6. Conclusion and Recommendations

In this Chapter we address the issue of how to support the uptake of dialogical teaching, not just within institutions of higher learning (IHLs) in Singapore, but also in the Training and Adult Education (TAE) sector. In addressing this question, we also add to discussion in previous chapters that address the final research question of, “What are the implications of the dialogical approach for the practices of adult educators?”

Recommendations are made from the understanding that dialogic teaching is one of a range of approaches that move away from monologic teaching. Key principles of dialogic teaching (and thus design of learning) are that:

 learners work with authentic problems / issues / tasks;

 assessment is based on authentic problems / issues / tasks;

 learners choose the authentic problems / issues / tasks they work on;

 learners engage in appropriate forms of inquiry (what the inquiry process involves varies from discipline to discipline and across vocations and professions);

 learners voice is valued as a source of knowledge building; and

 the role of the educator is to diagnose learners’ readiness for this form of learning, provide appropriate scaffolding, gradually handing over responsibility for learning and to move more into a provider of resources and guide.

Not surprisingly, there is often confusion about language used to describe various theoretical constructs and how it relates to particular approaches. This contributes to a common phenomenon in education, that of fads, such as flipped classrooms. Fads are often promulgated and implemented without there being a deep understanding such as discussed in the previous chapter of why or why not they may be useful approaches in particular circumstances. That is, the theoretical understanding (and with it the language of the ideas and concepts behind particular approaches) is missing. For this reason, Figure 6.1 sets out various examples of pedagogical strategies along a continuum from monologic teaching to dialogic teaching. It is worth noting here that the authors subsume learning design into teaching, so that ‘teaching assumes both the intended, enacted and also the experienced curriculum. Most practitioners move along the continuum to varying degrees, rarely being at one end or the other. The exception would be those who constantly lecture or read from scripts and are clearly at the extreme of the acquisition end of the continuum. Whatever the specific pedagogical practices of a practitioner, each practitioner will tend to have a set of beliefs and practices that places them more towards one end than the other.