task, environment/setting, and learners’ active participation enable authenticity, and teaching and learning as a social phenomenon. Authentic design of learning and assessment encompasses, the dialogic nature of knowledge, the wholeness of real work and the dynamic interactions of real work environments. This complexity provides adequate challenge for inquiry and the dialogical co-construction of meaning. In order to prepare or further develop learners for the complexities of work, authentic problems, issues and tasks need to be brought into classroom spaces and where possible for real work environments to be used. Authentic design can be understood as a spectrum from learning in real work settings at one end of the spectrum to bringing the complexities of work into classroom or tech enabled settings at the other end of the spectrum.
2.2. The dialogical construction of meaning, and inquiry The dialogical construction of meaning involves the whole person in contexts in which they are learning and / or working. The complexity of the workplace referred to in the previous section, is inclusive of the situated socio-material context - artefacts, dominant ways of thinking and being in that setting, and the social relations of the setting. Meaning is also mediated by social, economic, political and environmental contexts, as they permeate everyday language, activity and actions. Therefore, processes of meta-thinking, inquiry and reflection are needed by the workforce to not only make sense of their specific setting of work, but of what mediates the practices, judgements and decision-making in a particular setting. Meta-thinking, inquiry and reflection require dialogue suggesting a need to actively structure it into the curriculum, including assessment, which could for example, be the end product or outcome of an inquiry process. In the following section, the authors consider what the literature contributes to our understanding of dialogue and inquiry in the construction of meaning.
2.2.1. Dialogue The purpose of a focus on dialogue is more than simply moving away from an approach where the educator positions themselves as the ‘expert’, the authoritative voice, the one to whom learners look to and look at as they transmit knowledge for learners to acquire. Rather, dialogue about authentic issues is a critical means of preparing for, encouraging, facilitating, and extending learners’ capacity and capability for interpretation, critique and rigor, and thus contributing to their journey towards being knowledgeable, professional practitioners. For Bakhtin, the expression and creation of meaning in dialogue is never complete, never closed and always oriented toward the future. In educational settings (be it educational institution, work or community settings) an important purpose of participants being involved in dialogue is that the process contributes to knowledge building and deep understanding. Participants’ journey towards deep understanding manifests itself in further action, for example, how they deal with a new challenge in their social world or in the extension or modification of ideas (Wells, 2002). In addressing the key curriculum design question of what an educator wants their learners to be and become, an essential tool is dialogue. Stack (2007) suggests that good dialogue requires bringing a “state of being” to the process of dialogue and inquiry which she defines as “a state of tentativeness, a state of willingness to look deeply, to be open to surprise, to nurture those who are tentative (p.328).” ‘Good’ dialogue also involves an engagement in “insight making” (p.330). Stack (2012) describes aspects of ‘good’ dialogue as:
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