Avoiding Dialogues of Non-discovery through Promoting Dialogues of Discovery
Main Article Content
Abstract
International students and direct entrants—those entering a higher year of a degree—often come from socio-economic or cultural backgrounds different from traditional students, and have different educational backgrounds. It is assumed such students need help with unfamiliar assessment tasks such as essays, reports, and so on, and many sources aim to help with these elements. Further assumptions are that dialogue helps, and that the words used in such dialogue will be understood similarly. Yet, if the assumed meanings of the words actually differ, then such dialogue is based on a false assumption; rather than genuine dialogue, what actually occurs is an exchange of monologic utterances. This article is a structured narrative of our ongoing research into how key assessment task words such as ‘discuss,’ ‘analyse,’ and ‘critically evaluate’ are understood differently in higher education. We describe how such differences are perpetuated through Martin Buber’s (1947) ideas of monologic utterances, and what we call ‘dialogues of non-discovery’. Here we detail a research-based approach to promote genuine and technical dialogue: what we call ‘dialogues of discovery.’ We first introduce a dialogue that led to the genesis of the study and theoretical context of our dialogues with the literature. We then detail our methods of data collection in a section of ‘dialogues of exploration’. We present our findings in the form of categorizations of the different elements underpinning people’s understandings of ‘the word.’ Our own categorizations of these elements encourage dialogue around the elements of language, culture, stakeholder, subject, weight, and development over time. This is an approach we term an ‘anti-glossary approach’ in that it is opposite to, and against, ‘fixing’ or ‘ossifying’ the language in a glossary. In the Bakhtinian tradition of ‘incompletedness,’ we conclude by encouraging readers to take and adapt our findings as an ‘anti-glossary’ approach to engage in genuine and technical dialogue with their students. In this way, we believe the quality and depth of student work can improve.
Article Details
How to Cite
Richards, K., & Pilcher, N. (2015). Avoiding Dialogues of Non-discovery through Promoting Dialogues of Discovery. Dialogic Pedagogy: A Journal for Studies of Dialogic Education, 3. https://doi.org/10.5195/dpj.2015.101
Issue
Section
Articles
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.