What are some effective strategies to promote dialogic teaching across the curriculum?

In my experience as a college professor, I have had the most success when I model the behaviors that set up a good atmosphere for sharing ideas: - ask an open-ended question, in a friendly tone; - be open to the answers that come; - practice very obvious active listening, with my facial expression, posture, etc.; - reflect back student contributions in my own words to ensure understanding (and demonstrate good listening); - and reinforce good engagement. When I do these, the ground rules become obvious to the students. They get the "game" quickly, enjoy playing, and the exchange tends to flow.

From a young age, I believe children can be taught to actively listen, respond thoughtfully, and challenge an idea in a respectful manner. A quick partnered activity of an adapted version of ‘broken telephone’ allows one partner to pose an open-ended question to the other. Partner A shares their opinion which may be met with positive agreement or negation by Partner B. The challenge here is to teach the learner that a differing viewpoint is not a reflection of them personally, but that it is through diverse opinions that interesting conversations come to be. Not always an easy task when we as members of society seek validation through the agreement of peers. Nevertheless, this simple task is a fruitful lesson in dialogue learning.

An extremely efficient way to structure classes to promote dialogic teaching would be for each topic or subtopic to start with the theory, then move on to an example or practical application of the theory, and then do related prompts. In this way, if a class has many subtopics, execute this structure for each one of them: Subtopic 1: Theory -> Example -> Related Prompt Subtopic 2: Theory -> Example -> Related Prompt Subtopic 3: Theory -> Example -> Related Prompt This structure, besides promoting dialogic teaching, helps in a greater organization of content in the students' brains.

Getting students to engage with each other well is the holy grail! First, I make sure to set up a good collaborative classroom atmosphere. Then, I just need to draw students in. Some ways that have worked well for me: - after having a student talk for a while, turn to another and ask what they think–it's important to start with students who are comfortable talking, and are obviously listening, so I don't catch anyone off guard; - keep an eye out for other students' facial expressions–it's often obvious when someone agrees (or disagrees) with what's being said, so be ready to pull them in; - of course, sometimes students will try to get into the discussion by raising their hand, so just be ready to facilitate.