6.1 Individual educator agency

The differences lie not just in the practices of educators, but in theoretical understandings and beliefs about learning, learners and teaching. Having said that, when considering these approaches on a continuum, there is no distinctive ‘line’ between them; there can be a blurring as practices are complex and can merge at the edges of different theories. It is however useful to try to unpick the differences to highlight what does distinguish one from another. The theoretical underpinnings are explained in the following paragraph (also see Chapter 2). The difference in practices are (amongst others) that, in constructivist approaches, it is usually the teacher who assigns the topic and or purpose of the discussion the learner does not choose what it is they work on; discussion is not necessarily related to authentic problems, issues or tasks and does not require praxis (integrating theory and practice), the learner is not viewed or heard as a contributor to knowledge creation/knowledge co-construction, and importantly, learners are not engaged in inquiry. Dialogic practices are underpinned by working with authentic problems, inquiry (encompassing dialogue), learner choice (degrees of learner choice could also be represented along a continuum) and knowledge creation / co-construction. The link between dialogue and inquiry is explained by Bound (2010):

Wells (cited in Audet, 2005, p.5) states that inquiry must be seen as an approach “in which the posing of real questions is positively encouraged whenever they occur and… all tentative answers are taken seriously.” When we inquire, we move across different ways of thinking, often experiencing the accompanying emotions and sense of body. Inquiry may range from posing questions and experimenting with possibilities to challenging long held assumptions. Inquiry, therefore, encounters difference and a sense of being comfortable with difference. (Bound, 2010, p.109)

Others argue that inquiry is the use of research practices where learners gather evidence, analyse and interrogate it in relation to theory as part of knowledge creation that is important. This understanding certainly adds to authenticity, as in the WPL&P course. However, as in the CSCL & KB course, despite learners not collecting their own data, authentic challenges and questions were at the heart of the inquiry process.

An important aspect of building pedagogical capability is through being prepared to take risks, to use trial and error to provide a basis for reflecting on what worked, what did not, and why. However, a sense of permission from self and from system to try out different techniques and approaches is required. Consequently, we have recognised that there are three main challenges to implementing dialogic teaching approaches, or aspects of this approach:

 The need for system change to support approaches such as dialogical teaching;

 Changes in the design of curriculum;

 Capability development of educators; and

 Individual educator agency in trialling approaches they have not used previously

These focus areas are derived from our inductive analysis of the data to extrapolate issues that need addressing and are also based on the discussions held with stakeholders in the Project Reference Group meeting. This meeting, held on the 10th July, 2018, at IAL, specifically addressed the question of how to support changes in beliefs and teaching and learning practices. Stakeholders attending the meeting (n=23) included participants from the five Universities, four polytechnics, including from an academy within one of the Polytechnics, ITE, IAL plus adjunct adult educators and three other CET providers.

6.1 Individual educator agency