area to get students up, moving, and actively engaged in the learning process. Dialogues are essentially two-person plays or skits that students act out in pairs. Each dialogue focuses on a specific topic and introduces key vocabulary terms and concepts in a way that students can understand, using day-to-day conversational language. In addition, all students love using dialogues because they appeal to various interests. The “science-y” students love the content, the lit/drama students love the format, and the class comics love the humor! AND they can be personalized and modified to meet the needs of specific students and educational goals and can be used with other strategies such as exit slips, labs, content review, and more. In short, dialogues are an easy way to create an inclusive classroom where every student is engaged and successful.

Keywords:

• Student-centered learning
• inclusive classroom
• dialogues
• reading
• writing
• literacy
• engagement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank Dr. Donald Cronkite of Hope College for the introduction to dialogues. Dr. Cronkite’s enthusiasm and vast knowledge of biology and biology education were truly inspiring.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Levendusky

Anne Marie Levendusky ([email protected]) (ORCID: 0009-0004-0757-0951) spent 12 years as a secondary science educator and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Florida working towards a degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Science Education and a minor in Health and Spirituality. Her current research interests are focused on addressing the rising rates of attrition and burnout among educators, specifically approaching the issue by utilizing preventative measures, such as mindfulness, with pre-service teachers before they enter the classroom as full-time educators.

Gregory Bisbee

Greg Bisbee has been teaching high school science for over 35 years and has been using dialogues with his classes for most of that time. He is currently the Environmental Education coordinator and Director of Field Studies at University Lake School in Hartland, Wisconsin. Besides dialogues, his greatest focus is the use of native plants in landscaping school grounds as a way to educate students about native ecosystems and as a way to address the biodiversity crisis.