April 2012
Learning and Teaching Lunchtime forum
Why Dialogue Days?
 History at YSJU
 The student engagement literature
 Student engagement is concerned with the interaction between the
time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students
and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience
and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students
and the performance, and reputation of the institution. (HEFCE
2008 cited in Trowler 2010 )
 correlations between student involvement in a subset of
‘educationally purposive activities’, and positive outcomes of
student success and development, including satisfaction,
persistence, academic achievement and social engagement (Trowler
2010)
 Activity: Lets talk about Dialogue.
Dialogue and the literature
 Bohm (1996) “stream of meaning flowing among and through
us and between us” … and that this shared meaning is the
glue or cement that holds people and societies together”
 Shor and Freire (1987) “Dialogue is a moment where humans
meet and reflect on their reality as they make and remake it.
 Lyle (2008) suggests that Bahktin’s concepts of dialogical
meaning making allow the learner to play an active role in
developing a personally constructed understanding of the
curriculum through a process of dialogic interchange
 Relational aspects of feedback
Evaluating dialogue days
 What the students say
 David a 2nd year theatre student. “I felt relieved, had lots of
things burning up inside me that I just wanted to get off my
chest” “At the end of the day we are all here to mix and mingle
and make work together. Everyone is an adult and should be
treated in that way.”
 Siobhan 1st year physiotherapy “We have to meet a deadline
getting the work in to tutors at a certain time so its there is an
expectation of getting it back on time.” “It was good to be able to
say what you think. The students were on transmit and the staff
were on receive”
 Michael 3rd year Theatre “Too many people go to university get a
degree and not do anything with it and this showed if I do really
want something it can happen”.
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Themes, places, activities
 Where
 What
 How
 Activity: Explore assessment examples
Challenges?
 The main challenge so far has been engaging the
unengaged
 Getting some staff to “dialogue” and leave teacher
mode in the classroom
 Activity: What do you think the other challenges are
and how might you mitigate against them?
Designing your own dialogue day
 What would you do
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Activity
Decide on your theme and aims of the day
What do you hope to gain implicitly/explicitly
Okay so what are your activities?
How are you going to create the right atmosphere?
Where are you going to hold it
How are you going to convince the staff and the students
How are you going to close the loop
Closing the loop
 How are we going to tell the students the outcome
 Should we be involving the students in the process in
that the outcome is two way.
 How would you close the loop?
References
 Bohm D (1996)”On Dialogue”, Routledge Classics
 Sue Lyle (2008): Dialogic Teaching: Discussing Theoretical
Contexts and Reviewing Evidence from Classroom
Practice, Language and Education, 22:3, 222-240,
 Shor and Freire (1987) What is the dialogical method of
teaching, Jorunal of Education, vol169, no 3, p11
 Trowler V (2010)Student Engagement Literature review ,
Higher education Academy
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/studente
ngagement/StudentEngagementLiteratureReview.pdf