When is dialogic teaching appropriate?
One of the key challenges for subject teachers relates to knowing how to choose which type of teaching talk to instigate and its timing in a lesson. Dialogic teaching is not the solution for every situation. It is part of your repertoire. For instance dialogic teaching can lend itself to areas of learning mathematics where pupils have a naïve/common understanding of something which in mathematics is specific: (points of interest on graphs, the meaning of probability, what the equals sign means, place value in decimals) i.e. where you can set up discussion which challenges ideas and has to be logical in form and which helps creates concepts which are usable across a range of applications so that limitations can be tested.
It can also be used to help where discovery learning approaches are appropriate using ‘Cuisenaire’ rods to establish the relationship between length, area and volume.