Learning to facilitate dialogue: on challenges and teachers’ assessments of their own performance

ABSTRACT

Research has indicated that dialogic approaches have desirable effects in education, but it is also well-known that it can be a challenge for teachers to make the transition from the traditional teacher role to that of the facilitator. Based on a case study, this article investigates the successes and shortcomings of 29 teachers learning to facilitate classroom dialogue in teacher development programmes. The article analyses the trainees’ written self-evaluations and the supervisors’ feedback to examine the extent and nature of the challenges encountered as well as the teachers’ self-perceptions compared to the perceptions of the trained supervisors. The main findings were that the teachers encountered many challenges, especially when it came to adopting the role of a facilitator and supporting the students’ reasoning and interaction. In addition, their own assessments of their performances were generally unreliable. Nonetheless, with supervised training, the teachers were successful in learning to facilitate philosophical dialogues.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogic pedagogy
• facilitation
• teacher development programme
• philosophy with children

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available and have not been translated into English. However, they are available from the author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This article uses the term “dialogic pedagogy” as a shorthand for a group of related approaches, such as dialogic pedagogy, dialogic teaching, and accountable talk. These approaches have different theoretical origins and are not completely interchangeable, but they are sufficiently alike (for a similar view, see Resnick, Asterhan, and Clarke 2015, 3).

2. This article uses the term “Philosophy with Children” as a shorthand for these kinds of activities despite the variations and differences among them.

3. Wilkinson et al. (2017) referred to the intervention as “inquiry dialogue” rather than “philosophical dialogue,” but the findings are included here because the literature references and the description of the educational environment show that the dialogue style and training are informed by the Philosophy with Children approach.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Schaffalitzky

Caroline Schaffalitzky is associate professor of philosophy at University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include methodological and theoretical discussions in education, dialogic pedagogy and philosophy with children.