Using dialogic diaries to develop student understanding and trainee practice

Nicola WalsheUniversity of Cambridge

Exploring and developing children’s understandings of sustainable development with dialogic diaries•The study

▫25 year 10 students undertaking Edexcel B GCSE

▫11-16 Village College in Cambridgeshire

•Methods▫Dialogic diaries▫Interviews

Exploring and developing children’s understandings of sustainable development with dialogic diaries

•Data analysis▫Analysis of dialogue (after Daniel et al.,

2005)

▫Analysis of general levels of understanding (using revision of Bloom)

▫Analysis of understandings of sustainability

Results

• The metacommunicative dimension

(developing the dialogue)

• The ideational dimension (developing

students’ understanding of the substantive

topic, sustainable development)

• The interpersonal dimension (developing

relationships within the classroom)

“It’s like a sort of a personal connection between the pupil and the teacher ... you can recap what's going on in the lesson and see things from different perspectives. Having that connection with a teacher ... actually gets me more involved with school in general.” Tyler

Issues

•Time▫For students to write the diaries?▫For me to respond?▫For the diary-writing process to continue?

•Writing▫Writing vs drawing▫Blogosphere?

•The ethics of ‘diary-writing’▫Ideological process (pupils need to be

convinced of teacher/researcher’s motives▫Political process (questions orthodox ‘teacher-

pupil’ roles)

Stage 1: Reflection after Faculty Session

Stage 2: Pair Blog Responses

Stage 3: School-based activity

Stage 4: Reflection on School-based activity

Stage 5: Pair Blog Responses

Working with trainees (1):Online Blogs on Sustainability

Reflection(s) before Faculty session

Greater number of school-based activities (at a range of scales)

Increased response by me

Working with trainees (2):Dialogic diaries as a research method for trainees

•PGCE trainee: used dialogic diaries to explore student learning for assignment.

•MEd student: using dialogic diaries to track Year 9 students' understanding of distant place (China).