WP 6c & 6d: dialogic inquiry in science classrooms
Work packages 6c and 6d constitute two complementary parts of an overall product designed to encourage and support teachers in engaging students in dialogic inquiry in science classrooms.
The concept of 'dialogic inquiry' follows from research work into characterizing the talk of science classrooms and, in particular, making the distinction between authoritative talk, where the focus is on the scientific point of view, and dialogic talk where the classroom interactions are open to all points of view, with those of the students made prominent (see: Mortimer and Scott, 2003). The approach taken in these work packages is that in learning science, both authoritative and dialogic approaches are essential as teaching and learning progress, at times closing in on the accepted science point of view, at other times opening up for debate and discussion (see: Scott et al, 2006).
This is in contrast to much existing science teaching which follows a strictly transmissive, authoritative route, excluding the student's voice As such we see close links between this work on dialogic inquiry and inquiry-based science teaching and learning (IBSTAL), with the key common purpose of engaging students in real dialogue and thinking about science content and other scientific issues. Furthermore, we see this kind of engagement as being of fundamental importance in motivating students to take a personal interest, and to participate, in science. The team working on this theme of dialogic inquiry has been instrumental in developing the basic ideas involved in the field and as such is ideally placed to take a lead. For example: Scott and Ametller (2006) have recently completed a UK Research Council (ESRC) project on Dialogic Teaching; Enghag's (2007) dissertation about Student Ownership of Learning, addresses student empowerment and motivation and how student ideas as the driving force in classroom discourse challenge traditional teaching (see: Enghag and Niedderer, 2007) ; Sund's (2008) dissertation concerns socializing content for Education for Sustainable Development; Viiri and his colleagues have developed various dialogic teaching sequences, e.g. Savinainen et al. (2005), and they have experience in training student teachers in dialogic teaching approaches (Viiri & Saari, 2006).
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