Developing dialogic stance through professional development workshops

In this paper we explore the impact of a series of workshops on higher education teachers’ understanding and awareness of a dialogic teaching approach to support critical thinking development in an online environment. Critical thinking is a key aim of higher education learning and a dialogic teaching approach can optimise opportunities for students to engage in debate and articulate their thinking. A study carried out using a qualitative approach with data collected from a total of nine teachers across three focus groups at the end of the workshop programme revealed that teachers had developed a greater awareness of the value of dialogic teaching principles. However, due to the rapid move to remote online teaching, teachers’ conceptualisations of dialogue and thus their dialogic stance was limited. We conclude with a number of recommendations for developing teachers’ dialogic stance and implementation of dialogic teaching principles in both face-to-face and online environments.