How teachers learn

The book presents the results of an action research project which aimed to implement dialogic teaching at lower secondary schools and systematically researched subsequent changes. The monograph opens with two theoretical chapters. The first introduces the key concept of dialogic teaching as a mode of communication which organizes teaching with the aim of stimulating students’ thinking and deepening their understanding of taught content. The second chapter discusses how teachers can change their teaching within further professional development and with the help of video-recorded classes they have taught, their analyses, and their reflections. The focal point of the book is a research project with a professional development course for teachers which consisted of theoretical, experiential, and reflective parts. Therefore, three chapters discuss the course’s results which demonstrate the degree to which teachers were able to manifest changes in their teaching and how these changes were perceived by their students. Through a mosaic of seven case studies, we are shown how the teachers involved transitioned from classic teaching to dialogic teaching, how they dealt with their past habitual patterns of behavior and potential problems which impeded them from fully implementing dialogic teaching, and their ability to reflect on their own teaching. The book concludes with a synthesis, which mainly discusses how difficult it is to change one’s own behavior, especially if the change is very complex and deep.

Summary here.