Dialogical Classrooms

I will be spending the next week in an intensive course with Dr. Fecho, learning about how to teach in a dialogical classroom.  I've already seen so many connections to project-based learning and I'm excited to implement what I will learn and produce this week into my CDAT plans for next year. 

Some connections that I've picked up on:

Dialogical classrooms are about ...

...engagement:  “A dialogical classroom is one in which literacy is used to immerse teacher and students in an ongoing reflective conversation with the texts of their lives” (Fecho, 2010, p. 8)

...“internal and external open-endedness” (p. 9)

... students making meaning rather than receiving meaning or finding meaning. 

... spaces of tension, yet spaces of trust.

Dialogical classrooms needs to be generative sites for learning.

"All dialogue is based in context and that context represents elements of time as well as physical and psychic space. As Bakhtin (1986) wrote, “There can be no such thing as an isolated utterance. It always presupposes utterances that precede and follow it” (p. 136). Building on that idea of time connections, Bakhtin (1981) argued that understanding comes in response, that understanding and response are contingent upon each other. Utterance, response, and meaning—the building blocks of dialogue—are merged in a recursive, continual, and transactional process. There can be no meaning without response" (Fecho, 2010, p. 13).

*My take--> One thing that is scary about embracing dialogue, inquiry, and critical thinking is that the teacher has to transfer so much power to the students.  It takes a deep faith in the students’ abilities to think to trust that their dialogue will get them to where you want them to go.  And even now, I as wrote that sentence, I wasn’t able to relinquish the power over the end goal.  I mean, in a standards-based curriculum, certain end goals not be achieved, but I think the dialogical classroom opens itself up for a variety of end results that go beyond just curricular standards. I also think there is great freedom and excitement in letting go of an iron-fisted grip over students and letting them be players in the conversation.  I completely believe in students’ own power as learners; intellectually I agree with everything that Bob argues.  I want to be honest, though, and I found that teaching is almost Pavlovian and it can be uncomfortable to switch from being the authority of information to the facilitator of inquiry and dialogue. I want to continue to get more comfortable with that discomfort because I am so excited by the idea of my classroom as a “generative” space, “a space where meaning is limited only by the number of responders. Not a space of relativism where everything goes but, instead, a space of informed reflection, where ideas are suggested, examined, questioned, and constantly left in play” (p. 30).  

Context seems to be the pervading word throughout these chapters and the main takeaway for me is that “words are meaningless without context” (p. 9).  As ELA teachers, one of our main goals is to teach our students how to better communicate, and yet most traditional writing assignments strip students of any context and thus any real way to communicate. 

I’m also reassured by the discussion over faith in the process and standardized testing.  I realize that we have to relinquish power and trust the dialogical process, but the reality of teaching in 2011 is that you have to consider testing—but that shouldn’t be the driving force.  I think Bob’s point that “the task [of teaching students] is too vital and complex for another other approach” (p. 29).  Relying on anything less than engaged, contextual writing that allows for inquiry and critical thinking doesn’t really prepare students for life or standardized testing.